Wikipedia talk:Schools

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This article is related to WikiProject Schools, an attempt to write quality articles about schools around the world. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page.

This page is not an article and does not require a rating on the quality scale.

Schools Portal

Archives
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

1 New proposal
2 Status
3 State of consensus to date
4 A follow-up note
5 Primary/Elementary schools
6 Alumni giving notability to elementary schools?
7 With the many failed proposals relegated to subpages, what should remain?
8 New discussion underway - Wikipedia:WikiProject school consensus resolution

[edit] New proposal

A school is usually assumed to be notable if it has gained national or regional recognition for its curriculum, extracurricular activities, architecture or history. The following are examples for recognition:

the school has been recognized with a notable national award,
has won a science competition at the national level,
its athletic teams hold a nationwide record.
the buildings used by some English schools have been classified by English Heritage while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Schools having significant published histories. Details will be found in one of the online catalogues such as Worldcat or, for UK schools, COPAC; however, by themselves these don't establish notability.

This is no longer a "merger" since Schools is tagged as historic-inactive, and we now have no guideline for schools. To add text on otherwise uncovered organizations is definitely within the purview of this page. While some may advocate a separate page that discussion is not mutually exclusive to inclusion here. --Kevin Murray 20:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Call it what you will, but it certainly does an end-run around those who did not wish to see schools included in this guideline. I also think that if you're going to try to do something like this, you'd better give significant notice to those interested in schools, such as at the talk page of the inactive proposed school guidelines and at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools. I can only imagine the hue-and-cry at the next AfD nom for a school that relies on this guideline without any notice or input from editors interested in schools. Agent 86 20:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The schools group has totally failed to reach consensus after a very full debate, I think that trying to apply these guidelines to schools would indeed cause a consensus--a consensus that the guidelines were not suitable. They are considerably more restrictive than even many of the deletionist-inclines editors working with schools would support.DGG 20:52, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

My comment refers to the 5 points immediately above--is this the currently active text? And I have lost track, where is the current revised working copy--is it the present project page?DGG 21:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

To me this begs the question: are the current guidelines at WP:N and WP:ORG sufficient to cover the need for school related topics? I say yes, but if we need to compromise toward some specific school criteria, then let them be brief and let them be here. --Kevin Murray 22:12, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

The above moved from WP:ORG's talk page. >Radiant< 08:43, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

If the current proposal is historic, surely it should be preserved at the point where it was judged to be historic, ie, the last version by Radiant. Kevin has subsequently made two further amendments to the so-called historic proposal. Is the proposal historic or is it active again? No wonder we can't reach any consensus when nobody knows which version is being worked on and what the current status quo is. I think it might be better to start from scratch with a completely new proposal. Dahliarose 23:32, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Not really. If people want to pick up a historical proposal and work on it again, they're welcome to. If edits wouldn't have been welcome, I would have protected the page. >Radiant< 10:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Basically, the main argument that I saw here was quite simply WP:CREEP. WP:N provides a very good test of notability. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 23:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Dahlia, and have reverted to the version tagged historical. If editing is ongoing, that suggests that an effort to reach consensus is ongoing, and therefore the proposal shouldn't have been rejected yet. If the rejection was valid, on the other hand, it's the last-discussed text that would be of the most help to someone initiating a new proposal, and modifying it cuts down on the value of preservation, because it could give a false impression of what precisely was rejected. Shimeru 00:18, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to:

blank the rejected content and
write a very simple guideline, pointing to:
- core policies,
- WP:N,
- and for help and advice to Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools.
myschool.wikia.com SmokeyJoe 03:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
reinstate the proposed guideline tag

SmokeyJoe 01:04, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That generally tends to cause a trainwreck (it's unclear whether old comments refer to the old version or new version, people intending to link to this find they link to something they never intended to, etc., etc.). If you want to start fresh, it's usually best to pick a new name and really make a fresh start (perhaps WP:SCHOOLNOTE)? That also has the advantage that people can look back at the old proposal, and see what type of objections the new one will need to address. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 01:07, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

If you want to start fresh, the best approach is probably to move this page to Schools/OldPage, and keep the (new) working draft at Wikipedia:Schools. Otherwise we'll just get two divergent versions again, like with the School3 mess last year. >Radiant< 10:14, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Radiant that it is best to archive this historic guideline and start afresh. I don't think the content should be blanked. We should then proceed as Smokey Joe has suggested. A notice must be posted on Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. At the same time I think it would be useful to develop a separate page of useful sources for school articles which could be linked from this page. The embryo for such an article already exists with a list of sources for notable alumni on the WikiProject Schools page. I think a problem with a lot of school articles is that people simply don't know where to look for the information they need. Dahliarose 10:28, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree about restarting this here so soon, in any fashion; much of the objection was to the mere existence of another guideline, not just the content. I think that the POV inertia will cause the same text to rapidly re-evolve whether the page is blanked or not, and we will be back to the status of last week. I suggest that a discussion commence at a sub-page to the Schools project, and/or work at WP:ORG to see whether that can be adapted to handle schools under broader guidelines with several concise special cases. --Kevin Murray 16:27, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

The fact that there have been so many attempts to start a separate school guideline demonstrates that a need exists. There was no consensus for a merger with WP:ORG and much of the content is irrelevant to schools. This guideline was at a stage of active development when a vote was taken last week and the whole issue was very confusing as nobody knew which version of the guideline was active when they were voting. I'm not sure what Kevin means about COPAC. My intention was merely to point people in the right direction to find suitable sources. The fact that a school has a published history (as evidenced by its inclusion in the Worldcat or COPAC online catalogue) provides a clear indication of its notability and the existence of a reliable source of information to form the basis of an article. We need a very simple guideline to state that there is no consensus that all schools are notable and that notability is determined by [WP:N]], combined with a few examples. Dahliarose 18:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

That would be a good place for a new proposal to start, actually: is there consensus about anything at all, regarding schools? Judging by the last few efforts, I think we're going to need to determine that first, and then work out the text, rather than propose text and then discuss it. Shimeru 19:44, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Dahliarose, please forgive my mistake in the interprestaion of what you were suggesting in the prior discussion. I have amended my comment above. --Kevin Murray 20:17, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

I still favour a very brief guideline for WP:Schools, in the true sense of a guideline (A guide, helpful, not actionable). I see no point in creating a monument to the current version and creating yet another break in the discussion history. For anyone who wants to reference the current version for any purpose, they can use this: [1] I don’t agree that the page is inactive. Progress on WP:Schools is suitably on-hold while WP:Notability is in turmoil. SmokeyJoe 00:40, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Status

This is not historical or rejected, and I have put it back as a proposal. The schools3 proposal was moved here in the last month since it was felt that was closer to consensus then what was here before. That proposal was a slowly moving guideline. This guideline will take time to develop consensus due to the strong views from many editors. To say it is dead without a straw pole when the proposal is ready is counter productive. Plain and simple, let the discussion and work continue. This is clearly not dead and without it we will be wasting time on AfD. Give it time. There is no deadline here, just many editors who want to reach consensus. Vegaswikian 20:36, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

This is an incorrect interpretation leading to improper action. Please read the following which is copied from WP:POLICY:
- A rejected " page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction." I don't think that there could be a more clear-cut case! --Kevin Murray 20:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
  - Kevin, may I ask why you're so adamant about this? By my count, within the past few days, you've now reverted 5 editors who had applied a different tag (Alansohn, Vegaswikian, JoshuaZ, Radiant, and me). All of which came after your merge proposal failed. I'm not saying your reading of WP:POLICY is incorrect, but if editors like JoshuaZ and Alansohn (who are, respectively, fairly firm on the exclusionist and inclusionist "sides" of the discussion) both agree that a particular version is near consensus and work could continue... then perhaps we should hold off for a while? Is there some greater reason why this must be tagged as "rejected," when it holds no special weight as "proposed"? Shimeru 22:00, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
    - I think that the inclusion of Radiant in your comment mistates the histroy as Radiant marked this as inactive. The most recent discussions seem to acknowledge failure and have been discussions about beginning a new process. I don't see this coming toward any consensus and unfortunately proposed criteria seem to be cited regularly in XfD, as noted above by editors' comments. My proposal of a merger was meant to be a simpler way to remove the inconsistencies between this and BIO, but it appears that the editors associated with BIO didn't want the controversy there, and implied that the value was not worth the cost. --Kevin Murray 22:33, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
      - The rejection of this proposal was premature. The vote to reject this policy came at a most unfortunate time when the proposal was being actively worked on and it was impossible to work out which of the many then existent versions was being rejected. The decision to reject the policy was made over two days on 25th and 26th February. If you look at the history of the proposal you will see that on 25th February the main policy page was edited on six separate occasions. I for one did not even vote as I didn't have a clue what was going on and didn't know which of the various versions was being voted on. How can you possibly have a fair vote when a page is being changed around so much? I agree with Vegaswikian that we had been slowly working towards a consensus. Now we know everyone's views I think we should be able to reach an agreement. The recent discussions have not acknowledged failure. We were simply trying to establish the best way to proceed now that we have a historical rejected tag on this page. Dahliarose 00:26, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
        
        From WP:POLICY: "regardless of whether there's active discussion or not ... if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments." How much more clear need it be? --Kevin Murray 01:01, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
        
        Yes... I have to admit that consensus seems unlikely. I'm not surprised to hear ORG wanted no part of it, although I suppose that's the guiding... er, guideline... for schools by default, now. And the main WP:NOTE, of course. Still, I'd like to believe we can still work toward something. Schools have been a thorny issue for a long time, so any progress is good. This weekend, I intend to go over all the archives, and see what's been more or less agreed upon; that'll be a good place to start. Shimeru 06:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
        
        I support a succinct inclusion at WP:ORG, to address any shortcomings in the evaluation of schools. I don't oppose special cases, just redundant pages. --Kevin Murray 00:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
        
        It would indeed be very helpful if Shimeru could provide a precis of the archives to establish what issues have been agreed. I think real progress has been made and I'm hopeful that we can reach a consensus. We really need to focus on formulating a workable guideline rather than interpreting the minutiae of Wikipedia policy but I felt I had to respond to Kevin's comment. WP:Policy states that "Proposals should be advertised to solicit feedback and to reach a consensus". That clearly did not happen in this case. I can't find any guideline which states how long the voting period should be but the rejected/historical tag was added after just two days which is clearly insufficient time for proper debate. Articles which are up for deletion are permitted five days' discussion. Surely the same criteria should apply to proposals? Dahliarose 21:21, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
        
        I think you miss the point that this is not about having a vote, it is evaluating whether progress has been made toward a meaningful consensus. --Kevin Murray 00:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I suggest as the subject for the straw poll:

Some but not all schools are notable enough for an article.

Can we even agree on that much?DGG 01:40, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

- Sounds perfectly reasonable. Icemuon 13:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we can agree that:

1. There is no consensus, either amongst school editors or in the wider Wikipedia community, that all schools are notable.
2. There is a consensus on Wikipedia that all articles should conform to Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Attribution.
I would add to the above two statements the suggestion that the vast majority of schools offering secondary education (eg, high schools in America, secondary schools in the UK) in most English-speaking countries (eg, America, Australia, Canada and the UK) have the potential to be notable within the confines of the existing Wikipedia notablity criterion. Does that seem to be a fair summary of the current status? Dahliarose 14:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there's any consensus that most "secondary education" schools are notable. From what I've seen, there's very little consensus on any of it. (A lot of high-schools I've seen don't appear to be notable, the only sources available are primary, such as government reports, or trivial secondary coverage such as statistics lists or a paper printing a sports score or "human interest" blurb.) Still, if people really do want to continue the discussion, then we shouldn't tag the proposal to say it's "inactive" when it's really not. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 20:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

If we can't get consensus that secondary schools are notable, then we're deader than a doornail. One would be hard pressed to find a secondary school for which two or more non-trivial sources are available from WP:RS and WP:V sources. If we can't agree on this what will we ever agree on? Alansohn 20:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'd go for "A subject is notable if it has been the subject of multiple, non-trivial, reliable sources...". We shouldn't be doing ad-hoc notability rules on a case by case basis, that's an invitation to systemic bias. Either the source material exists or it doesn't, that's an objective standard. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 20:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Alan, if the secondary schools have no trouble making it under WP:N, then why do we need a special case? Your argument refutes your premise--Kevin Murray 20:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This on;y transfers the argument to the question of what counts as a 'non-trivial RS. Suppose we find two local newspaper stories. One says the enrollment is 500 in 2005, and says nothing else. Another similarly reports only that the enrollment is 550 in 2006. Seraphimblade, does that justify an article?

If you think it does, then there is no useful consensus, and the outcome for each individual article will be determined by how many people of each opinion are around AfD at the time it is discussed. Since AfdDs can be repeated indefinitely (one is on the 13th round at the moment), a supporter of this view will write the article, and those who think otherwise can re-nominate it every month.

On the other hand, if you agree that a school article with no content beyond that is not article-worthy, we can work on a compromise. Then the clear ones on each side of the line won't go into Afd, only the borderline ones. The border may shift, but that's the case for all WP topics. DGG 21:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Your examples are just statistics without interpretation, so those are primary sources. That one's answerable without even beginning to go into triviality. Triviality can be objectively defined too, though. If we forget what we know from personal experience and primary sources, and use solely secondary ones, can we write a good, comprehensive article on the subject? Could someone with no personal experience and only the secondary sources do that? If yes, the coverage is non-trivial. If no, the coverage is trivial. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me Please review me!} 21:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we have to deal with realities rather than high-minded principles. Regardless of all the existing Wikipedia guidelines, Wikiproject Schools is currently in the process of assessing school articles. I noticed in the latest batch of assessments two schools Cleeve School and Derby Grammar which had nothing more than basic stubs with no attempt to define their notability. Yet these articles were simply classified as stubs and not recommended for deletion. Other schools which haven't yet come within the scope of the project with far more content seem to get recommended for deletion. There is no consistency. I am sure it would be quite possible to write a verifiable article about either Cleeve School or Derby Grammar to conform with the current Wikipedia guidelines, and the same principle would probably apply to the majority of UK secondary schools. I cannot believe that the same does not apply for most American schools. Regardless of our discussions here the majority of school articles do not get deleted. Perhaps it would be be possible to do a survey of the outcome of school deletion debates. That would at least establish current practice. Then let's address the realities and produce a guideline to help people to write a good article and to point them in the direction of suitable sources. The ongoing tagging controversy and the fact that this discussion is continuing suggests that this policy should be re-activated. Dahliarose 23:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus here for this to be a guideline. The ongoing tagging controversy makes me think this should be deleted and salted. Perhaps an essay could be developed. To have this thing under constant flux is confusing. --Kevin Murray 20:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] State of consensus to date

I've read through the archives and am attempting to summarize points of agreement, roughly from greatest consensus to least.

Many schools are notable. Complete agreement, though the scope of "many" may vary.
Not all schools are notable. Broad, though not complete, agreement.
In order to have a separate article, a school should be able to be verified through a reliable source, which may be a primary source. Broad, though not complete, agreement. (Note, though, that disagreement stands in opposition to verifiability, and a schools guideline probably will not be able to overrule a standing policy in this way.)
Merge/redirect is a preferable (or acceptable) alternative to deletion, where a school should not (or not yet) have its own article. Broad agreement with the general principle, though various nuances of opinion exist.
A school article should be supported by reliable independent sources. A significant level of agreement; however, there are those who feel this excludes too many schools, including a few who appear strongly opposed to this standard.
A school article should be supported by reliable independent non-trivial sources. In theory, the same level of agreement as above, though there's little agreement about which sources are "non-trivial," making this one more contentious.
There is no need for a separate notability guideline for schools. Some agreement, though for a wide variety of reasons, some of which might not be entirely compatible with others.

On actual criteria of notability, there's broad agreement that being recognized at the national level for some trait or achievement makes a school notable. There's less agreement about recognition at the regional level, and much less at the local level. Notability by association with notable alumni is contentious.

General sentiment is that, all other things being equal, universities and colleges are more notable than high schools, which are more notable than middle schools, elementary schools, kindergartens, or nursery schools. There is broad disagreement as to just how notable the "average" member of any of these categories should be considered, or whether they are inherently notable.

The most contentious point of debate seems to be over which sources are acceptable as a proof of notability (as opposed to as a source of information). This will probably continue to be the sticking point. Shimeru 03:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be accepted that universities and colleges are always notable--I recall no attempt at a deletion of such articles in the last month or two, and earlier ones have always be kept. There is much more question about individual divisions with in a university, which apparently have to be truly N on at least a national basis. DGG 04:37, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say there's an agreement with "always," based on the past discussion, but it seems at least there's consensus that all verifiable colleges deserve an article. It's actually not something that's been discussed a great deal, just touched on from time to time, so I'm hesitant to attempt to summarize consensus upon it. I think it would not be controversial to include any college or university that meets WP:V. Shimeru 05:32, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Shimeru for all your hard work and your most helpful summary. You have made a most valuable contribution to this debate. I think the way forward is to provide a list of reliable independent sources for school articles. I suspect most people simply don't know where to look for the appropriate information. Dahliarose 10:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

It probably would be useful to distinguish between accredited colleges and universities, and diploma mills. Although colleges that lose their accreditation become even more notable, and some diploma mills are notable as such. Dhaluza 09:09, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Minor correction on factual basis: In order to have a separate article, a school should be able to be verified through a reliable source, which may be a primary source. This statement as it stands is nonsense from a logical perspective. Verifiability is not a property of the school, it is a property of the respective article. We don't include articles on subjects merely because we can verify their existence.

Pure opinion on my part: This isn't a "separate guideline", in the same way as Wikipedia:Notability (*) are not "separate guidelines". If anything, they are a clarification of our existing rules, suggesting how we might apply the general rules in specific cases. This isn't a specific guideline for schools, but rather to be a means of aiding us in judging whether or not the subjects individually meet the PNC, and whether a "complete" article can be written. I think of this family of pages as breakout pages from WP:N, nothing more. Chris cheese whine 22:46, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A follow-up note

Although this guideline failed to reach consensus, there is a reasonable solution under existing precedent. Since all towns and villages, no matter how small are notable, it follows that all School districts are notable, since they are a geo-political area usually larger than a single town, and often incorporating several towns. So in the context of the article about the school district, all of the individual schools, both present and past, are worthy of mention, at least in a list with a short attribution. How much coverage each school gets in the district article is based on how much relevant WP:ATT material is available. If the content for a single school out-grows the school district article, then a separate article is appropriate based on normal split/merge guidelines. Similarly, a short article about a school should be merged into a general article on the school system. So there is no need for a separate guideline. The current policies and guidelines are sufficient. Dhaluza 13:50, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Editors from other countries have pointed out that "school districts" may not mean the same thing (or anything) outside the U.S. However, for U.S. schools, I think that this would be a reasonable starting point. There are communities where it might be more useful for the typical reader to have schools discussed in locality articles, but thorough coverage of almost any school or school district would be disproportionate to the rest of the coverage in most city or town articles.

I have partly finished the school district experiment that I described above. Using most of the readily available data from the National Center for Education Statistics and a limited amount from the Sausalito Marin City School District website, I created the district article, with separate sections for the three schools currently run by the district. There are many secondary sources that I will use to expand this, including a long analysis from the Hover Institute and dozens of lengthy newspaper reports of school board elections and recalls, covering white flight and such back to the 60s. This is one of the two or three highest cost districts in California (more than $20,000 per year per student) with the lowest performance in Marin County and the highest percentage of school-age children educated outside of the public school system, so it is as "notable" as anybody could want. Despite all that, I think that the article could stand as it is quite well. It's pretty dry right now, but even if it didn't have any of the history I found, it would gradually pick up some local color.--Hjal 17:41, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

For places where there is no formal districting of schools, they can be covered in the article about the town or geographic region they draw students from, and be split out if the content warrants it. In the U.S. (and Canada), school district boundaries are often separate and distinct from other boundaries like townships and counties, so they are stand-alone geo-political units, making them generally unsuitable for merging under articles about a town. Also, there is so much publicly available source data that they can easily meet WP:ATT by themselves. Dhaluza 09:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

This 'historical' guideline does in fact already recommend that "any verifiable information might best be merged and redirected to an article about the locality or school district in which the school resides". As Dhaluza comments, this recommendation seems eminently sensible or do people perhaps have a problem with the word "verifiable". Many UK towns, eg, Bath have a section on education and it seems quite logical to put a brief mention of a school in such a section and only have a separate article if someone is prepared to write a proper article. As far as I can gather the concept of a school district only exists in North America, and I do not feel qualified to comment on whether all American school districts are notable or not. I have noticed, however, that the quality of many of these articles is very poor. For example, Muscatine Community School District was one of the articles which was assessed in the latest batch of assessments. The assessor commented at the time "There are quite a few of these. It's difficult to believe that school districts can ever be more than stubs and low importance". Is there scope for expansion of such articles? Would it not be best to put the school in the town until a proper school district article is created rather than create yet another layer of stubs? On another point altogether, I've tidied up the Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools page so that the article guidelines have more prominence and I've also expanded the sources section. In the process I discovered that there is a dedicated page for the placing of school alumni where a school article doesn't currently exist at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/alumni. This seems to be an ideal solution to the alumni problem. Dahliarose 10:22, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Most U.S. States keep large databases on schools and school districts, and this has only increased with the No Child Left Behind Act. So these articles can be expanded by referencing that data. Dhaluza 10:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Please take a look at this AfD, which brought up some good arguments in the school district debate. I think it is much more useful to merge schools into communities rather than school districts. People normally associate schools with communities rather than districts. Icemuon 10:53, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, school districts often have arbitrary boundaries that do not correspond to a single community--often they include all or only parts of several. So they are distinct entities, and often need to be treated separately. Dhaluza 10:59, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

If a school article is being considered for a merge it is clearly a small article. Given this premise it can easily be merged into the the school district AND the community. In both cases there is a different context and both help one understand more about the school. David D. (Talk) 04:06, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Primary/Elementary schools

There has been a few lower school Afd's where the main reason given is that lower schools are inherently not notable and need an assertion of notability. Has there been any significant discussion that has led to this being broadly accepted? John Vandenberg 08:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there has. Basically every article needs to assert notability. After years of discussion a truce seems to have developed on the issue of generally including secondary schools and not including earlier schooling. Exceptions are made in both cases when notability is clearly missing for secondary schools or clearly presented for the per secondary schools. This is probably best described as consensus by default. If you want to see the bloody discussions, they are archived. Opening this can of worms is not advised. Vegaswikian 18:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Fair summary or to put it another way elementary/primary schools need a very clear assertion of notability whereas secondary schools generally survive unless notability is totally absent. TerriersFan 17:45, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Alumni giving notability to elementary schools?

What's the consensus on this? Corpx 17:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

As with most things regarding schools there is no real consensus. Alumni, by themselves are not sufficient; however, alumni plainly help and add to the multiple sourcing. TerriersFan 17:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] With the many failed proposals relegated to subpages, what should remain?

Alansohn, please explain your action.

The rejected proposal served no purpose beyond any of the several other archived proposals, and so moving it to a subpage was appropriate.
People go to WP:SCHOOL looking for a school notability guideline. It is sensible that they be referred to WP:N. There is no prospect for a successful new proposal, given the recent discussion at WT:N.
What do you have against advertising the existence of myschool.wikia.com?

--SmokeyJoe 04:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

- The statement about meeting notability is a tautology that doesn't add anything by being stated here. There is a clear precedent setting consensus on notability of high schools, which should meaningfully be mentioned here, and using an outcome-based approach (based on the characteristics of articles that are deemed notable) rather than trying to achieve a criteria-focused approach (defining rules for notability) which has failed many times before.
  - OK. If you put it that way. I won’t argue against an outcome-based approach in favour of rules. --SmokeyJoe 06:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
- We don't advertise on Wikipedia, and there seems to be no reason to start here. Besides there are thousands of school articles on Wikipedia and just over 100 on the alternative site, making Wikipedia the better choice as a repository. Alansohn 04:49, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
  - We do advertise syster projects. A reason is that Wikipedia attracts students and their teachers, who would like to experiment by writing an article on their own school. Such articles detract from the image of school articles in general. There is an advantage in suggesting to non-serious writers that they consider the other site. Note that I am no fan of the other site. I argued against its creation. I consider its name to be patronising. I am not surprised that little serious creation has happened there. I believe that wikipedia should aim to include serious articles on every subject, past and present, for which suitable sources exist. --SmokeyJoe 06:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)