Talk:St Paul's School (London)

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 St Paul's School (London) was a good article nominee, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Reviewed version: January 30, 2008

Contents

[edit] IP address 194.83.71.244

Should this be in some way linked with its IP address (194.83.71.244) ? The Fish 18:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Alas, that IP address is not an excellent representation of the school- it has frequently been suspended due to vandalism (presumably by pupils). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.93.21.103 (talk • contribs) 18:36, 1 March 2006
Editing this page is blocked from within the school now —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.150.220 (talk • contribs) 21:18, 28 March 2006
To clarify, the school is no longer linked to this IP address - changed ISP —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alex.muller (talk • contribs) 07:32, 10 October 2007

[edit] Old Pauline links

Despite protestations, I have removed external links to trivial sites relevant only to current or recent Paulines. This is an encyclopedia article about a 500-year-old public school, not a place for self-indulgent links by present-day pupils. The class of 2006 has no pre-eminent significance just because someone has stuck together a website for them. Myopic Bookworm 12:17, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

True - but the fact is recent Paulines like have a means by which they can contact each other. If you remove links to sites that are of significant interest to a number of students they loose the means by which to contact each other. I don't see how certain old pauline sites are allowed whilst others are blocked. Examples would be the old pauline cricket club and football club. The "self-indulgent" links as you call them in do not obstruct from the value of the encyclopedia article in any way (providing relevant information). The Dadas football league has been a significant event in the school for the last three years. The class of 2005 and the class of 1997 also have very popular sites - these should be added to the links as well as a means for old paulines who may not have heard of the sites to have access to them. Have put forward a potential re-arranging of the external links section. After all, even the article says links are provided to student websites.
The Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and reference site, not a hub for the whole Internet. It is for telling people about things, not for providing a social networking service for those who already know about them. If Old Paulines like to have a means to contact each other, they should use an Old Pauline website, and if they want to find it, they should use a search engine. They should not need links in Wikipedia. Myopic Bookworm 22:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Semiprotect?

It may be worth sprotecting this article. --apers0n 17:37, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question

Can anyone confirm when the Hammersmith building was demolished? I'd heard it was 1968 but if the school moved out then, and the Waterhouse buildings were derelict by the time they were pulled down, it must have been later than that. Unless the school was in temporary accommodation for a while.

I believe the majority was (St. Pauls Court flats were built on the site in the 1980s), but some wasn´t. I believe you can still see what´s remaining in Hammersmith Rd, West Kensington, as it is being used for an alternative use. nirvana2013 21:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sport facts

The article says SPS won a Daily Mail U15 cup in 2005, but the Daily Mail Cup article says it was won by a school in Ealing. ??? Myopic Bookworm 21:11, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

They reached the final, but lost. This should be changed --82.43.144.131 18:33, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jamie Whitby

No offence to Jamie Whitby, but is he sufficiently notable to be included in the same list as Sir Isaiah Berlin, Sir Clement Freud and, dare I say it, Nicholas Parsons? He gets fewer than 100 ghits (if you filter out the actor Jamie Whitby Coles) and when coupled with his band (Prozak, I think), only 17... Any thoughts? talkGiler 11:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. I see Myopic Bookworm has taken unilateral action! Perhaps I should have been more bold. talkGiler 09:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Rename

Would anyone object if I renamed this school simply as St Paul's School? It is the oldest school of this name and far more articles link to it than any of the other St Paul's Schools because it has so many notable alumni? Dahliarose 16:05, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Yes. You should also move the dab page back to where it started. There are too many schools using this name to say that any of these are the primary use. Vegaswikian 07:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
n.b. Dab page restored. --Stemonitis 07:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contested move request

The following request to move a page has been added to Wikipedia:Requested moves as an uncontroversial move, but this has been contested by one or more people. Any discussion on the issue should continue here. If a full request is not lodged within five days of this request being contested, the request will be removed from WP:RM. —Stemonitis 07:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

  • St Paul's School (London) → St Paul's School - The namespace is not currently occupied. This London school is the oldest and best known school of this name. The page move has been proposed on the talk page and there were no objections. The school has numerous notable alumni and the move will make it easier to link to them. The move will also help to correct many of the existing links. Dahliarose 17:03, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
Contested. The nominator failed to mention that they moved St Paul's School to St Paul's School (disambiguation) on July 12. Clearly not a move that would not be contested give the large number of schools sharing this name. The dab should be moved back to the main name. Vegaswikian 07:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I'd already put a note on this talk page on 23rd July and there were no objections. The dab page was moved in readiness for the move but I did not realise that the move could not be completed without the help of an admin. There are indeed numerous schools of this name but this is the most well known school of this name and the one which has the most links. It makes sense to let this page occupy the main namespace as this is the school which the average reader would expect to find on this page. Dahliarose 08:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Actually I believe that schools tend to be well know in their local area. Would you expect someone in India who enters St Paul's School to get the one in London? I'll bet the answer is no given that there are several schools in India that share the same name. Well know is not the same as primary use. Also, redirects are to be used when the risk of sending a reader to the wrong article is low. Given the number of uses, a redirect here is likely to send many users to the wrong page. Yes, you did post your comments about the proposed moved here, however that did not provide notice to anyone interested in the dab page or in any of the other schools. It is part of the built in bias for the requested move process. Also remember that the common name for schools like St. Paul the Apostle is St. Pauls so those need to also be considered as additional schools sharing that name. So, yes, the one in London may be the second and the oldest, but that does not make it the primary use. Vegaswikian 21:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that there are around 250 articles which currently link to the St Paul's School disambiguation page and if you look at them you will see that the vast majority of them should really point to this article instead, which suggests that to most users the London independent school is the one of primary interest. It has far more notable alumni than any of the other St Paul's Schools which means far more articles will link to this one. Maintain the status quo by all means but how do you stop people making the wrong links? The current name for this article is in any case somewhat misleading as it is not the only St Paul's School in London. There is another one in Hammersmith and there might well be other ones too. If it has to be disambiguated it should really be St Paul's School (Barnes). Dahliarose 22:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
Editors not linking to the correct article is not of itself a reason to make an ill advised article move. If there are two schools in London with the same name, then clearly they need additional disambiguation and is a good reason to leave the dab page where it is. Vegaswikian 01:57, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
How is two articles not being properly disambiguated a good reason to leave the disambiguation page where it is? That's nonsensical. And yes, editors not linking to the correct article is often a sign of a misplaced article. Editors are generally good about linking to articles properly, so when that many links are wrong either that many editors are having problems or the article is the problem. People expect the school that is the most world renown--the one that was established before all of the others by a few hundred years to not be disambiguated.
And yes, knowledge is localized. What does that have to do with anything? Some people hear Paris and they do not think of the city, but the person (and no, I'm not speaking Greek). But we don't dumb down articles or build a system that's aimed towards the limited knowledge of whomever it is we're referring to. We write great articles with a system that makes global sense and people adapt. They are using Wikipedia as a resource to gain knowledge etc, etc...what's the point if all we do is continually aim towards giving people the things they already know?
It seems to me that your argument is more with the system then how the system is applied here. Unless you are contesting that this St. Paul's is not the most well known, you are fighting the system. Perhaps the system should be changed. Perhaps anything that shares a name should be disambiguated no matter how well-known that something is and user's should be taken to the disambiguation page (not some popular page) where they can figure out which something it is they are looking for. Maybe when I look up Los Angeles I'm not interested in the one in California, maybe I've never heard of it. Maybe I'm looking for Los Ángeles, Chile or the song by Sugarcult. But I agree with our current system which sends people to the highly prominent and well known result before the disambiguation page, not the disambiguation page straight away, and at any rate, with the proper use of hatnotes anyone who is looking for a different St. Paul's School (or Los Angeles) can find it with only one extra click.
Arguing about the system would be interesting to be sure, but as it's already a well established naming convention, I don't think that debate belongs here. Miss Mondegreen talk  12:15, August 4 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notable Old Paulines

I just added to the list some people born in the nineteen-fifties, I hope they fit your criteria (whatever they are). I saw that Westminster is getting its famous (dead) old pupils from the Oxford DNB, which seems like a good idea. Westminster is very efficient (I'm sure SPS is, too), someone provided a citation for Judge Jeffries as one of its old boys literally within minutes of my asking. JO24--89.10.28.5 (talk) 22:31, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

The Westminster article says that he was also educated at St Paul's, so I haven't removed him from the list here. Seems fine to use that citation here, so I've removed the citation needed from the page - do add the same citation here if you feel it's necessary. -- alex.muller (talk) 00:24, 28 December 2007 (UTC))

No, it was really up to them to provide evidence, everyone else knows he went to St. Paul's. JO24--89.10.28.207 (talk) 18:54, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Editing

I've decided to try and get this article to good article status (if it isn't there already yet, that is – won't have a chance to properly go through it until this evening). I'll be following the criteria at Wikipedia:Good article criteria and please nominate it when you feel it's ready. If you can help at all, many thanks in advance. — alex.muller (talk • edits) 13:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GA fail (for now)

Glad to see someone trying for GA! I'm failing the article for now since it doesn't seem to meet the verifiability criteria for GA. A lot of sections don't have citations yet. Those will be needed. Feel free to renominate once you feel this is fixed. Wrad (talk) 02:31, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Assessment

I'm assessing this article as a B/high importance for WP Schools. The article is well written but a lot of work is now needed on referencing if you want to advance to GA status. The subjective statements (eg, "one of the top schools in the country") either need referencing or removing. Dahliarose (talk) 10:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)