Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Archive 10

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Archive 10


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Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. schools)

Following a discussion at WT:NC(S), a new proposal has been created for naming conventions applying purely to United States school articles, in a attempt to more easily gain consensus for adoption. Some input from the community at WT:NC(USS) would be great. Camaron1 | Chris 17:27, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It would sure be nice to get some additional input regarding the proposed temporary standard for US schools. It would be nice to be able to start enforcing the standard while discussion continues in the parent standard covering all schools which is currently bogged down due to differences in the international community. See Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (U.S. schools)#Guide to help determine consensus Dbiel (Talk) 20:53, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

U.S. School template

I recently found Template:U.S. School when going through the stub school articles. Is this template really necessary? « FMF » 23:01, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

It may not be absolutely necessary, but it is only one of many different templates which provide relevant information about the various types of schools associated with the project. If there is a better template, please feel free to migrate the pages which use this template to another more prevalent template. Adam McCormick 23:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Can there be too many redlinks in navigation templates?

We're talking about redlinks at Template talk:Schools in Norfolk. This template has become nearly all redlinks, (like the Schools in Croydon template copied onto the page in a thread above). Dahliarose commented "This would look much better if you removed all the redundant red links." I agreed. Another user said "They are not 'redundant' redlinks, they are redlinks to articles that have yet to be created, ie for others to come along and fill in. To remove them would imply that these institutions did not exist."

The way I see it is that this is a navigation box, intended to help in navigating around Wikipedia articles, while including redlinks for all schools in Norfolk except county primary and junior schools seems to assert that they are all notable. That's a view I don't share. I should rather use redlinks in these templates only for schools which are indisputably notable, and otherwise to add schools to the template only when an article exists. But what do others think, please? Xn4 18:00, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

This topic is frequently appearing here, and I am starting to think that there should be a WikiProject Schools guideline like WP:SCH#WNTI on navigation boxes for schools. I generally think red-links should only be left in nav-boxes if it is clear that there should be an article for that school in the future; in most cases that means that there is generally no need for red links for primary schools, which is what most of the red links are in the Croyden case. I think it is better for navigation boxes to be aimed more at navigation, and less as a directory for school articles. Some nav-boxes such as Template:Educational Establishments in Guildford only include links for existing articles, and seem to work well. Camaron1 | Chris 19:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
We had a similar discussion with the template for Berkshire schools and at the time I did a survey of all the other county templates. The majority only seem to include schools which actually have articles. It's unlikely that articles will be created for all these Norfolk schools. We found with the Berkshire template that people were encouraged to create articles if they wanted their school listed and couldn't have a red link. Dahliarose 00:36, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
No one seems to be objecting, so I'd like to take the redlinks out of Norfolk. On the talk pages of the other similar templates which have redlinks, I've asked if anyone minds them being removed there, too. Xn4 02:13, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Past actions have included deleting the template, removing all schools except high schools (and other existing articles) and creating redirects to the district article. The solution will depend on the district, but leaving redlinks for schools not likely to become notable is a bad visual. Vegaswikian
Perhaps we do need a guideline. You mean deleting redlinks for all schools which aren't high schools, which I would support. I do see that sometimes there's a case for deleting the template. Xn4 17:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
Yes, remove lower level schools with red links from the template. Why? Well, it is a navigation template and hence a navigation aid. Why would you include entries that will likely never have an article? If you can't navigate to it, it should not be in a navigation template. Right now, I think consensus would support leaving in high schools, red links included. Vegaswikian 06:34, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I support the view of Dahliarose (see above) that these templates are better without any redlinks, but for me taking out all the junior school redlinks would be a move in the right direction. Xn4 06:57, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Training school

I have created the page Training school and I should welcome more content, please. It would be useful if the articles of relevant schools could also be linked. TerriersFan 00:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I have added a corresponding Training schools in England category. ~ Scribble Monkey (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Development of WikiProject Schools guidelines

Camaron1 | Chris mentions above "a WikiProject Schools guideline like WP:SCH#WNTI". I looked at that one. Although on the face of it it seems to have some authority, I noticed that in this edit Ohconfucius added to the things which the guideline says shouldn't be in school articles "Lists of extra-curricular activities available in any school". I can't think of any such activities, and I also can't find any discussion of adding this item before the edit was made. I haven't gone back into the history of the page to look at the whole development of the guideline, but I'm left wondering, can a guideline like this be amended by anyone who happens by? If so, does it have any authority? Xn4 03:49, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

It does not have any real authority, it is only to provide guidance in what should/should not be included in school articles. What is in there should have the consensus of WikiProject Schools members, if any doesn't, then I think we should think about making some changes. Camaron1 | Chris 08:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm a little gobsmacked. The guideline says firmly "School articles should specifically not include..." People seem to rely on it, and there's nothing there to say it has no real authority. Does anyone mind if I take out "Lists of extra-curricular activities available in any school"? - as I said above, I don't think there are any such activities. Also, I disagree with "Lists of subjects that would be taught in any school", as I see no objection to an outline of the school's curriculum, and that might well include subjects taught in most schools. (I doubt that there are any "subjects that would be taught in any school"). When it comes to "Lists of teachers", I can't see any objection to a list of heads and/or a list of notable teachers. Some schools, for instance, have quite a number who are notable enough to have Wikipedia articles in their own right. So I don't agree with that, though I could support "Lists of all teachers". Xn4 23:13, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
You need to consider the wider audience if you ever want any proposed guideline accepted. If you don't exclude those items, there may be a consensus of outside editors who will consider the lists as non encyclopedic under WP:NOT or other guiding principals. Vegaswikian 23:35, 26 October 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, Vegaswikian, are you saying that all extra-curricular activities should be excluded from articles? If so, that's not what the present guideline (as written by OhConfucius) says, and I'd find it helpful to see some reasoning for that. If you're suggesting that even lists of notable teachers are non-encyclopedic under WP:NOT, then I don't see anything there which supports that. If a school curriculum can be included in an article, provided that the more usual subjects are left out of it, then I'm puzzled. In any event, can someone perhaps say which are the "extra-curricular activities available in any school" and which are the "subjects that would be taught in any school"? Xn4 03:53, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It is a WikiProject guideline, not a Wikipedia content policy - and there is no template there which gives it any more authority than a essay. It is not supposed to gob smack, it was never intended to strictly ban certain content from school articles, it should be used as a guide and not a set of rules, and WP:IAR applies. The guideline is saying don't create school articles on information that could apply in nearly any school, such as The school teaches English, Maths, Science, Geography..., or people which have no notability, such as list of all people who ever attended a school, or information which is of no interest to general audience, such as where the toilets are. The guideline is not saying that notable teachers, notable former students, unique subjects and activities, and general information on a school campus should not be included in articles. It appears the guideline might need to be re-worded; though school article content has caused a lot of controversy in the past, review essays such as Wikipedia:Schoolcruft for example. If you want the guidence changed, you are free to update it yourself as needed. Camaron1 | Chris 19:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Anyone who reads WP:SCH#WNTI will see it reads very like a rule aiming to ban certain content from school articles, so it seems that impression needs taking out of it? Looking at some detail, it says "School articles should specifically not include Lists of teachers." I think you're agreeing (when you say "the guideline might need to be re-worded") that that's too categorical? In your post above what follows "The guideline is saying..." doesn't seem to me to be a reading of it. For instance, English doesn't strike me as a "subject which would be taught in any school". And when we come to the "extra-curricular activities available in any school", I'm afraid I still can't think of any. Regards, Xn4 03:38, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
The list was originally started after an earlier discussion on this talk page. However, there doesn't seem to have been any subsequent discussion to justify the inclusion of these additional items so I've now removed them. The subjects taught and the extracurricular activities will vary from school to school and from country to country so I don't quite understand the reason for including these two items. I've also added the word 'current' to the section on teachers. Lists of notable teachers can sometimes be justified but I believe what we were trying to avoid was a complete list of all the current staff at the school, which is impossible to maintain and which is in any case more appropriate in a directory than an encyclopaedia. It does state at the top of the page that these are recommendations and editors are not obliged to follow them. Dahliarose 16:51, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
What is trying to be avoided here is generally uninformative lists - and subjects and extra-curricular activities do apply here as well. The above is a interpretation of the spirit of WNTI, not a reading of it. Most schools with articles on Wikipedia are general schools, so stating a list saying they teach the central subjects <<place native language here>>, maths, science is usually uninformative - these do not generally vary worldwide. General schools often give similar extra-curricular activities as well, such as some form of PE, so again simple lists are uninformative. What is better is mentions of subjects, extra-curricular activities, if notable teachers, in prose with a bit of context to a individual school - not banning them from school articles. I agree with the changes made to this section, and I have made clear what this section is saying overall. Camaron1 | Chris 17:48, 28 October 2007 (UTC)
Many thanks, all. I'm a lot happier with this guideline now. Xn4 02:16, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

[de-indented]

  • Well, it would seem that an amendment I made to the guideline has caused some controversy, so please allow me to explain: It was only after navigating through quite a few school articles (Singapore in particular) that I noticed there were often cases where editors have listed every subject under the sun, whether as study subjects or ECAs. Although some have said above they cannot think of any such which should not be listed, please see here and here, for example of laundry lists I have removed; for ECAs and CCAs, please see here and here. Also, consider this: What is the point in listing traditional "core subjects" studied at a school, such as history, geography, science, mathematics, [native] language, [foreign] language, PE; or "traditional" ECA such as [foot]ball, swimming, athletics, martial arts, scouts, Duke of Edinburgh Award group? Surely, these are what defines "school". Long lists of this sort add no encyclopaedic value, and would fall within the scope of WP:LAUNDRY. If we were to use the biography of a person as an analogy: this would be akin to saying the subject was a bipedal mammal capable of speech born in [Place] on [date] with fingers toes, arms, legs, ears, eyes, nose head. Should common sense not prevail, even in the absence of explicit policy or guideline? Also, other editors have contested this edit and this edit, both of which I feel to be a valid removals, even per the guideline as it stands. FYI, discussions relating to the contested edits have been taking place on my talk page. In summary, I am saying that the mention perhaps does need to be made explicit. Ohconfucius 01:47, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

In my experience, the argument "Should common sense not prevail?" quite often takes the place of a fully reasoned approach. Let's look at WP:LAUNDRY, which is relied on here. It defines 'laundry list' as "a lengthy item by item enumeration, of items, typically in "bullet point" format, often of minutiae." That’s very specific, and I'm happy to agree with it, but it doesn't justify the removal from a school article of the subjects taught in a school, which are often critical to understanding the school's nature, nor the removing of extra-curricular activities - the absence of which, in some cases, has even been criticised by GA assessors. WP:LAUNDRY also relies on the words "lengthy" and "minutiae", whereas a sentence or two outlining the school's curriculum and its extra curricular activities can be fairly short and far from trivial. WP:LAUNDRY even continues "The goal of Wikiproject:Laundromat is to scrub laundry lists from articles when they detract from an article's usefulness, and salvage usable content from those laundry lists into readable, encyclopedic text". Yes, indeed, there's no need to say that Admiral Nelson was "a bipedal mammal", but if we were to leave people to suppose that he had two eyes, that would be a mistake, as he lost one of them. We also need to describe his character, his history, and his achievements. You say "[foot]ball, swimming, athletics, martial arts, scouts, Duke of Edinburgh Award group... are what defines 'school'", but is that correct, Ohconfucius? A great many schools in the world don't have a single one of those activities. Only a minority of schools, even in the UK, have a Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme. Indeed, many schools have compulsory sports as part of their curriculum, while there are others which have no sports at all. Xn4 08:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is the format rather than the content. I agree that lists of subjects taught in a school and lists of extra-curricular activities with no prose content are uninformative to the reader. I personally think it's preferable to leave the contents of the lists intact, at least for the schools in non-English-speaking countries, to allow the potential for expansion. I agree that the list of extra-curricular activities in the Anglican High School article which OhConfucius deleted was perhaps somewhat excessive. However, the solution is to expand the list rather than delete the entire contents. The list included such activities as Wu Shu, Chinese Drama, and Chinese Orchestra, hardly activities offered in every school in the world, let alone in Singapore. (Does anyone even know what Wu Shu is?) Similarly Hai Sing Catholic School previously included in its list of subjects Basic Chinese, Basic Malay and Basic Tamil. I don't know what subjects are taught in schools in Singapore but this seems to me to be basic core content for a school article and should not have been removed. Common sense should indeed prevail. Dahliarose 10:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I generally agree with Dahliarose that the format is more the problem, not the content. I think it is best to just encourage people to convert lists into prose and add more detail and context. There is in fact specific tags available for this - such as {{Prose}} and {{Trivia}}. Camaron1 | Chris 19:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I have always found that the fundamental definition of what a school is comes from the ECA's that it has, regardless of how common they are. I don't think that any person describing a High school in West Texas would fail to talk about football as the most notable thing about the school. There are similar followings for almost any activity you'd care to mention. The issue seems to be that for those of us who read vast numbers of School articles, we see how much of them are similar and we say "Oh that's on every article I read, it should be removed" but we don't seem to realize that the rest of the worlds interaction with these articles is tangential. they may read one or two of the articles, and none of the rest. As such, any notable piece of information including activities and curricula are of vital importance to these articles, and I think removing them is short-sighted. These lists can be grown into full-fledged sections, and I don't think anyone would argue that a good article shouldn't cover them. Adam McCormick 22:38, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
  • When we see lists in wikipedia, we are never likely to know that it is genuinely exhaustive or in tiny or excessive detail. That is perhaps why WP:LAUNDRY states "often of minutiae". Thus, without arguing semantics, any long bullet pointed list would be considered a laundry list. I'm all for turning sterile laundry lists into prose. But it isn't simply down to format: what is unacceptable as a list would still be unacceptable if all one has done is to merely replace the formatting '*' with a comma in the articles. It still should still be meaningful prose; about why football is special in a particular school, or that 60% of students at the school take GCSE Latin unlike other schools, or how many inter-school tournaments the school swimming team has won, or that it has won the under 16 archery championship nine times. I have seen school articles which mention the main curriculum subjects or sporting achievements, but go on to say "other subjects/activities include... and go into a whole paragraph exhaustively listing same without any attempt at being selective or by attempting to group these into categories (e.g. "and martial arts such as taekwondo and kendo"). That is what I find objectionable and feel diminishes wikipedia's value. The fact that a school has a comic-book club is worth zilch if all the members do is sit around and read comics, but quite different if it is a breeding ground for writers and illustrators (as attested by alumni). I am not insisting that there be no mention of activities or curriculum items. Far from it, it is true that a school is the sum of these parts, and I hope editors would make their case for each activity within the article. Ohconfucius 01:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
With all due respect, I can't agree that "any long bullet pointed list would be considered a laundry list" - that doesn't fit the description at WP:LAUNDRY and is a reductio ad absurdum. The whole point of the title 'laundry list' is that the content has no encyclopaedic value, like a list of someone's laundry. A list containing valuable information, however long, can't be treated as a 'laundry list'. The obvious exception to the claim that a laundry list is "any long bullet pointed list" is a long list of notable alumni, which many school articles have, but there are all kinds of others, such as lists of heads. The real issue with long lists which contain valuable information is that they shouldn't be left to clutter up the main page, so they often need to be moved to a separate article called List of..., such as List of Old Wykehamists or List of headmasters at Eton College. Xn4 20:02, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I see no reason for instance why the list of subjects and extra-curricular activities should have been removed from the article on Cedar Girls' Secondary School. The deleted content was in fact one of the few things which actually told the reader anything about the school. The subjects taught and the extra-curricular activities do at least give you some sense of the ethos of the school. The content which should have been deleted was all the boring stuff about the school uniform and the school song. We don't need to know that "The school's PE shirt is yellow with a collar" but we do need to know about the school's curriculum. The best solution is, as Camaron suggested, to add the prose tag. Dahliarose 20:31, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Nelsen Middle School

I've just created this, similar to other middle school entries, and it's been immediately tagged for deletion. Any suggestions as how to fix this? --Bachcell 05:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Middle Schools are not considered inherently notable so for the page to survive you need to establish notability. A couple of references have been added but these need incorporating into the article. You could also include this. Do a Google search and find athletics championship wins, notable alumni, academic achievements, ... HTH TerriersFan 16:00, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Issue with alumni lists

I was just wanting WikiProject Schools thoughts on this issue. Could you please comment on that particular talk page in question, Thank you. Twenty Years 09:57, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

There's some quite detailed advice in the guideline at WikiProjectSchools - Separate alumni page, though from the thread above under the header Development of WikiProject Schools guidelines it seems it doesn't have the force of a rule. I've drawn attention to it on the page linked by Twenty Years. Xn4 02:19, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

New essay

There have been a number of essays created which are relevant to school articles, these include Wikipedia:Schoolcruft and Wikipedia:Cruftcruft, and I have now created another one called Wikipedia:Potential, not just current state. It is written for general articles - but many of its concepts apply to school articles, and many of the ideas expressed in it have originated from contributers to this project. Feel free to add to it, and if necessary leave comments on the talk page. Camaron1 | Chris 20:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Infobox School II

Template:Infobox School II has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. — « FMF » 19:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Template confusion

Ok, so am I reading this correctly that for a new infobox for a US high school, I should use {{Infobox Education in the United States}} instead of {{Infobox School}}? If so, can somebody add a note to the template section to reduce confusion?--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 18:39, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Canadian schools in AfD

A large number of Canadian schools have been nominated for deletion en masse. Quite a few are elementary schools and are probably beyond redemption. There are however quite a few secondary schools which are at risk of deletion. If anyone has an interest in Canadian schools perhaps they might like to comment. The discussions can be accessed on the following page:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Beaver Creek Elementary School. Dahliarose 15:50, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Wider issues

This AFD simply is not workable, with so many school articles been nominated with many been quite different from the others, it very difficult to go through each article individually and research its potential. This AFD ultimately highlights wider problems with the deletion process and school articles - such as a lack of a guideline on school notability, which results in a lot of repetitive AFDs (such as those on secondary schools) that rarely reach consensus for deletion. Another problem is the large amount of AFDs been created on elementary schools in general where a simple non-controversial merge/re-direct was a good alternative. In addition, many school articles are been deleted with no mention of them in the local town/district article. Schools are part of a local area and I think it is within the scope of this project to give a bit of encyclopedic information on them in relevant town/district articles, even if they are not notable enough for their own article.

I am not sure how many of these issues can be dealt with; as I see it there are two main things that could be done that will help:

  1. Create a accepted guideline at Wikipedia:Schools on school notability to follow at AFDs.
  2. Create some kind of task force dedicated to dealing with and creating more collaboration on issues in the area of schools not been notable enough for a individual article. Tasks would include mentioning non-notable schools in articles with a wider scope, merging and re-directing non-notable school articles, and even combining non-notable school articles to create pages such as Education in X place. I am suggesting this as although it is not a core part of this project, it is relevant and does not seem to be a minor problem.

Out of these two idea, I think only number two is likely to be successful any time soon. Any thoughts? Camaron1 | Chris 21:12, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

It is an excellent idea to merge non-notable schools into the appropriate location/school district article or equivalent. I wonder if we could write some sort of formal acknowledgement that this is the appropriate course of action and then we can all do this as and when we come across such articles. There seems to be an ongoing mass clearout of primary/elementary schools and it would be much better to take pre-emptive action now. Appropriate searches should be done before taking any such action to ensure that the school is not notable and isn't for instance a listed building. I don't think there's any hope of resurrecting the Wikipedia:Schools guideline unless the people who previously insisted that all schools are inherently notable concede that in practice (as is happening now) schools have to abide by the existing WP:N guideline. I wonder if we could instead create a page on "How to stop your school article from being deleted?". I'm not sure that people are aware that with the Proposed Delection (PROD) process, an article can be summarily deleted in five days if there are no objections. Dahliarose 00:15, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I like the idea of a written process, possibly through a taskforce. It would give AfD regulars something to point to whenever schools come up, rather than waste their time with repetitive discussion and force people here to frantically look for information to fill out the article. I agree that idea number one would be tricky to get a wide agreement on...I think that outlining a merging process would make idea number one more doable as there would be an alternative to "keep entire article" and "delete all the information". --Hebisddave 14:55, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Option 1 is still ultimately the best solution, and I do not think we should give up on it, although to be realistic no school notability guideline will ever be accepted in the short term. The problem is with no guideline on schools, there is a very wide spectrum of opinion on interpretation of existing guidelines - varying from "All schools are notable" to "Only nationally significant schools are notable". Hence, every school article AFD participant has to start from scratch when it comes to arguing a case for/against deletion. This has resulted in people labelling the situation as "a problem caused by the "school/deletion lobby" that systematically tries to keep/delete every school". A school notability guideline proposal would have the best chance of passing if it stuck strictly to the centre ground which currently seems to be "High/secondary schools are generally notable, elementary/primary schools are generally not notable". However, even this proposal could well be shot down by the notable users that think "All schools are notable", as well as those that think "Only nationally significant schools are notable". This can be illustrated in recent school AFDs where WP:OUTCOMES was used to justify arguments, this caused outrage among some users.
So I do like the idea of creating a page, possibly with a task force, giving guidance on how to deal with non-school articles and suggesting alternatives to keeping and deleting such as merging and re-directing. It would help new users and give a basis to taking action without needing to create a guideline. It would also help pre-emptivley prevent the large amount of school AFD nominations been made which are generally not necessary and only serve to clutter up the AFD process, plus further mass nominations of nearly all schools within a district which can cause complex situations. Camaron1 | Chris 19:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Task Force

I was bold: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools/ArticleGuidelines. If I was too bold, let me know. Feel free to change it as you like, of course. I have no experience with creating such a page and no personal attachment to its contents :) --Hebisddave 16:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I've had a go at amending the page to reflect what I think is the current situation, ie, all schools have to satisfy WP:N. I've also changed the terminology to reflect usage in countries other than the US. Dahliarose 18:13, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
Great work, I have made a few standard changes so the page can fit into the rest of the project. Camaron1 | Chris 20:40, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
I did some revising. If the school does not warrant an article we need to make it clear that information about the school is encouraged in either a district article or locality article. So I combined two sections into one since they are really about the issue and how to solve it. Vegaswikian 23:18, 14 November 2007 (UTC)