Wikipedia talk:Notability (schools)/Archive 7

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Contents

Reference

Notable Afds

Diverse

Discussion

  • I think we should begin by identifying the reasons hindering a consensus. --05:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I have tried to give some reasons, above. TerriersFan (talk) 11:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I attach the first cut of proposed guidelines, below, recently discussed by some editors. TerriersFan (talk) 11:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Previous discussion

  • Wikipedia talk:Schools Looks like it was here. DGG, you look like you worked on it? What happened? Was there opposition to this existing? • Lawrence Cohen 07:00, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It was essentially the same as this one with respect to high schools, and deferred the discussion of other schools. It came very near consensus. DGG (talk) 09:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposed guidelines for notability

The following are considered inherently notable:

Schools not falling into one of the above categories will not be notable unless notability can be demonstrated by sufficient reliable secondary sources that meet WP:N. Such schools should normally be merged into the school district or locality as an editorial action without need for an AfD.

Note: In all cases these guidelines assume that there is some encyclopaedic content; directory-only entries (only name, address, school type) will be subject to deletion under WP:CSD#A1.

  • The problem with this criteria is that the awards are themselves not without issues. Does receiving once make the school notable? Why does a school that meets certain arbitrary criteria become notable? Vegaswikian (talk) 18:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Organising the debate

To structure things a bit I propose:

  • This page is moved to Wikipedia:School
  • A Background section (that I am happy to draft for comment) synthesised from the Statements above together with Proposed guidelines for notability remain on this page.
  • The other sections are moved to the talk page. TerriersFan (talk) 22:31, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Sections are made for both elementary schools and high schools. It seems that in general, most high schools are notable, while most elementary schools are definitely not. Reywas92Talk 22:44, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
That's fine; the proposed guidelines do distinguish between the two but these can easily be organised into sections. TerriersFan (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I propose that the word "notability" be avoided like the plague. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Why? - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:17, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Because the encultured wikipedia-specific meaning of “notability” is different to the common use meaning, and there is no hope of bring the two together; The aim of efforts here, I assume, is to help new editors, new editors who don’t appreciate the complexity of wikipedia-notability.
    • Because wikipedia-notability is a boolean concept that results in “delete the article” or “don’t delete the article”, and generally offers nothing helpful to improving an article.
    • What I think is being done here, if done under the name of notability, will be interpreted as a contradiction to WP:N and will be opposed. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 23:21, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Endorse TerriersFan's proposal. Minor objection: In the United States, "elementary schools" generally is not considered to cover middle schools (usually Grades 5-8) and junior high schools (usually Grades 7-9). The phrasing "primary schools" covers all schools that serve students in the pre-secondary-school level, so I suggest we use that and avoid potential confusion. I sympathize with SmokeyJoe's points, but disagree: Using the term "Notability" is necessary, articles are often improved when notability is the issue in deletion discussions and any additional notability policy is necessarily a "contradiction" to the main notability policy, which is not a bug but a feature. Noroton (talk) 23:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Option 1: Proposed guidelines for notability

The following are considered inherently notable:

  1. School districts (US/Canada); Local Education Authorities (UK); regional schools' management bodies (other jurisdictions).
  2. High schools/secondary schools (all jurisdictions).
  3. Blue Ribbon schools (US); Beacon schools, Training schools, schools with a Grade 1 (outstanding) Ofsted overall assessment (UK); highest official assessment (other jurisdictions).

Schools not falling into one of the above categories will not be notable unless notability can be demonstrated by sufficient reliable secondary sources that meet WP:N. Such schools should normally be merged into the school district or locality as an editorial action without need for an AfD.

Note: In all cases these guidelines assume that there is some encyclopaedic content; directory-only entries (only name, address, school type) will be subject to deletion under WP:CSD#A1.

  • I agree with 1. I disagree with 2 and 3.

For 2: while most high schools probably are notable, there is no a priori reason why this should be so. I would support the inclusion of a line discouraging the (nomintaion for) deletion of high school articles, but in the end, they would still have to prove their notability (per WP:NOTE) to be kept if someone feels the need to challenge them anyway. For 3: no way. There are way too many schools that get these "awards" anyway, and it is not our place to include the "good" ones and dismiss the "bad" ones, just like we don't include only 5 star hotels. Being good is completely different from being notable. Being discussed in the media because you are good is of course a perfect way to meet WP:NOTE, but the official rankings and inspection reports are not a notability guideline element. Fram (talk) 21:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, very few schools get these awards. Less than 5% of US schools have Blue Ribbon awards and the numbers are similar for the UK awards. Official awards are taken as a notability indicator in all articles and certainly, to use your example, would be relevant to hotels. TerriersFan (talk) 02:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
But given the sheer number of schools getting these awards, they are not very selective. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I think the reason for allowing Blue Ribbon and similar schools is that these schools can be assumed to have sufficient sources, so being selective is irrelevant. There should be some news article or even a document from the awarding authority in existence if a school has won a Blue Ribbon award. We just might not be able to find it if that source isn't online and we don't have access to the local newspaper. Noroton (talk) 04:13, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
You know the old argument... WP is about verifiability, not truth. We shouldn't have to assume. Besides, I think the argument people here make is that absent significant coverage in secondary sources, a blue ribbon award itself does not justify a school article- rather, it justifies a list of schools that have received such awards. Epthorn (talk) 06:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • #2 is what gets me. A main reason that a notability guideline needs to be established is to avoid those blanket guidelines, and saying "all secondary schools are notable" is a problem, as many, including myself, do not agree with that, which is actually why I first created this discussion at the village pump. Rjd0060 (talk) 02:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The reason for inherent notability for high schools is well discussed above. Sufficient sources are always findable and they are never deleted in any case, so it is logical, and saves resources all round to make them notable. There are many other examples of this pragmatic approach as exemplified, also above. TerriersFan (talk) 02:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Are you saying that High schools are never deleted? If so, that is not true, but I guess I'm just a bit confused by your explanation. - Rjd0060 (talk) 04:57, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

While I disagree with the concept of "inherent notability" of anything, it is a simple fact that there are some categories of things for which everything in that category can be substantially sourced. However, while that is true of school districts in countries like the US and Canada, that may not be true of school management bodies in other countries. Each should be evaluated on its own merits, but chances are that the vast majority of school districts (or their equivalents) have substantial independent reliable sourcing about them. High schools, again, likely most of them do pass the sourcing requirements, but they shouldn't be exempt from it if they do not. "Blue Ribbon" or the like, absolutely not, if it really confers such notability than finding sufficient sourcing is possible anyway. If these things really confer notability, then proper sourcing can be found for each and every one of the things in this category. And if proper sourcing cannot be found for every last member of the category, well then, some of the category members are non-notable! "Inherent notability" is something that's there or not, it cannot be granted or denied. All the chemical elements and US Presidents are notable, not because that was decided at a policy page somewhere, but because sourcing far beyond the minimum exists on even the most obscure member of those categories. If everything in a category is really inherently notable, you don't need to say so or get anyone's agreement—just find the sources that verify that. Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:39, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The issues (as I understand them) are that WP:N's threshold for significant coverage is (deliberately) subjective. So we can say "Forget this inherent notability nonsense, we need to evaluate these on a case-by-case basis," but that results in the same argument being had over and over again (since most secondary schools have approximately the same amount of coverage, this argument manifests itself as an argument over whether this relatively constant coverage is "significant". It saves a lot of time to enact into policy that this baseline level of coverage either is or isn't significant. So, I beg your pardon, part of the reason that all elements are notable is that it was decided that the minimum level of coverage had by any element is significant; the Wikipedia policy decision of the application of WP:N resulted in a policy decision that made elements notable. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 09:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I do not agree with the proposal that all high schools/secondary schools in all jurisidictions (which presumably means in all countries of the world) should have an automatic entitlement to an article. I agree that it is the availability of sources which should be the determining factor. Sources are generally available for secondary schools in English-speaking countries. I would very much like to see more articles on schools in non-English-speaking countries but the problem is that the sources to write such articles simply do not exist in the English language and these schools often get deleted. It is impossible to write such an article if you can't understand Chinese, Japanese, Spanish or whatever the language in question is. There are probably just as many secondary schools/high schools in China as there are in the US. Do we really want to encourage the creation of thousands and thousands of meaningless stubs? I also wonder if the age of the school should be considered. Ample sources will surely exist to write an article on any school over 100 years old. Dahliarose (talk) 09:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that there is any evidence that thousands and thousands of stubs will be written, and if they are meaningless then they will be speedied. TerriersFan (talk) 16:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Have a look at albums. Some type of "inherent notability" was proposed for those, and now there are thousands upon thousands of garbage articles on albums, many consisting of nothing more than a track list and a nonfree image, and it's impossible to merge the damn thing back into the parent article despite the fact that the album itself has no sourcing whatsoever regarding it. Let's not have the same thing with schools—they can always be at Somewhere School District#Schools administered by the district with an anchored redirect until there's enough well-sourced material there to justify a separate article. And if there never is enough, well, that's fine too! Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I support #1, since otherwise content will have nowhere to go, and that's in no one's interests. If there was a non-notable school district (I can't recall seeing one nominated on AfD) then it would still fulfill that pragmatic purpose, so no problem -- we can break the rules as needed, and clear guidelines are good. I'm concerned about #3 since it means that eventually, just about any school will be considered notable (even when they're not). I would like to support something like this, because clear guidelines are good and some compromise is needed. I resolutely oppose #2. CRGreathouse (t | c) 20:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I would specifically like to disagree with #3. The Blue Ribbon Schools awards should not convey automatic notability. Yes, some Blue Ribbon School awards may generate news coverage in independent sources which in turn would establish notability for those schools, but just winning the award should not be enough. It is not as prominent an award as might be implied from this discussion. By the same token, similar awards in other countries should not convey notability for those schools either. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Regarding #3, what about scores on standardized testing (e.g. Alberta Diploma Testing and IB scores)? What about independant ratings or accreditations? Membership to some exclusive organizations prove (maybe not notability but) prestige. In conclusion, high standardized testing scores, some accreditations or any other independant ratings should be included for inherent school notability. Billscottbob (talk) 00:11, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am opposed to any 'inherent' notability for any subject. That said, #1 is pretty safe, I believe, for "generally notable"; I think we would be hard pressed to find a school district not covered in secondary sources. That's not to say that a district should have an article if every attempt to find such sources fail. # 2 is a complete non-starter for me, as per my reason above. # 3 is also not a good choice in my view because these awards, if they are so important, should garner a list of schools that win them; a school article should only be justified by coverage of it in secondary sources, and I don't feel that awards like these meet that criteria minus additional secondary coverage. There are high schools out there that are very well written and establish notability to a 't'- hell, there's probably even primary schools (I haven't come across one yet in my view). Thousands of schools that win a award should not be considered notable just for that award, however. Epthorn (talk) 06:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
  • 'Quite the opposite. I think we should establish presumptions of notability (and lack of notability) for as many subjects as possible, allowing for the possibility of exceptions. This will have the advantage of removing half the work of AfD, and letting us concentrate of resolving the truly disputable issues, and of improving articles. What's the point of going case by case when cases of the same act nature often do not agree? Does anyone think AfD actually give consistent decisions? Foes anyone think the accuracy is more that say 80% or so for disputed articles, except for the really obvious ones that should never have gotten them in either direction? So if we are going through an elaborate process, and getting 10 to 20% of them wrong , why not avoid the process altogether, and accept that a few non-notable high schools will be kept in, and a few notable lower schools will be kept out. that happens anyway. It might as well happen without all the fuss. WP does not exist to provide the opportunity for arguing over articles. We should keep everything posible out of the arguable category, and separate the N from the ~N on the simplest basis available. DGG (talk) 09:40, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm leaning towards opposing all three personally. I wouldn't mind secondary schools being inherently notable, but I don't have a valid as to why they should be, so it's better if it doesn't exist. I don't know enough about the #3 situation to comment. As for #1, absolutely not. Wizardman 19:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Option 2: Proposed simple draft, Wikipedia:School/November 2007

I just whacked this up: Wikipedia:School/November 2007. I copied and built this just now from Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies). A nice and simple proposal. I've read the older ones, and they were pointlessly long and complex. Are there multiple notable sources? Yes/no? If yes, done. If no, does it qualify for a couple of these other things? Yes/no? If yes, done. If no, redirect it to the district article until its ready to grow. It will be almost impossible for at the least a high school to not qualify for at least one of these two, unless it has a population of two and exists in an illiterate community with no media. • Lawrence Cohen 18:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Although I marginally prefer the first proposal for its simplicity, I could live with this. It's a little bit more ambiguous (and I don't think it's quite as inclusionist towards high schools as you think), but it provides some basis for discussion above and beyond the general criterion in WP:N. Good job. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 18:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, most of the other notability policies seem to be ambiguous a bit, so that things (I guess) are more fluid. 10 "so so" sources vs. 3 "bulletproof" ones for a subject, I suppose. For the inclusionist side, I don't think I've ever lived in a community where the local papers didn't shut up and stop talking about the local schools. Anyone who wanted to expand out school articles should have a seriously trivial time of it, if they had access to local news sources. They may just not all be online. • Lawrence Cohen 18:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I cannot say I do not like this proposal, and I think it is worth considering, it is still reasonably simple and seems to balance the inclusionist and deletionist point of views. I agree that most, if not all, secondary/high schools meet this criteria - even if you have to go offline to prove so. This proposal also avoids the "inherently notable" section which is likely to cause the most controversy. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 18:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I saw that the inherited bit was the biggest fight. I figured a better (and realistic) compromise was by offering alternate common-sense ways to gauge notability if iron-clad secondary RS weren't available. My bulleted section. Ironically, if a school qualifies for those bulleted points, it will likely turn up more RS, in a circular fashion. • Lawrence Cohen 18:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm sure that this draft was drawn in good faith, but I strongly oppose this guideline. We already have far too many subject-specific notability guidelines, and efforts are underway to reduce the number — this guideline takes us in the opposite direction of further instruction creep.
WP:NOTE already provides a simple, subject-neutral set of criteria for assessing the notability of an article. I see no need to try to supplement the simplicity of that guideline with an ever-growing list of prescriptive guidelines on specific subjects.
If any school is the subject of substantial coverage, in multiple independent reliable sources, then notability is established per WP:NOTE and a reasonable article can be written. Without those sources, there is no basis for writing a properly referenced article, so the effect of presumed notability is all too often to encourage the creation of under-referenced articles or permastubs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The criterion in WP:NOTE is certainly simple, but its application isn't so simple (as evidenced by the lengthy debates that occur over all matter of articles at WP:AFD. The purpose of subject-specific notability guidelines is to make application of WP:NOTE to a given subset of articles both simple and more uniform.
That said, is there a community consensus somewhere that the number of such guidelines should be reduced? If so, could you point me to it? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 19:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid that one of the reasons that WP:NOTE causes so many arguments is that so may people don't really understand it, which is partly because it's not as clear as it should be, and partly because the core of the notability principle is so heavily obscured by the plethora of over-detailed sub-guidelines, most of which serve only to undermine the core principle.
In terms of reduction of notability guidelines, it's an ongoing process. See he merge proposals on most of the sub-guidelines for links to the discussions. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
That overlooks that things can be notable for other reasons. Did you see my bulleted section on the proposal? • Lawrence Cohen 19:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The bullet points are just the sort of thing that I dislike: they are all examples of worthiness rather than notability. The crucial thing in all of this is that wikipedia is is a tertiary publication. In other words, we don't do research on primary sources (that's WP:NOR) and we cover those subjects which have already been found notable by others. So we don't make our own original assessment of notability, we follow what reliable sources have already found to be notable, and the test we use is whether the subject has been the subject of substantial coverage in those reliable sources, with multiple instances preferred. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Exactly right. There exists sufficient reliable and independent sourcing for a comprehensive article or there does not. Notability doesn't mean popularity, or worthiness, or goodness, or anything else. There are plenty of very good people and things which are by our definition non-notable. There are plenty of terrible people and things which are by our definition notable. "Can we write a comprehensive article from the sources available?" is the one and only question we should be asking when deciding whether to retain, merge, or delete an article. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
With respect, that's a slight oversimplification. Other questions that need to be asked are "Are these sources, in addition to being reliable and independent, far-reaching enough to assert the kind of notability required for an encyclopedia?" and "Does the notability asserted by these reliable and independent sources meet the threshold required for an encyclopedia?" I work largely in local politics on Wikipedia, and, though I'm sure that everything I write can be substantiated by reliable and independent sources, I'm periodically criticized for relying too heavily on local (reliable and independent) sources, which many editors believe are insufficient to assert global notability. This is where subordinate and topic-specific notability guidelines can be useful. They don't eradicate the need for reliable and independent sources, but they provide additional criteria, so that when I look at the reliable and independent (but local) coverage for my local Member of Parliament, I know the answer to the question "Is this person notable?" Sarcasticidealist (talk) 20:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
That's why I say "comprehensive article". A comprehensive article is one which could be completed to featured or at absolute minimum good status someday using properly sourced material. It covers many facets of the subject, from its history to its current status to its projected future, and goes in-depth about what it is and why it matters. So if all your sources can tell you is "Jack Crack is a Member of Parliament in the Blehhh Party and was elected in 1919", poor old Jack's non-notable. On the other hand, if enough material is available for a comprehensive article, you're good. Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I could get you comprehensive information about anyone who has ever sought election as a city councillor in St. Albert, Alberta, and that information would be from reliable, third party sources. But that wouldn't make that person notable enough for a Wikipedia article. WP:N clearly has to be applied with discretion, and category-specific notability criteria help with this application. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
On the same note, isn't it accepted that any member of the United States Congress being notable? What if someone was elected in 1808, served one term, was never heard from again, and all we have on him is "William McGee (Born 1750) was elected to the US Congress in 1808. He served one term, and went back home," based on sources. In some cases, subjects are automatically notable. Places are a good example. • Lawrence Cohen 21:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

(Outdent) Policy does say that. While I can't speak for User:Seraphimblade or User:BrownHairedGirl, I think their argument would be that that's a perversion of WP:N, and policy shouldn't say that. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 21:37, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually, while Members of the U.S. Congress are notable, not all politicians are. Saying all High Schools are notable is like saying all politicians are notable. Members of U.S. Congress universally have copious sources from which to take information and put it into Wikipedia. Not every High School has such sources. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 21:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
If theres a conflict like that, is the history of how its done more important or is written policy more important? • Lawrence Cohen 21:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This option seems the FAR superior option. All notability guidelines should always start from the PNC as the primary and most important criteria. This option does that. Any additional notability critieria should either a) Be supporting examples which help to explain where this topic may meet the PNC (such as winning state athletic championships; such events are likely to gain press, and thus cause the school to meet PNC anyways) or b) include NARROWLY DEFINED exceptions to the PNC where ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Broad, instant notability guidelines like "High Schools are Always Notable" is a non-guideline... it gives no guidance. The second option is the far superior one IMHO. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 07:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Of the two options so far presented, the second is the better but I mostly agree with BrownHairedGirl, Seraphimblade, and SmokeyJoe. One problem with AfD is the instruction creep that has resulted from all the well-meaning notability guidelines. The requirements for a Wikipedia article are that it is verifiable and NPOV. If the article has reliable sources, then there is no need to delete it. I don't understand those who say things like "notability required for an encyclopedia", "wretched stub", "decreasing the quality of school articles". I think they wish they write for Encyclopædia Britannica. Imagine a world in which every person has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That's what we're doing. We do not have the limitations of previous projects and need not cripple ourselves with the kind of systematic bias that results from POV deciding what makes an article important enough for inclusion. That's why we use secondary sources. If others have written about it, it is, by definition, notable. In addition, please see: Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments and also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shapleigh Memorial School, where User:JodyB stated in closing that merging would add undue amounts of material to the district article relative to the other schools. DoubleBlue (Talk) 07:49, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Would it make more sense to say a better role for the notability guidelines would be to detail acceptable alternate ways to establish notability for subjects, rather than making unique bare minimums for different sorts of topics? I.e., everyone requires multiple non-trivial independent coverage, but for "wide array of articles about subject X, these are commonly acceptable alternate ways to demonstrate notability..."? That is basically what my Option #2 does. Is a school notable? Got your multiple non-trivials lined up in a row? Almost? You can susbstitute some of these for one of those if you're an inch short. • Lawrence Cohen 14:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I would say that's pretty close to it. There's nothing wrong with saying "Hey, if a school has been around for 120 years, consistently wins sports championships and the like, and receives high marks for its academic program, it's very likely we can find enough source material to write a comprehensive article" at the first AfD. And I probably would accept "Keep, we should be able to find references" that first time around. Now, on the other hand, if a few months pass, the article is still unreferenced or poorly-referenced, and no one's bothered, now it's coming time to say "Alright, quit telling us there must be references, where are they actually?" I think your interpretation of the sub-guidelines is a very good one—not "If subject X meets arbitrary criterion Y it is automatically notable regardless of sourcing" but "If subject X meets arbitrary criterion Y it is likely sufficient source material exists for it to be notable." If that is not the case, and the material does not exist, the subject is still non-notable.
Attempting to throw our own subjective evaluations of what should or should not be covered will inevitably lead to bias. Whether or not something is notable, just like anything else, is subject to verification through secondary sources. In this case, the question is "Have those secondary sources actually taken significant note of several facets of this subject, or have they just mentioned it in passing or fixated on it for one specific thing?" If the first, it's notable, if the second or third, it is not. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:50, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I'm all for redirecting WP:Notability (schools) to WP:CORP so this option - as it is quite close in effect - has my full support.Garrie 03:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Unnecessary. All articles must meet NPOV, V, and NOR. It is a bad idea to complicate it with editorial POV of what is "important" instead of just using reliable sources to meet WP:V. Tell me where notability is in Wikipedia:Deletion policy or WP:5P. (Spoiler: It ain't there.) Look over all of Wikipedia:List of policies - nada. DoubleBlue (Talk) 04:41, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I am also strongly in favor of the idea of throwing all questions of notability of schools in WP:CORP OR simply applying regular old "NOTE" policies; the latter seems to have not been working, however. That said, while I like the simplicity of this proposal in some ways I am strongly opposed to the inheritance of notability that seems counter to WP's other guidelines. Epthorn (talk) 06:09, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Merged in new option

I think it is better to keep every thing on one page so I have merged in Lawrence Cohen's alternative proposal as a second option. I have slightly tightened it (I think qualifying for a state championship rather than winning it is too loose), exemplified the bulleted options, and made the more precise suggestion that at least two of these should be met. TerriersFan (talk) 21:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

My basic idea with my option was (copied from the old sub pages talk page)...
  • "If the school has multiple sources on it, it is notable, the same as anything else is." - main body of the proposal.
  • "If specific/good sources are lacking, the school is probably notable if it meets a few of these other conditions." - the bulleted list below.
  • "Failure to establish notability" - a school, if it fails to meet one of these, in all likelihood isn't going anywhere. Some schools run for hundreds of years, if not longer in some countries. Redirect to the appropriate parent, do not delete to retain history, and someone can re-expand next week, year, or decade when sources turn up.
  • This simple blanket policy will work for everything from pre-school for 3-year olds, to post-graduate schools at places like Stanford University.
Basically, if the school has a couple of sourced notable facts about it, or has the basic run of the mill notability (multiple, non-trivial, etc.) met, it's notable. • Lawrence Cohen 21:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I could certainly accept this. it will cause a few more debates, but it will solve most of the cases, and it would be a major improvement over the present. DGG (talk)

Different criteria for English-language/Non-English language schools & districts

ThisIsASecret (here) and DahliaRose (here) each make an interesting point: The current language of both Option 1 and Option 2 would allow for creation of numerous articles about secondary schools and school districts that have little or no English-language sourcing. TerriersFan has replied that there is no reason to believe this will happen. I'm not so sure. We've certainly had cases where numerous stub articles were created for, say, every school in a large city school district, resulting in stubs that add nothing to the encyclopedia but disappointment for readers who reach the article. We have no reason to believe that sufficient English-language sources will be available to editors for non-English-language schools and school districts any time soon. Therefore I propose changing the language of Option 1 to (changes in boldface):

School management bodies

School districts (US/Canada); Local Education Authorities (UK); regional schools' management bodies (other jurisdictions) that teach students primarily in the English language are considered inherently notable.

Secondary education

High schools/secondary schools (all jurisdictions) that teach students primarily in the English language are considered inherently notable.

Non-English-language schools and school districts are not considered inherently notable because feewer English-language sources tend to be available to editors of the English Wikipedia. Notability guidelines for these schools and districts are covered by WP:N or WP:ORG guidelines.

The boldface paragraph above establishes, I think, that we have a reasonable basis for discriminating against non-English entities, which would be treated the same as they are now.

For Option 2, I would also add the boldface paragraph and add For schools that teach primarily in the English language, as the first words in the "Additional criteria" section. Noroton (talk) 03:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

There is nothing in the concept of notability that requires English-language sources. – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not asking that English-language sources be required, only that we assume for English-language high schools that sources will be added. We can't assume that for non-English-language sources because so few of us editors can access them. Noroton (talk) 23:49, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree, it's lack of any source that is a problem with those articles This is a Secret account 04:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I see the problem differently: I think almost all high school articles have at least one source -- the Web site of the school itself. That source tends to be pretty reliable (but hardly ever includes negative information and there is often important information that the school Web site doesn't provide). Noroton (talk) 23:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Just to expand on my initial statement: notability is proven by the presence of coverage in reliable sources, but it is not determined by the availability of sources. Notability is a characteristic of topics, and the presence of coverage in reliable sources is a proxy measure for it. Also, the bolded paragraph seems to suggest that, because sources are harder to find for non-English-language schools, we should impose higher inclusion standards for them. – Black Falcon (Talk) 04:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, it's a practical standard. When sources are few, then not following a practical standard is impractical. (Obviously, if enough sourcing can be found, it doesn't matter what language the sources are in.) WP:N is meant to be a practical standard that favors subjects that can be sourced. All notability guidelines are meant to be practical. As I look over WP:N, I don't see that explicitly stated, but I think it's implicit. Noroton (talk) 07:08, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This line: "Non-English-language schools and school districts are not considered inherently notable" --I don't think that is needed or correct and acceptable. This would seem to imply that schools related to the English language education are more notable for Wikipedia. There is no reason there shouldn't be sourced articles on schools in the United States, Mexico, Italy, Russia, China, and Vanawatu, if they all happen to be notable. If not, their school district article will act as home base for the redirects. If the school district isn't notable, up the food chain it goes. But to favor notability standards towards English language schools is just crazy I think. Its too US/Western centric. We can easily and safely carry articles from stubs to featured articles on topics with not one source in the English language, if someone did the translation work. Even from a Westerncentric angle, this sort of idea would be pointlessly offensive to schools in Canada that were deep in Quebec, and might only have French-language sources. This sort of idea would be a free pass for people to AfD every school in a non-English language speaking country, even though with local news and media coverage (which may not be as easily available to us here) might be perfectly notable. • Lawrence Cohen 07:51, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I cannot support this. My previous point was that English-language sources don't exist for many of these schools so it is difficult for English-language editors to work on such articles. Foreign-language sources are perfectly acceptable on Wikipedia if there are no equivalent English ones. See: WP:EL A lot of the foreign-language schools which get deleted are quite probably more notable than many of the American high schools which get kept it's just that English-speaking editors can't find the sources to save the articles because they are unfamiliar with the language. This new wording now seems to imply that schools in English-speaking countries are somehow superior to those in other countries. It is best to avoid the word notability altogether and focus on sourcing. Dahliarose (talk) 15:19, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I can't imagine any hope for this English-booster sort of approach gaining any support. If others come out to endorse it under policy I will be very surprised (sorry, Noroton). Probably best to just move past this idea onto other concerns and ideas. • Lawrence Cohen 15:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
As an editor that maintains many of the articles on French-language schools and schools boards within Canada, I cannot support this for obvious reasons. In B.C. where I live, there are more sources for the French school board and schools available in English than there are in French. --Stéphane Charette (talk) 22:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Neither Lawrence Cohen, Dahliarose nor Stéphane Charette have addressed the reasoning behind my proposal: Notability isn't an award, it's a recognition of what we think is practical. An English-language Wikipedia is necessarily English-centric since most editors aren't able to read other languages well enough. The idea behind Option 1 is that sources will be found by English-language editors, eventually, to bolster any school covered by English-language sources. For practical reasons we can't make that claim about schools covered by non-English-language sources. Please address this point. Noroton (talk) 22:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Option #2 covers this. I still have a major problem with any suggestion that because something is in another language, it has less inherit merit or notability. Did you see on this page where it was demonstrated that sources in other languages are perfectly acceptable? There are articles on topics from, for example, China and India which may have no English-language sources. There is nothing wrong with that. • Lawrence Cohen 23:40, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I will repeat myself yet again: This has nothing whatever to do with what sources are acceptable. It has everything to do with how likely we think it will be that a subject that we can't expect will be covered by English-language sources will get sourced. I've already said -- and how much more clear can I be? -- that actually sourcing something in any language is acceptable. I don't understand why you raise objections to what I have explicitly stated is not my position. Noroton (talk) 00:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Do other notability guidelines take this view? Can you provide some examples of some and AfDs that reflect this? • Lawrence Cohen 05:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Probably not, but the idea that notability guidelines discourage the creation of articles that are not likely to be more than stubs has certainly been around (UncleG's essay linked to in the list at the top of this page alludes to that idea). But this discussion is about making new policy. As for AfDs that may reflect this, I've always assumed that editors have taken into consideration whether or not they think an article proposed for deletion is likely to get improved over time. If primary school articles overwhelmingly tended to get improved over time, I'm sure we'd see a lot fewer nominations for deletion. Noroton (talk) 23:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I cannot support this. Non-English schools are just as important as English ones. Although I generally favor deletion, and this would weaken the automatic notability bugaboo that concerns me, I cannot support it. Obviously notability and verifiability are needed, but I'm not willing to build into the system this kind of presumption. Aren't we supposed to fight systemic bias? CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Absolutely agreed. Adequate sourcing in any language is acceptable, Babel is available for anyone seeking assistance with translation. Chances are, whatever language your sourcing is in, there's someone available who speaks the language to help you evaluate and use it. Seraphimblade Talk to me 04:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Not a great idea. Notability is not dependent on how EASY it is to get sources. Giving inherent notability is bad enough, but giving it to schools of one language and not another? English-bias, anyone? Can't do it, capt'n. Epthorn (talk) 06:13, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Support for Noroton's English-language proposals?

Does anyone else support these ideas? • Lawrence Cohen 04:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

International Schools

Sould International Schools be inherently notable? I think they should, there are few international schools and they usually don't have independant sources to prove notability. Billscottbob (talk) 00:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

...if they don't have independent sources then they certainly should not be considered notable by encyclopedic standards. Epthorn (talk) 06:14, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
It is unlikely there will be consensus to put into policy that international schools are inherently notable. However, from experience I can say that most international school have a high level of potential notability. The problem is that due to systematic bias articles on them are often in a poor state, making them vulnerable to deletion. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 18:28, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree, bias is a huge issue with international schools. Its just difficult to find independant sources for them. Billscottbob (talk) 21:06, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Page moved

I have moved the page to the current title to note that this is a notability proposal, consistent with the other notabilty pages. Thanks This is a Secret account 04:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a good idea. • Lawrence Cohen 15:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Date-tag school articles that need notability proven

I think Options 1&2 both have good points and I'm interested in exploring compromises. Could we handle school notability with dated tags, similar to Template:Fact with its date parameter? Code the template to automatically add categories: i.e. "School articles without proven notability since November 2007".

Advantages

  • Doesn't change/add to current notability standards
  • Allows users to identify and find school articles that don't show notability
    • Alternative to AfD nomination for articles that probably are notable (i.e. secondary schools)
    • Gives WPSchools and other editors a more concrete target for random benevolent editing

Disadvantages / Extra Work

  • Setup involved
    • Create template and categories
    • Probably need a bot to monitor and insert when editors forget to add the date parameter
  • If nobody monitors the categories and works toward removing the tags, there's no benefit.

A little investigation leads me to believe it may be possible to just outline a specific usage of Template:Fix (since that's all that Template:Fact is). It almost seems too good to be true... --Hebisddave (talk) 21:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't this be handled with Template:Notability? Arthurrh (talk) 22:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It already exists, at Category:School stubs. The problem with this proposal is that if there is not notability the article should be deleted. {{importance}} is added when it appears that there might be notabiltiy but the article does not make a strong case for it. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:29, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Template:Notability and Category:School stubs are good ideas, but not the same because they don't seem to have a date parameter. Categories for months easily give the ability to point out articles that have had the tag for several months or a year, which would be much more likely to successfully pass AfD. A new template could use some text from the Template:Notability, or maybe a date could be added to one of those two solutions. --Hebisddave (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Work to do < People available to do it -tagging all schools (except by using a bot) is out. There is too much work to tag everything in a clever way. For the same reason I go for "all secondary schools are notable" - its not true. But lets have some pragmatism. The AfD approach will not work if we look at them one by one. On the opposing view allowing sub-stubs for kindergartens is silly too. "Secondary schools are notable" should be a compromise solution that everyone who wants to improve the current situation should be able to support. Modifications can wait for version two. Victuallers (talk) 13:44, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
There will always be more work to do than people available to do it (when there isn't, WP will be 'completed'). Requiring each article to be individually examined, improved, tagged for its weaknesses, etc is unavoidable and shouldn't be a disadvantage of this suggestion more than any other. --Hebisddave (talk) 15:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, but I see no merit in this suggestion. Why should schools articles be specially examined and tagged? Why not inhabited places, numbered highways, Pop CDs, and every other class of articles? TerriersFan (talk) 18:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Isn't that the point of a wikiproject? To do such things? places, highways, and CD's are covered already by other projects. The goal of the schools project should be to improve the school related articles. An assessment is a fine place to start such an effort. Arthurrh (talk) 19:37, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The point being made is that we already have appropriate tags etc available. What is needed are agreed notability guidelines against which schools can be assessed in a consistent fashion; hence the point of the project page. TerriersFan (talk) 19:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
And the exact purpose of AfD is to perform this individual examination. We should encourage article-by-article examination, not undermine it with "All X are notable/no X are notable" type garbage. If all X are notable they'll all get kept, if all are not they'll all get deleted, if (as is almost always the case) the answer lies somewhere in between, examine each one individually. Seraphimblade Talk to me 17:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Characterising the generation of notability standards as "garbage" is both wrong and illogical. We have many notability standards for situations where there is a broad consensus that certain classes of articles are notable and, unless they are all going to be scrapped, there are no logical reasons to treat schools differently. TerriersFan (talk) 17:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The original aim (for me at least) of this guideline was to try and move away from AFD a little. The current set-up at school article AFD is getting very repetitive with comments made often been more based on peoples interpretation of policies than the the article been nominated. Another problem is occasionally large numbers of schools are nominated for deletion; which means it is sometimes simply not possible to fix all the ones with notability potential to many AFD participant's standards in five days to avoid their deletion. While I see controversy in stating in a guideline how different article types fit into the notability spectrum, I see nothing wrong in itself with trying to work back-wards from school AFD results to help establish a consensus on what school article types are generally notable and which are not, as a precedent has emerged. Also note, many school articles can simply be re-directed or merged if they are established not to be notable, making AFDs unnecessary in the first place. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 18:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, the current position is a defacto consensus. It is kind of a position that everyone can live with. So working backwards from AfD decisions is not without problems. I think that the suggestions above about a fresh look at how notability for schools can be asserted is a wiser direction to take. It avoids the past discussions that could not reach a consensus. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
A successful guideline will probably have to make compromises, which will probably result in not everyone been 100% happy with it whatever happens realistically. Hence, avoiding the most controversial areas is sensible, and thats why I want to move away from AFD. However, everyone has different opinions on what needs to be done for a a school article to assert notability, so no direction is going to be problem free. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 20:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Shouldn't controversial ones go to AfD? I guess I'm not understanding the massive fear of AfD here. Its sole purpose is to enable discussion of whether a questionable article should be retained, removed, or something else. As there's clearly not a consensus for any given set of guidelines, what's wrong with the status quo, e.g., let AfD decide? (As to "de facto" consensus, I've seen high schools deleted, even recently, or at the very least merged, and I've seen plenty of high school AfDs closed no consensus. "All high schools are notable" is no more a consensus position than "All schools are notable" ever was, those holding it are just very vocal.) Seraphimblade Talk to me 21:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
There is no massive fear of AFD, just a desire to look for alternatives. There is nothing wrong with taking controversial cases to AFD, but since taking every school article created with questionable notability to AFD is impractical, in many cases looking at alternatives such as merging and re-directing first is reasonable. There has never really been a clear consensus on much related to school articles and "All high schools are notable" is no exception, however the majority are kept, and it has been argued before that more (if not all) could be kept if time constraints were less of an issue. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 21:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
The problem with AFD is that it can be arbitrary. There are clearly disagreements on what is and is not notable and these disagreements surpass any one article. Personally I am against any 'special status' for schools and believe they should fall under WP:CORP or have to meet regular notability requirements. That said, if the consensus is against me it would save everyone a lot of time to establish that here. I'm not optimistic...Epthorn (talk) 06:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Restructure school district articles to make them the repository for school information.

While maybe not the best article, Clark County School District is an example of how you could lay out an article on the parent district to include information on the various schools without encouraging creation of articles on every school. If a concept like this could become a guideline, it might reduce the creation of articles on non notable schools and drastically reduce the need to use AfDs. Vegaswikian (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Agree though if a school article is properly sourced, there is no reason not to leave it as an article. DoubleBlue (Talk) 22:39, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Excellent suggestion. I've always seen redirecting to a list of schools administered by the district in the district article to be a good solution—the articles are not "deleted" per se, simply placed in a central location, and if a good deal of sourced information is added to a given school's entry while in that list, it can then be split out. There's nothing wrong with redirecting to a parent article for a non-notable subject, after all notability does not directly limit the content of articles which are on a notable subject, and the vast majority of school administration districts (or their local equivalent in any given country) will have enough sourcing for a full article. If for any given country that's not the case, we could even move up from there: School administration in Somecountry#Bodies which administer schools in Somecountry. There's no need for one-paragraph stubs when merging and redirecting can result in a single high-quality, comprehensive article, with a few notable examples split out once they're ready. Seraphimblade Talk to me 23:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Though "merging" is sometimes not done and simply leads to a de-facto deletion/redirect (v. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Shapleigh Memorial School). A well-laid out district page should accomodate facts for schools to accumulate until ready for a break-out article. DoubleBlue (Talk) 23:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Good example, Vegaswikian. Would that more schools were handled like that! CRGreathouse (t | c) 03:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Actually, the school list was intended more as a recommended format for district articles. By providing a place to gather information from the start, editors are less likely to create a stub that needs to be deleted or merged. Is there support for using tables like that in school district articles? Does this discussion need to move to WP:SCH? Vegaswikian (talk) 06:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes, I agree. I like the idea of a content-rich, well-sourced district article (with a few breakouts as needed) rather than a collection of unsourced stubby phone directory entries. CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
        • I support having a central location for information about schools in a school district, but I think the information will often outgrow the district's article. Dallas Independent School District recently had a huge table moved to List of schools of the Dallas Independent School District. If you look at the DISD article before the move, there's a good example of information about individual schools dominating the article. I'd say the Clark County School District article linked to above could benefit from a second article, too. HEBISD#Schools_and_facilities is probably close to the line between incorporation in the district article and separation into its own article, but (I hope) the entire article is comprehensive enough that the info. on individual schools is not out of place. --Hebisddave (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
          • I see nothing wrong with a "List of schools in Somewhere School District" if the list grows so large as to overtake the article, that's a proper use of summary style. Dozens of permastubs is not. Seraphimblade Talk to me 16:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
            • I've always thought that this was an appropriate way to deal with schools. Even though a school may not establish it's notability, the information therein should be retained within another (notable) article if relevant- and that would clearly be so for districts. This would also avoid some of the more extraneous info that pops into schools like mascots and the like. I really like this proposal but I acknowledge it could lead to overgrown articles... Epthorn (talk) 06:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Strong Opposition (to proposal 1)

I think it is really unfortunate that I have to oppose this. I really see the need for this type of notability guideline, which is why I first brought it up at the VP this time. There are a lot of great things here, and a lot of great discussion. However, no matter how great the proposed guideline is, I cannot support it because of one sentence, which is that "all High Schools are considered inherently notable". Sneaking this into a proposed guideline, prior to there being a consensus for it isn't a good idea, however it is precisely what has happened here. I am sure that I am not the only one who believes this, and I am sure others will disagree. I just strongly disagree with that, and I've stated my reasons above. - Rjd0060 16:00, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Making snide comments is not helpful. There is no basis for saying "Sneaking this into a proposed guideline" - nothing was sneaked in - it is plainly there and the reasons for the option are clearly described in the preamble. Option 1 reflects the result of numerous AfDs - high schools that have been researched are never deleted. TerriersFan 21:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Only one of the two options has that sentence. Do you oppose option 2? • Lawrence Cohen 16:17, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't know how it is possible that I missed that. I didn't even know there was an option 2. After reading that, yes, I strongly support option 2. Thanks, User:Lawrence Cohen. - Rjd0060 16:31, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Your welcome, and it happens. I added a little box to the top of the proposal reminding people there are two options. • Lawrence Cohen 16:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Good idea, thanks again. - Rjd0060 17:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Option 2 feeler

Aside from suggestions or desires to redirect Wikipedia:Notability (schools) to another page, does anyone have a problem specifically with any aspects of Option 2? I just am curious where this stands, as most opposition seems to be to Option 1, rather than option 2. Thanks. Lawrence Cohen 18:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Too subjective, since it's not our place to determine "worthiness" of a school. Arbitrarily saying "two of these justify an article..." doesn't work. There's enough source material for a full article, and we write one, or there's not, and we write a short entry in a parent article. That's about as simple as you get. Seraphimblade Talk to me 18:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, it seems like all the constant fighting about school notability means it needs to be semi-spelled out. I changed "at least two" to "several". Does that address your concerns? Lawrence Cohen 18:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I know sometimes it seems that way, and I certainly think you have the best intentions, but really, all that a constant disagreement over something indicates is that there is nothing to spell out. Policies and guidelines are meant to reflect things that are already done and accepted, never to cause acceptance. If there's really a consensus to be formed here, it will make itself clear on its own, because the disagreements will largely turn to agreement. It's at that point that it's time to document what the agreements are that came around. Of course, it's also entirely possible that general agreement will never be reached. In that case, that's fine too, we just continue to evaluate case-by-case. That can be a frustrating experience, but sometimes it's necessary. Seraphimblade Talk to me 20:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Option 1 reflects the consensus that emerged from numerous AfDs. TerriersFan 21:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Make it simpler. Schools meeting WP:NOTE are notable. Other schools which verifiably exist should not be deleted but redirected (if necessary merged) to either a governing body (school district or similar), if this has an article, or to the locality (town, city, ...) of the school. Fram 20:10, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
That applies to any article - what we are doing is applying that standard to schools. TerriersFan 21:57, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Then let's just set up a guideline encouraging merger/redirection for schools which don't meet the primary criterion, and separate articles for those which do. It will still drastically reduce the need for school AfDs, and will provide a logical and consistent means of handling school articles, while not setting arbitrary criteria (has won an award, someone notable went there, whatever the case may be.) Call it option 3? Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If you do that, it seems to me that you're only going to replace all the AfDs we currently have with a bunch of edit wars over merge/redirects. At least with AfDs, there's an established process to determine consensus. Sarcasticidealist 07:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
In contentious cases, AfD can still be used. The possible outcomes will simply be "keep", "merge", and "redirect without merge", rather than those plus "delete". Seraphimblade Talk to me 07:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
That's a fair point. But what makes you think that there will be fewer contentious cases with the development of these merger guidelines than without them? Sarcasticidealist 08:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Yours is a fair point as well. However, I think if someone were to say "Look, I'm going to put the sourced material into the district list. It can always grow there, and hey, if over the course of development we find plenty of source material, we can always split back out, and in the meantime it'll be a redirect right to that section", that's a lot less contentious than "Sorry, this blue link needs to turn red." Seraphimblade Talk to me 08:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent) You may be right. Of course, you may also be wrong. In any event, while I'd still prefer something along the lines of either of the two proposals under discussion here, I'd be prepared to support your suggestion as a potential improvement to the status quo absent consensus on something more thorough (actually, I'd support your suggestion regardless; I'd just rather see it in conjunction with something else, not instead of). Sarcasticidealist 09:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Larger issue first

I don't see there being much of a consensus for either proposal right now (although I personally quite like them both). It seems to me that at the root of this lack of consensus is disagreement on the question of whether it makes sense to develop some school-specific notability guidelines, or whether WP:N is sufficient. Personally, I'm of the view that WP:N is (necessarily) so vague that subject-specific guidelines (WP:BIO, WP:ORG, WP:BK, etc.) prevent the same arguments from being hashed out over and over again in AfDs. Therefore, I support the development of some form of school-specific notability guidelines. What do others think? Sarcasticidealist 08:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't support creating additional guidelines, but I think digging for the actual root of the problem is the right idea. (rest of my comment moved to new heading so as not to hijack your poll) --Hebisddave 15:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I support new guidelines:
  • They guide authors creating or improving articles to what is required and will lead to better articles.
  • Case by case consideration of thousands of articles without guidelines leads to inconsistent results.
  • Cycling the same arguments at each AfD is an inefficient use of everyone's time.
Though I created Option 1, I am happy with either or a combination of either - for me the overriding need is to create an agree standard. TerriersFan (talk) 17:22, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I support new guidelines for individual article types including schools. If properly done it would not be WP:CREEP but would instead help guide authors and AFD participants on what is needed in a school article to establish notability. The current AFD set up is inefficient (not to mention putting every school article through AFD is unrealistic) and people rely on guidelines such as WP:N which is often just to generalised and open to significantly varying interpretations. I think the ultimate problem which is preventing a school notability guideline been established is that there is simply no consensus on what school notability is - with the exception of core ideas already established at WP:N. I personally prefer option 1 as I agree with it and it would achieve the most, but I am happy to support option 2 as well. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 19:07, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I support an attempt to find consensus in this way but generally do not support attempts to create a guidelines just for schools when WP:CORP and regular notability guidelines should be able to cover it. I tend to see these guidelines as expanding rather than clarifying notability. That said, I am happy to look at each proposal with an open mind. I particularly liked the suggestion above to merge schools into a single article for districts, although that proposal is also problematic. Epthorn (talk) 06:29, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

So I hate to say it, but it looks quite a bit like there is no consensus to even develop a set of notability guidelines for schools, let alone to accept a specific set. Is this process dead? Sarcasticidealist (talk) 23:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that you try to write helpful guidelines without reference to the burdened concept of “notability”; that the word “notability” be avoided like the plague. Is the process dead? No, it will never die. But it may be best to scorch these ideas as they appear. Notability subguidelines will not lead to a better encyclopaedia because they detract from the principle of basing content on suitable sources. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it is as unlikely as ever that there will be a successful school notability guideline, despite it been long argued that one is needed. There is no consensus on if there should be more notability sub-guidelines; there is no consensus on what a schools notability guideline should contain - the compromise by working back wards from AFD idea which was thought to be the key in developing a school notability guideline has not worked. I don't think the suggestions and discussions will ever die while the issue remains, but whether they go anywhere anytime soon is a different issue. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 21:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Re-direct and Merge

Notability in Wikipedia is defined: "A topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." That's notability, and issues with that (i.e.: what is "significant coverage"? What qualifies as an independent reliable source?") should be taken up at Wikipedia talk:Notability. There are two somewhat opposing problems people are actually trying to solve on this page:

  1. there are lots of school articles that don't establish WP-notability
  2. there is lots of school information being deleted (or there may be, depending on outcome here)

Wikipedia guidelines on notability that we can not / should not circumvent say that #1 has to be solved (eventually, by AfD or bold editors) by removing the article, either by deleting it or merging & re-directing. The concerns raised by #2 mean that we should probably cross out the idea of deleting those articles. Therefore, we should re-direct and merge school articles that don't show notability-as-defined-by-Wikipedia. Support/don't support/comments? --Hebisddave 15:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Support #2 Per my draft of it. If a school isn't 100% notable today, its preposterous as long as the school isn't physically shut down and demolished that it won't get notable eventually, as its a place. Usually the problem is simple lack of easy access to sources. No school AfD should end in a delete, if the school is verifiably confirmed to exist: it should redirect to the appropriate district for later expansion when people can simply cite the sources. Lawrence Cohen 14:32, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. There are many, MANY places that exist yet are not and will never be considered notable. My apartment is one of them. There are even institutions that will never be notable enough to be encyclopedic. I would support a temporary hold on deletes if editors request it, but not an indefinite one. Epthorn (talk) 06:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

General discussion on the proposals so far

  • I oppose the idea that any category so broad as "all secondary schools" (even if narrowed to English-speaking nations, which depending on definition is virtually every country on Earth) is exempt from the WP:V core policy. That would be the effect of the "inherently notable" proposal. Someone argued above that (almost) all schools have websites and suggested that's enough sourcing for a stub article to be kept. Heck no. That's not independent (independent sources are part of our core policy), and anyone (a cult, a conspiracy theorist, a wikivandal) can set up a fake school website easily enough to fool other editors. Anyone can claim the existence of a hundred-year-old newspaper article about a fake school, using a publication which happens not to exist in anyone else's public library. No matter how many people insist that it's self-evident that all high schools are (and always have been) necessarily a very influential part of their community, it doesn't justify disregarding the principle on which this project is founded. But I do agree that most USA, Canada, UK (and other nations') high schools which exist(ed) for more than a few years can be shown to be noted beyond budget votes and sports scores. For that we need actual sources, not handwaving about "it's out there". I support the idea that the guideline should include a note about merging/redirecting unreferenced or district-referenced-only school articles rather than deleting them if existence is verified from reliable third-party sources. I support the idea that the guideline should include some alternate means of demonstrating notability beyond what we require for most topics... but not necessarily all those currently in proposal 2. The Blue Ribbon award, for instance, means that one year a school was in the top 5% by whatever standards the DoE was using that year, not that the school is significant enough that it really ought to be in an encyclopedia a hundred or two hundred years from now. A state (or even national) championship one year in one of a dozen or more sports is just a WP:NEWS item, not something of permanent significance. Same for one shooting incident (unless it provoked a big national debate) or one teacher strike or whatever. If school AfDs were treated rationally and case-by-case, I would say "just use the Wikipedia-wide standards" and be done with it. But since I've been an editor, these debates have gotten worse, not better, and there's always more cut-and-paste absolutism than actual research or attention to the merits of the individual case. If a compromise guideline can reduce this problem, then the frequent unclear cases and occasional hoaxes might get handled more properly, and might cut down on the "-ism" and conflict that often gets in the way of our task: building an encyclopedia. Barno (talk) 03:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Sorry, school websites are fine as references for non-contentious matters such as internal organisation; indeed they are unlikely to be sourced elsewhere. The concept of fake websites is a chimera. I have never seen one that is anything like convincing and, in any case, the official site can be verified by its link from, for example, the school district.TerriersFan (talk) 22:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Purely comment, since you mentioned it: There's been some discussion here about major events making an elementary school notable: shootings, employee strikes, apocalyptic meteor explosions, etc. Maybe a major event doesn't make a school notable - it just makes the event notable. The fact that there was a major violent incident at Example Elementary School in 199x doesn't seem to mean that we need an article on Example Elementary School listing their current principal, the subjects and programs offered, notable alumni, etc. It might call for an article along the lines of "Example Elementary School Shooting" which discusses the event, police response, media coverage, etc. and maybe a mention in the school district or city article where the elementary school is listed. --Hebisddave (talk) 22:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • A major event is a significant contributor to notability because readers will want to read about the place where it happened and expect to find an article. However, under the proposed criteria there should be an additional notability factor as well since more than a single event is needed to make an encyclopaedic page. TerriersFan (talk) 22:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree that not all schools, even secondary ones, are notable, but the presumption should be in the favor of keep high schools in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and UK for English Wikipedia. Now, perhaps a minimal standard can be created. I'll work on it. Bearian (talk) 18:58, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I come to this debate rather late. I too am not convinced that all secondary schools are really notable, but deciding which are and which are not is a matter of POV. As far as England is concerned, the question of local education authorites (LEA) does really not arise, since they are all county of district councils, which are certainly notable. However the schools are run by their governors, who may (or may not) be controlled by LEAs. Accordingly merging schools in their area with an article on the LEA should not be an option. If we were addressing this question in 1960, I would have said that Grammar Schools were notable and Secondary Modern would usually not be, but since the introduction of the comprehensive system, they are all supposed to be similar, and I think we have to accept them all. Primary and Middle Schools should be presumed NN; in other words, articles should be deleted unless notablility could be proved (with appropriate citations. I have seen a lot of school AFD nominations, whose justification seems to be that the article is a poor quality one, rather than that the school is NN. That is no justification for deletion: the remedy is to tag it as a stub, in the hope that some one will improve it. Peterkingiron (talk) 21:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Those who would restrict notability of secondary schools are ignoring how the general public is beginning to use Wikipedia as it becomes increasingly accepted as a reliable reference source. When the public wants crisp, concise facts with minimal time investment, Wikipedia is often a better place to start than Google. Here is how this is pertinent to the school notability debate: When you meet someone and want to know something about them, one of the first questions raised is where that person went to school. It comes up in casual conversation. It is found in nearly every Resume and Curriculum Vitae written. Employers want to check this information, and they want a concise "just the facts ma'am" version. They would prefer to avoid Google and skip the obligatory filtering of unnecessary info, and they may prefer to avoid a school's own website since it is often distracting, and may not be the quickest way to get the information they need. Pertinent information that is readily found in a Wikipedia article would often include the following: Is it a public or private institution? Is it operated by a religious organization? How large is student population? How long it has been in existence? Is it a boarding school? Is it a single gender institution? -- and so forth. This is "cut-to-the-chase" type information that isn't found in directories or databases that the average person would know of or have access to. Nonetheless, it remains very useful information if you are sizing up a person's background. Those who are offer the strongest opposition to making all secondary schools notable seem to be equating notability with being interesting. I think it the issue of usefulness has been too long ignored by the rigid pro-delete crowd. As for the opinion expressed that weakening of the notability standard makes existence of a school not verifiable, this is silly. Any school will appear hundreds of times in the types of non-notable sites that are pulled up by Google such as real-estate referral services, phone directories, and web-sites of related organizations that have some association or affiliation with the school, etc.Plamoa (talk) 09:59, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "Those who would restrict notability of secondary schools are ignoring how the general public is beginning to use Wikipedia..." That's what we're supposed to do. Although I think it's great that Wikipedia sometimes unintentionally makes up for the shortcomings of other information sources, the goal here is an encyclopedia using a certain set of guidelines as its foundation. From my experience, I respectfully I think the lack of cut-to-the-chase information availability is not currently a real-world problem. :) Also, "real-estate referral services, phone directories, and web-sites of related organizations" probably would not meet the "significant coverage" part of guidelines for notability with regard to article inclusion. I know it seems like nitpicking; whether a decision here aims to loosen or uphold the Notability guideline, we must work with that guideline as the starting point.--Hebisddave (talk) 16:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I certainly understand your point of view, and it is clear to me that the the universal notability proposal for secondary schools would not be acceptable under a rigid interpretation of the notability guidelines. I would agree that the guideline should be a starting point, but must it be the ending point? Rules should exist precisely to enable the creation of something useful. With regard to the comment about "significant coverage", I think you must have missed the preceding comment where an editor hypothesized that a vandal could make up an imaginary school website for the purpose of getting into Wikipedia, and there would be no way to verify that such a school actually existed. My point was that if someone was seeking to verify the existence of a school, there are so many non-notable, but nonetheless factual, websites out there that would attest to the existence of a school, that worry about such potential fraud is not realistic. Lack of any such references in secondary websites, such as almost all schools have, would be strong evidence of nonexistence. Plamoa (talk) 05:24, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I like your arguments above about "crisp, concise facts with minimal time investment", however, as you are probably aware, Wikipedia is not a directory which intends to list every product, organisation, railway station and school in the world. The existing notability guidelines do indicate we need a little more than mere existence. While I understand the reasons that people have started this essay, it is in effect a spin-off from WP:ORG which does state that it covers schools. Why are people not already using WP:ORG in AfD discussions? Anyway, in case you hadn't seen it: this is official policy on Wiki's status as an encyclopedia rather than a directory: WP:NOT#DIR - the pertinent wording is "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything that exists or has existed." SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:45, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am particularly taken with "the issue of usefulness has been too long ignored by the rigid pro-delete crowd", and could see a new guideline being set up of Usefulness which might challenge Notability. Has someone tried that already? If not, I'd support you in writing the essay! SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:49, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I've just checked out this this page and to be honest, option #2 looks like a powder keg that will explode once it's implemented. Maybe this concern has been adressed, haven't made it through all the comments, but this is what I see hapening.
With that strict criteria, overnight, thousands of High School articles will no longer meet the criteria. Supporters of this guideline will begin sending these schools to afd, likely dozens at a time. Now consider that, like it or not, when High Schools are sent to AFD, these AFD's are widely opposed. Many of these people likely haven't even glanced at this debate, but what's going to happen when they start seeing the schools hit afd, and then being deleted despite huge numbers of "keep" comments because the closing admin can say "Sorry folks, it's policy." I forsee massive wiki-drama in the future if #2 becomes law of the Wiki.--Cube lurker (talk) 01:07, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd have to disagree. Just because the current AFDs are ignoring notability criteria by taking the "high schools are inherently notable" stance is no reason to continue that direction. Really admins could already close with delete saying "Sorry folks, it's policy" because in reality many of the high schools don't meet notability as they currently exist. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
So i'm clear which part are you disagreeing with:
1) When empowered by the mandate of a new guideline that admins will not close High School articles as delete despite large numbers of "keeps"
2) That there won't be resistance from a large number of users that haven't taken part of this debate.
or is it
3) Both will happen but it's still the right thing to do.
--Cube lurker (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with 1, since it's already an option for admins. I think that 2 doesn't matter as much, as long as the notability guidelines are "reasonable" "sensible", etc. I hesitate to say "correct" because I'm not sure what they word means in the scope of creating wiki guidelines. But not having a reasonable guideline for notability because we don't currently have one and creating it will change things isn't a strong enough reason in my opinion. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 01:49, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
On #1 I just don't share that optimism. I think it's not done now because consensus isn't contradicted by a specific policy, just the general policy which has a variety applications. (not to go off topic, but compare what it takes for a baseball player to be notable vs. a scientist). With the backing of a clear policy I believe that many hardline admins will close delete against the numbers, discounting keep votes against the new policy. And if the admin closes with the numbers, then it's off to WP:DRV by the nominator.
On #2 is it important? Guess it all depends. But there will be upset editors, I see that as a definate.
I guess i'm just one that doesn't see the current system as a crisis. I don't see why it's the end of the world to have a short article about a real high school in a real town just because the football team isn't a state champ, it hasn't won the best school of the state award, and no one's been murdered there. I just see #2 as a solution looking for a problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cube lurker (talk • contribs) 02:11, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Well an important part of the option 2 proposal is: A school article that fails to establish notability will not be deleted, if the school can be confirmed to exist. It would be simply redirected to the appropriate article for the relevant school district, and could be later expanded back out into it's own article again when sources should become available. This proposal directly encourages merging and re-directing; I hope that will make huge numbers of AFD's and deletion reviews unnecessary if it is accepted. This will also mean articles can be quickly re-created if it is believed it can pass notability guidelines and for other reasons. Anyway, although Option 2 has caused less controversy than Option 1, there is still not wide-spread consensus for it, and regardless on if this becomes a guideline or not, WP:IAR will still be policy. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 12:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
That does make option #2 a touch less problematic. Having slept on it I've sort of refined my views in this way. I understand and support the idea that the articles should be sourced. That verafiability is of high importance. However the requirement for multiple secondary sources seems a bit unneeded. A school can be notable without an AP report and a profile in Newsweek. I think that hurdle is fine for bio's and such, but for a quasi-governmental operation, it seems excessive. That primary sources themselves could be considered reliable in the area of establishing notability. I see a huge diference between a school department detailing a schools operations on an official site, and a self published blog for "Joe down the street". In my personal opinion, the additional criteria seem overly restrictive. And this one: The school, or its staff or students, being involved in a newsworthy incident, I could be way off base, but it seems to contradict other consensus. (For example that if there's a single noteable incident, that the incident recieves an article but not the individual people involved). Just my 2 cents, if I'm in the minority, so be it.--Cube lurker (talk) 13:39, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:N already covers the baseline of this proposal that a article is notable if it has has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject; WP:OR in addition states articles should generally rely on secondary sources and not primary sources. The main issue as far as I am concerned is based on interpretation of WP:N in what scale of secondary sources is needed to establish notability. Some think multiple local newspaper reports on the school are enough to pass WP:N, others think national news coverage of the school will large numbers of secondary sourced alumni is needed to pass WP:N. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 14:17, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm thinking more of the reasons for WP:N then the letter of the law. Why are Primary sources inferior to secondary? Well if i'm doing a self bio I can say all sorts of untrue or half-true things. A company press release is usually going to be clearly POV. But (and let's say I agree with the additional criteria) If the source is the school district website and it lists city high school as the 2007 state football champion, and the school as the winner of a national academic award, is there a real benefit to the encyclopedia to demand this information from an independent source. I sometimes feel we blindly fall back onto catch phrases and linked policy at the expense of being able to look at a situation and apply a little common sense to it.--Cube lurker (talk) 14:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Primary sources are inferior to secondary in context to a Wikipedia article for a variety of reasons. Primary sources are not generally independent of the subject and so cannot be helpful in establishing notability - because if primary sources established notability that could mean pretty much everything is notable! For example it would be easy to build a house, create a primary source on it, and claim it was notable enough for its own article. Wikipedia is not supposed to be a publisher of original thought, so primary sources can only be used purely for description. Secondary sources are better as they are a step-back from the subject and multiple secondary sources can be used to help give a encyclopedic analytical overview of a subject. Primary sources also stick to generally one point of view so multiple secondary sources, as demanded by WP:N, help keep articles following WP:NPOV. There is nothing wrong however in using primary sources for things like description of a schools curriculum; but for something like "2007 state football champion", if that is really of interest to a general audience - it will have a secondary source on it which is more useful in giving a encyclopedic overview of the event. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 15:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You explain the official policy fine. I understand the policy. And I understand the theory behind it. But if I'm supposed to accept that for example a High School is notable if it wins a championship, and we know they won the championship. But because we know they won the championship from the official government run school website and haven't located multiple newspapers reporting on it, well too bad, schools not notable. I just see that as blind reliance on a line in a rule that benifits no one in it's strict application in this example.--Cube lurker (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
The issue of primary sources vs. secondary sources is a bit more than a line in a rule - it covers several paragraphs over at least two core policies. If any proposal made here is to be accepted it cannot directly try and override core policy - a big plus point of option 2 is that it does not. However, articles can be kept on its potential to pass policy/guidelines and not just its current state. The WP:POTENTIAL essay I wrote explains this. If option 2 is accepted a line of argument which will continue to be used in keeping school articles is potential. Articles which have the potential to pass policy/guidelines generally have sources on the internet to show this, such as information on a championship win and notable alumni; it can generally be gauged from these if a article has the potential to pass WP:N - and can be cited in an AFD. There is nothing wrong with stubs if they have the potential to become policy passing articles in the future; this could be emphasised in the proposal if necessary. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 16:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Issues with References

Hi, I'm one of the two primary editors of Westfield High School (Fairfax County, Virginia), which is a Good Article with currently 116 references. Many times, myself and the other main editor have had issues with citations -- mainly that a very relevant piece of information can only be referenced to a yearbook. However, yearbooks are an unknown source of references as they are self published, and quality varies wildly. We have sought input from other admins and projects for guidance as to the acceptability of yearbooks, but no clear rules have been established. I would ask that Wikipedia:Notability (schools) discuss this, and if possible, make a final decision over yearbooks as a source of references. Thank you. Zidel333 (talk) 00:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I'm not sure that a precise, clear rule can be established. I would not normally consider a yearbook a good source for WP:V and WP:NPOV concerns since they are renowned for poor fact-checking and are closely associated with the subject. If the yearbook had some information of strong interest, however, it might be possible to include it with a sort of disclaimer that "according to the school yearbook" or some such wording to make it clear that it should be taken with a grain of salt. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
A school year book is a primary source. It is not useful in demonstrating notability, and may be a reliable source for something while simultaneously being unreliable for something else. Year books are suitable to be referenced, but with care. If anything is particularly remarkable, I would be uncomfortable about the year book being the only source. Like any historical document, it may contain errors, exaggeration and biases. Be especially concerned about any yearbook commentary that is not explicitly attributed to particular authors. Note well, as you said: “self published, and quality varies wildly”. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 02:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree with the editors here and would just like to remark that this school, owing to secondary external sources like Newsweek, is an excellent example of a high school that is notable in my view, unlike many others that exist. Epthorn (talk) 05:45, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
Comment. We've taken the NPOV issue into consideration. (I'm the other main editor that was referred to.) However, I'd like to pose a question regarding yearbooks that are critically reviewed and acclaimed by the National Scholastic Press Association and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, as is the case for Westfield. They are reviewed for journalistic quality (though not necessarily accuracy, per se) and presentation. Will that criteria make a yearbook more acceptable as a source than yearbooks who have not received such awards? Arsonal (talk) 19:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Verifiability might be helpful. The section WP:SELFPUB implies to me that the nature of the content being cited to the yearbook matters when deciding if that citation is appropriate....so we can't universally state that yearbooks are good or bad sources because it depends on the yearbook AND on what information is attributed to that yearbook. --Hebisddave (talk) 17:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Option 1 removed

Option 1 cannot stand as you cannot have an essay or guideline that runs against Wiki policy. Option 1 is setting up schools to be above the requirement on WP:V for reliable sources. Option 2 is the wording that needs to be considered. Having read through the comments on this talkpage there are few people who are in support of Option 1. Leaving it in is distracting people from the focus of the creation of this guideline. I shall remove Option 1. Please let me know if you have an issue with my action. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 17:54, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

You may be right, but with all respect, this move on this date could have the appearance of trying to slip this through on a holliday weekend when people are away from work and away from their computers, If it were me i'd hold off till after the new years break to make this move.--Cube lurker (talk) 17:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
I am very concerned at such a major subtraction when many of us are unable to debate it. TerriersFan (talk) 23:53, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
We need to deal with the reality that high schools are generally considered notable. I have added the phrase "There is a presumption that high schools/secondary schools are notable unless insufficient sourced material is available to produce an encyclopaedic article.". This reflects the tenor of the debate by avoiding the 'inherently notable' contentious wording and also dealing with the Chinese problem of thousands of unsourceable sub-stubs being produced and deals with the reality of AfD outcomes. TerriersFan (talk) 00:07, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it is too early to make that change. There may or may not be consensus to support it. Vegaswikian (talk) 00:10, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Then Option 1 should go back - an editor unilaterally removed Option 1. I think we should run with this which is a fair compromise and if we do run with this I withdraw my objection to the removal of Option 1. It reflects reality - no high school page that meets this criterion has been deleted in the last few months. TerriersFan (talk) 00:13, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Encouraging involvement

I have changed the restriction on the page to direct editing. This is not an accepted guideline in which people are advised to take care before making changes. It is against the founding principles of Wikipedia to discourage people from editing, especially a work in progress in which involvement is encouraged. Build it and they will come! But don't piss them off when they arrive. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 18:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Schools are covered under WP:ORG

I'm wondering if people are aware that WP:ORG already covers schools? The wording is in the second paragraph: Simply stated, an organization is a group of more than one person formed together for a purpose. This includes commercial and non-commercial activities including, but not limited to, charitable organizations, educational institutions, institutions, interest groups, organizations, social clubs, companies, partnerships, proprietorships, religious denominations, sects, etc. The link to educational institutions covers schools, colleges and universities. Why do people feel that WP:ORG fails in its coverage of schools as organisations? Shouldn't we be looking at improving WP:ORG rather than creating another subpage to WP:N. The current trend and consensus is toward consolidation of notability guidelines, not toward creating more. Subpages are generally seen as divisive and time-consuming. The notability guidelines tend to say the same thing, but with additional criteria where needed. The primary criteria for schools is the same as the primary criteria for all topics. So we need only look carefully at constructing a few well chosen sentences to incorporate into WP:ORG. The additional criteria to consider is:

  1. A school winning a notable sporting or academic event (including, but not limited to, state and national sports championships).
  2. A school being a significant record holder at one point (e.g. largest graduating class in history; most consecutive games won by a team).
  3. The school has won multiple notable awards or status (e.g. Beacon school, Training school (UK)) .
  4. Having a notable distinction, that is not held by other schools (e.g., the first high school in New York City; the first desegrated school in Mississippi).
  5. Having multiple notable alumni or staff, who would qualify for their own Wikipedia articles under WP:BIO.
  6. The school, or its staff or students, being involved in a newsworthy incident.
  7. The school receiving the highest available official assessment (e.g. Blue Ribbon school (US) or with a Grade 1 (outstanding) Ofsted overall assessment (UK)).

Some of these need careful consideration - though some, like "Having multiple notable alumni or staff" wouldn't work as notability isn't inherited or transfered. SilkTork *SilkyTalk 19:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Not an unreasonable take. I changed your list to a numbered one so that the items can be discussed. The ones I see as problematic are 5,6 and 7. Having notable alumni or staff is in and of itself not justification for an article. The reason for the notability needs to be driven by what they achieved at the school. So if a sports player attend a school and never played sports there why does this inherited notability justify an article? Re item 6. EVERY school is involved in a newsworthy incident, their opening is newsworthy. Maybe with some refinement this could be usable. Re item 7. We have to be very careful here. Winning an assessment award is not in and of itself notable. Over time every school could win one. Keeping the award for an extended period of time is notable. Winning the award multiple times can be notable. However winning it once, especially if it turns into a one time thing, is not notable. Since notability once established is not removed this last point opens up a significant notability loophole. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't see it as a loophole as such. Taking Blue Ribbon as an example, fewer than 5% of US schools have this award and though some are awarded each year, the number of schools grows every year so it will be many years before that percentage is significantly increased and we can reconsider the guideline then; all guidelines are subject to development and I think that we should agree what is relevant now and deal with the future when it arises. TerriersFan (talk) 20:29, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
yes, that last one (#7) does have a potential loophole, and therefore we have to be discriminating in which awards to accept. But because of #5, every large established high school probably is in fact notable. It's rare that a notable athlete didnt play sports in high school. DGG (talk) 06:08, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
Schools are technically covered under WP:ORG but in practise they have always been treated differently, and as recently added to the proposal page - there is no real consensus that WP:ORG applies to schools. However, I see nothing wrong with considering a merge of this proposal into WP:ORG in the future.
I have nothing really against clause 5. I do not think the amount of alumni should dictate the notability of a school, but I think it plays a part. As for notability not been inherited, well that originates from an essay which not everyone agrees with. I would also like to draw attention to this sentence under WP:NOTINHERITED: (although two of the notability guidelines, for books and music, do allow for inherited notability). A schools notability guideline could quite easily do so as well.
Clause 6 and 7 might need some reviewing to be a bit more restrictive, but could certainly play a part in establishing notability. Unity High School (Sudan) for example is certainly notable for the newsworthy incident it was involved in; and I have found schools gaining Grade 1 from Ofsted do generally have more secondary sources on them than those that don't. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 13:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I have altered the requirement for 'several' criteria to be met to 'at least two'. 'Several' is weasel wording and unclear. 'At least two' deals with the issue that concerns some editors that just being a Blue Ribbon School as enough for notability. TerriersFan (talk) 00:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

5.Having multiple notable alumni or staff, who have their own Wikipedia articles under WP:BIO from their involvement at the school.
6.The school, or its staff or students while at the school, being involved in a newsworthy incident that receives significant out of area coverage.
I would say simply drop 7 as being too problematic. Vegaswikian (talk) 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Should a warning added

Something rather annoying happens too often, in AFD debates about schools there will sometimes be people saying "Keep per WP:SCHOOLS". This is a problem since this is just a proposed policy and thus currently has no affect on articles. Should a warning be added to to the top of the page letting people know that this currently is not official? It would help a lot in AFD situations since too many people cite no other reason to keep a high school article other that this proposal. TJ Spyke 03:16, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point. There is the standard disclaimer at the top of the project page, though. I think that it is a matter of phrasing. Plainly, and you are right, meeting WP:SCL, as a non-agreed guideline, isn't a justification in itself for an AfD position but if an editor agrees with WP:SCL then citing it can be used as a shorthand for the editor's views. TerriersFan (talk) 20:23, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
If people accept this proposal as policy in the AFD process, doesn't it reflect additional support for it, though? Written policy is just supposed to reflect accepted practice, isn't it? Lawrence Cohen 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

If current practice is policy...

...and current practice in AFDs is that secondary schools are automatically notable, why again doesn't a written notability policy reflect the actual practice? Aren't the written policies supposed to document the behavior?

Please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Prince George Secondary School. Lawrence Cohen 19:34, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

It did (in my Option 1) until an editor took it out. There was a concern (invalid in my view) that it would open the door to an editor who was looking for the opportunity to create thousands of sub-stubs on Chinese high schools (The Chinese Problem). I tried to address this in criterion P2 but that now looks too weak. I think that it is a wrong approach to avoid reasonable criteria based on hypothetical concerns. Better we draft the criteria and then amend them if/when a problem materialises.
As you have found, whether high schools are legally inherently notable, in practice they are because they are never deleted. As has been said enough times on here there is a consensus (certainly not unanimous but a consensus) for high school notability. TerriersFan (talk) 23:29, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Additional criteria - historic buildings

There is already a project on this and no question that these buildings are notable. Do we really need to say that here? All listed historic buildings are notable. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but from previous AfDs some editors are not aware of this and its inclusion does no harm. TerriersFan (talk) 01:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
All listed historic buildings wouldn't necessarily qualify for an individual article as sometimes every single house in a street is listed. However, school buildings tend to be larger than houses and I would have thought that schools in listed buildings should automatically qualify for an article. The pages on the Images of England website do not show up on Google searches - the database has to be searched separately. Many editors seem to be unaware of the website, and historic schools have been nominated for deletion in the past, though as far as I'm aware they have always been kept. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Little Munden Primary School. Dahliarose (talk) 20:54, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Notable or merge

I'm now wondering if the way out is to simply have P1 plus the Failure to establish notability section. Any arguments about whether a school is notable or not would then be on its talk page and, in effect, create a to-do list for improving the article. Nominators bringing articles to AfD would have to explain why it should not be merged otherwise it could be speedy-closed as "Tag with {{Mergeto}}".

I still see school stubs as valuable articles. Stubs, though incomplete, still provide useful information and are ideal places to encourage contributions from editors. I recognise, however, that the current consensus seems to be against that. This is surely a reasonable compromise. DoubleBlue (Talk) 01:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

From my perspective, no. This would be little different from the present situation. A list of criteria proves very useful in allowing creating editors as well as assessing editors to see where the boundaries lie. Take WP:Music for a good example. I think that the A section is essential to prevent the time wasting process of arguing each page from first principles. TerriersFan (talk) 02:16, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
I must say that stubs are worse than nothing. They make all school articles look bad, and reduce the likelihood of survival of articles on notable schools. The Schools Project should oppose any mass stub-creation efforts, even of high schools. To put it another way, nothing succeeds like success. AnteaterZot (talk) 03:38, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I didn't exactly mean to encourage creating stubs but I think keeping a good stub is better than deleting it in favour of nothing. I don't understand the horror some feel upon seeing a stub ready for expansion. If I see a stub, then learn more upon further research, I am more likely to return to add to it. On the other hand, despite the disappointment I feel when I can't find an article on Wikipedia, I am unlikely to begin an entire article from scratch. This is one part of the beauty of a collaborative effort. At any rate, my only reason for stating above that I see stubs as valuable was to counter the implication that I am among the presumed majority who are anti-stubs when I counter-intuitively proposed to merge them. DoubleBlue (Talk) 06:47, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
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