Talk:Phoebe Hearst Elementary School (San Diego)

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This article was nominated for deletion on January 15, 2008. The result of the discussion was Keep.

Phoebe Hearst School and it's PTA in particular are important as they are named after the founder of the PTA. The school is also an award-winning school. There are many more citations to add, so I would appreciate it if we could add those and then see if wikipedia is the right place for this. I know there are other elementary schools in wikipedia, so I'm not sure why this would be a target for deletion.

The wikipedia page for the school is important to the larger community as there are many attendees who continue to live in the neighborhood and can contribute much to the history of the school which we hope to maintain here. The wikipedia page requires an open environment where students, staff, and community members can add facts about the early history of the school as it nears its 50 anniversary.

I've left a note on your talk page that quotes the criteria for the notability of a school. Wikipedia is not a social networking site maintained for the benefit of your school, it's an encyclopedia; as an encyclopedia, it has standards for the notability of the subjects of its articles. I don't believe that your elementary school meets those criteria. The argument about "there are other elementary schools" doesn't hold water. Some elementary schools meet the notability criteria outlined in the material I quoted for you. At any rate, it doesn't matter; we're not talking about other schools, we're talking about this one. (See WP:WAX for further discussion of this idea.) It is very, very difficult to get an article about an elementary school in Wikipedia. The elementary school has to be extremely unusual. Your school is not extremely unusual.

I'm now prepared to take this through an Articles for deletion process, which has permanent results; if the article fails, it will not be allowed to be recreated. I'd like to offer you a last chance to bow out of this without wasting a lot of time for Wikipedia volunteers. Please give this idea your serious consideration. Accounting4Taste:talk 22:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your consideration and explanation of Wikipedia. I would like to add some citations regarding the excellence of the school, it's unique foundation funding capital projects, and some other distinguishing characteristics of the school. I will do this in the next 2 days (as I am a volunteer also). Outlawv (talk) 15:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you've noticed by now that another Wikipedian has taken on this article and dramatically steered it towards the norm for Wikipedia articles. As I said at the relevant discussion, I'm no longer opposing the retention of the article; it now meets the requirements for fair and balanced coverage of the school. I just wanted to mention that when you speak of adding "facts" to the article as a collaborative process, I'm sure you've realized by now that those facts must be backed up by reliable sources; this is not a place for people to reminisce about their school days in a personal and unverifiable way. It doesn't matter that their reminiscences are the "truth"; what matters is that they are verifiable. I still think you'd be better off mounting this project elsewhere, since your school is now not being presented in a very flattering light, but if you can work within our guidelines, I'll help you however I can. Accounting4Taste:talk 16:09, 16 January 2008 (UTC)