Talk:Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland)

Re-assessment

I have been asked on my talk page to re-assess this article as an assessor for WikiProject Schools. Overall, a lot of attention has been put into this article, both in texts and in pictures, and it shows in the breadth and depth of the content. For importance, I'm upping this school to mid-importance given the impressive list of alumni, particularly given the school's link to Jim Henson. On the content, I would suggest re-formatting the article to have more standardised sections; see WP:WPSCH/AG#S for guidance. For example, "About Northwestern" should perhaps become "History". Some of the longer blocks of text could do with being divided into further sub-sections, for example the "Choir" and "Campus" sections, and the longest paragraphs should possibly be broken-up as well. The article could do with being more compliant with the WP:MOS, for example block capitals are not necessary in tables. For the quality scale rating, I have decided to retain the existing C-class assessment. The main problem with this article is that while references are present, it does not have enough for its length, and there are some sections which have no references at all. More references are needed for B-class, and near universal referencing are required for the article to get GA-class and beyond, which this article could certainly achieve with work. CT Cooper · talk 21:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for reassessing this article. I had no idea anyone had responded to the initial query. I, myself, will look further into the suggestions you've pointed out and see how I can comply with the recommended edits. Thanks again! --Maryland Pride ... a Wikipedia contributor (talk) 05:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Until the unencyclopedic stuff gets cleaned out, I am backing this down to a "Start"; the article stil includes some WP:WEASEL issues, and is far too unstable. When these get fixed, I think we can talk about bumping it back up. I am available for assistance if any editors request it. LonelyBeacon (talk) 20:11, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

How is this being bumped back to a start-class article when there have only been MINIMAL changes since it was reassessed to a C-Class article by no less than TWO other Wikipedia editors?? Show me a start-class article with this many citations and information available. There is way too much conflicting ideologies associate in Wiki. One group of editors will see something and thing it's A-B-C and another rogue group of editors will come by and claim it's X-Y-Z. Let's say, for the sake of argument, I or anyone else makes all of these grandiose changes proposed... another editor can come by and say that it deviated too much from where the article was going to begin with. I think I will pursue with having a mediation intervention. I'm not saying I'm 'right' and if it' determined these sweeping changes are (in fact) legitimate, I will concede and dole out the appropriate apologies. But, when I've seen other school articles on Wikipedia with (1) just as much non-cited content and (2) so-called 'unencyclopedic contact, and yet, they are rated B-Class articles, there's an issue. --Maryland Pride ... a Wikipedia contributor (talk) 16:56, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

With the instability and WP:WEASEL issues alone, I felt that a "C" was being generous. For the record, I have rated well over 1,000 school articles alone, and below "GA" it is fairly subjective. That is, two editors can certainly look at an article and rate it differently, and both be perfectly justified in their ratings. You are free to pursue any course you wish, though my suggestion (as I noted to you on my talk page) would be to pursue informal methods first such as Wikipedia:Third opinion and WP:RFC. You are also perfectly free to re-assess the article on your own.

To explain: when I arrived here, I saw what appeared to be some low grade warring taking place, and an article that, IMO (without checking edit histories), the promotional stuff looked like it had to have been added after the assessment.LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Per a request on my talk page I'm reassessing this article as C-Class. While there are still problems (weaselry and some of the unaddressed critique above), it's not on the same scale as Start.

I think that the point of the assessment scale (at least on the lower levels) isn't to reward users who have done good work, but it's also to direct the attention of editors to articles that need different levels of work. This article does not need the same sort of work as a Start article would require. C is much more appropriate. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Too detailed / lacking citations

I've added a number of templates to help focus improvement on this article in the areas that are overly detailed and/or lacking citations. Toddst1 (talk) 13:52, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

I think this was some good work. I hope it is helpful to editors in improving this article, because it seems that small amounts of help can get it up to a "B" in no time flat, and from there the focused work of getting it to GA status can begin. LonelyBeacon (talk) 14:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Reassessment (July 2012)

Following the guidelines of what constitutes a 'B-Class' article (24 January 2011 — Assessment), I have personally reassessed this article and upped it to B-Class status, based on my understanding of all things involved. I have been trying, unsuccessfully, for nearly a year or so, to have someone reassess this article. My attempts have been futile. Finally, I contacted Wikipedia in June 2012, and asked them how I could go about directly asking a Wikipedia contributor, to reassess the article. Wikipedia replied to me, TWICE, and in the final email dated June 26th, informed me that while it is possible to contact an editor directly, Wikipedia encourages me to do the editing and reassessing, myself. They provided me with several links to make sure I had brushed up on what I needed to know. Using both the guidelines for a B-Class article (provided on this talk page) and what Wikipedia directly told me, I finally got around to reviewing this article, and I have found that this article should meet the criteria for B-Class status. Further, I have also nominated the article for Good Article status, as it appears that this article also falls very closely in-line to GA status. If anyone contests this, please feel free to comment. Please keep in mind, I have tried over and over to get a third party to reassess this article, with no success. So this is not a case of being biased or not trying to follow Wikipedia guidelines. Khemistry (talk) 23:08, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Users are discouraged from re-assessing articles they have extensively edited because there is a tendency for them to overestimate the quality of their own work, and this appears to be another case of that. I don't know who "Wikipedia" is (although I assume this is referring to e-mails from OTRS), but the advise given was either incorrect or based on incomplete information - in most cases, yes, editors are encouraged to do things themselves, but greater caution should be taken on re-assessing ones own work, particularity if one has any connection to the school as a current of former employee or as a student - see WP:COI.

I must report that there are still significant issues with this article, and while it is not too far off B-class, it is a long way from GA status at this time. I am therefore downgrading it back to C-class. As for this claimed year long attempt to get the article reassessed, I'm a bit bemused to be honest on why in that time nobody left a request on my user talk page or that of any other editor at WikiProject Schools - particularly as that was what was done previously. Some assessment departments of WikiProjects are inactive, and WikiProject Maryland may be one of those. No request for re-assessment for WikiProject Schools was made until 7 July 2012, just over three weeks ago. Despite instructions saying to place requests at the bottom of the list, it was instead placed at the top possibly resulting in it being missed. The instructions at WP:WPSCH/A#AR also clearly state that only a few editors watch assessment requests (currently just two, but it has been done to one), and therefore there may be some wait for the list to be cleared, as those who keep an eye on this section have lives and so may be on holiday, doing work e.t.c. and cannot respond to assessment requests quickly.

While it is good to see many images, I always carefully scrutinize the copyright of images added to the article, as school articles tend to be copyright violation magnets, and I'm afraid I have found some issues. File:Northwestern HS Seal.jpg is a derivative work of copyright material, and therefore isn't free content and should not be on Commons (Commons only accepts free content; not non-free/fair use) - due to this I am nominating it for deletion. There may be a case for re-uploading the seal on the English Wikipedia locally under WP:NFCC however. File:The Paw Print - Northwestern High School.png and File:Northwestern Compass Yearbook.jpg are also copyright violations for the same reason, however they are not useful enough to pass the WP:NFCC. Non-free content has to uploaded under the lowest practical resolution, and File:Northwestern Logo.png is way too large as it stands - unfortunately I have been unable to re-size it correctly with the software I have. There are also other images in which there may be issues - I will leave notes on these at commons:User talk:Maryland Pride. On the upside, File:Academy of Engineering logo.jpg and File:NAF logo.jpg are text only and are therefore ineligible for copyright and can be re-tagged as {{PD-textlogo}}, then moved over to Commons. That said, I don't really see how much value these logos are to the article.

As for the article text, the school address in the infobox is over the top - the city, county, state, and country is sufficient. The infobox claims that the school has rivals - that's not unusual, but where are the sources to back this up. If there are rivalries, it should discussed in the article text - note WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI however. Also, why is the newspaper and yearbook written in bold (see WP:BOLD)? The lead contains four small paragraphs and seems incomplete, and possibly over focused on the school's achievements. The lead should introduce and summarize the entire article, see WP:LEAD.

The history and campus sections seem to fragment content on history all over the place and need re-organization - see WP:WPSCH/AG#S for guidance. The history section should take the reader through, in chronological order, the main events in the school's history to the present day. The current history section starts in 2011!? There should normally be a single campus section (although there may be a case for putting all campus content in the history section) and it should generally be from the perspective of the present from a building-by-building perspective - however how the current campus has changed over time should be discussed. That said, such a section should not be over detailed - for instance I don't think car parks deserve more than a sentence, if that. Also, comparisons to other school facilities should not be made unless third-party sources make such a comparison.

It is somewhat unusual for schools in the US to have uniform, so further discussion of the dress code would be appropriate.

The academics section needs a lot of work. "Academy of Arts, Media & Communications" and other similar sub-sections read like mini-articles taken from a leaflet. I would suggest summarizing each section in a sentence or two, integrate it with the rest of the article, and deleting the rest.

The performing arts section should probably be merged with the extra-curricular activities section. The choir may be important to the school, but the current section should be more concise, with attention given to other activities as well. The extra-curricular activities section itself contains little more than lists, and should be converted to prose and expanded where possible. The release-time/work study program, advanced placement program rankings, and Center for the Visual & Performing Arts magnet program probably don't deserve their own sections and can be summarized and merged into academics or extra-curricular activities, as appropriate.

One clear problem with this article, which was also cited as a problem in the last assessment, is poor sourcing. Some sections are devoid of sources, with the buildings and facilities section having one web link which is dead for example. For GA, pretty much everything must be sourced, and for B-class, while small gaps are acceptable, the ones in this article are too big to pass WP:BCLASS criterion one. It is particularity important that content about controversial issues (e.g. racial segregation in the Center for the Visual & Performing Arts magnet program section) or living persons (e.g. alumni) be sourced with appropriate reliable sources. The existing references could also do with tidying-up - I would suggest using citation templates, see WP:CITET, and filling in as much of the fields as possible.

The tone of some of the text is inappropriate in places. "The sub-schools are connected by a large, uniquely architectural main hallway called, the skywalk, which features a tiered three-story design." - uniquely is a peacock term. "Northwestern was planned with enhanced emphasis on athletics." and "The vocal music program has become a nationally and internationally recognized program," are also problematic for the same reason. Again, the problem would resolve itself if everything here was properly sourced rather than being from the viewpoint of the writer.

On the whole, while this article does have merit, it still has many significant issues, and so a C-class rating is appropriate. CT Cooper · talk 13:52, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I find it quite interesting that my request for a third party reassessment—where YOU were coincidentally specifically mentioned for involved—went ignored, unanswered, and disregarded, until I had to contact Wikipedia and I was given the authority to go ahead and reassess the article myself ... something I had no intentions or no desire to do. It goes to show the non-professionalism of people involved with the WikiSchools Project. I didn't read anything you wrote (other than the first paragraph) due to the fact that I am very busy at the moment, but also, as soon as I saw "Users are discouraged from re-assessing articles they have extensively edited because there is a tendency for them to overestimate the quality of their own work..." you comment was irrelevant to me.

Taken directly from several email conversations I had with actual Wikipedia personnel, I was directed to do what you, and other people from WikiProject Schools refused to do:

June 22, 2012

Dear Maryland Pride,

Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message. Thank you for contacting us regarding the dispute you encountered while editing.

You are quite welcome to join WikiProject Maryland and do the work yourself.

Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia.

Yours sincerely,
Lane Rasberry

Another email from Lane Rasberry, states:

June 26, 2012

Dear Maryland Pride,

Thank you for your email. Our response follows your message.

Wikipedia is a volunteer project and a certain culture often develops in many places on the project. When you ask someone to assess an article, you are asking a total stranger to volunteer their time for you. Outside of Wikipedia culture for most people this is a request they neither make of others nor often have made of them.

If you want to ask someone in WikiProject Maryland to spend their time volunteering for you then I can tell you how to contact editors if you like. Here is the general talk page guide. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Using_talk_pages> You can also email people directly. There is a huge list on WikiProject Maryland and you are welcome to contact any of them. If you check user contributions or the history of pages, you are more likely to find which users are active. If you check people's talk pages, you can see how they communicate with others.

When you ask for the "proper people" to assess an article, I should say that you are one of the proper people for this kind of volunteer task. Other people are more inclined to be interested in your work when you are interested in theirs and together you have common interests. People are less inclined to take requests from people who do not also contribute to Wikipedia.

I could show you the board where requests for reviews are made and if you reviewed some other articles then asked people to review your article, then that is probably the quickest way I can imagine for you to get a response. I could give other advice on how you could get started working with others.

In direct answer to your question - yes, it is easy to find people to assess your article. The qualifier to that is that just as you say, "With everything going on in my personal life", everyone else says that too, so when you make a request it is easier to do that as a collaborator than as someone who will take the labor and leave.

Do you understand Wikipedia's communication interface? Can I help you learn more about something?

Thanks for writing.

This makes everything said by CT Cooper null and void. Had you done what you are doing now, ORIGINALLY, maybe we wouldn't be having this juvenile conversation, based on a lot of ignorance and conflicting information, mostly coming from you. I hate having to do these things, since my time is precious, but it seems as if I will have to file a editing dispute claim. It's one thing for an editor to have a lot of conflicts with another editor, but their conflicts are based on actual FACTS and WIKIPEDIA policy, that may not be to my liking per se. But the things you have done — flagging photos for deletion that are totally inappropriate, as well as you informing me of so-called policies which clearly don't fall in-line with ACTUAL Wikipedia policy, based on the email transactions I've had, means that a third party is definitely needed at once. There should not be a rogue editor, making sweeping changes to Wikipedia articles, when they clearly aren't anywhere near as knowledgeable about Wikipedia policy, as they lead on. Please look for an official dispute claim to come within the next 48 hours. Thank you, kindly. --Khemistry (talk) 20:31, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

OTRS e-mails do not grant authority, and do not grant actions immunity from scrutiny by other editors. They are volunteers, generally regular editors, which answer requests for help on editing and reading Wikipedia content, and in some cases will take action to uphold the projects policies. Authority on this project derives from the community, which create the policies, and in exceptional circumstances, from the Wikimedia Foundation. I am not passing judgement on any volunteer at OTRS, since important context in the form of your responses is missing, and the e-mails were responded to in a friendly manner which is to be expected. From what I can see an attempt was made to encourage users to do things themselves, which is normal - I note there is nothing there which says "I grant authority for you to give any rating to the article you like and to personally declare null and void all other editors opinions in regards to conflict of interest and the general merit of the assessment". I actually think the volunteer was trying to say is that regular editors assess articles, not the Wikimedia Foundation, nor volunteers at OTRS as part of their duties. My time is precious as well and it takes editors a long time to review an article in detail and make suggestions on how to improve the article - I hope others editors will make use of this effort, even if you don't. In any case, I'm not sure how one can judge everything I say to be "null and void" and be a "lot of ignorance and conflicting information" when you have read only the first paragraph.

To be honest, I'm having difficulty following a lot of the above, particularity the last paragraph. I haven't touched the article, let alone made "sweeping changes". You seem to imply that you have good knowledge of policy - does that include policies such as Wikipedia:Civility and Wikipedia:No personal attacks? There are several comments above which seem to fall into a violation of the no personal attacks policy, such as "Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence. Serious accusations require serious evidence. Evidence often takes the form of diffs and links presented on wiki." I assessed the article the first time I saw your request for assessment, and I have already explained to you why your request for assessment didn't go anywhere before due to it being missed (read the second paragraph of my earlier comments), so your clear attempt to claim that I or other editors on the project "ignored" or "disregarded" your request is wrong, unjustified, and in violation of policy.

As for the images issue on Commons, I took swift action - that is appropriate when dealing with issues with legal sensitivities. I could have nominated some of your uploads for speedy deletion, disallowing you a chance to respond, but I took it to deletion requests instead to give the images a chance of being saved with clarification from you on their copyright status or under transfer to the English Wikipedia. It is a great shame that this opportunity was instead utilised to engage in abusive behaviour.

I'm not sure what's in store with this "official dispute claim". Wikipedia:Dispute resolution only covers disputes on the English Wikipedia, not Commons, and the only thing to dispute here is the article rating, and I stand by my assessment - particularly as the assessment itself has apparently not yet been read yet and no rebuttal to the justification for C-class has been provided. However, a third party could be asked to assess the article if desired. On behavioural matters, I don't think I've done anything wrong, and I have to say this would mark the first time in five years, four months of assessing school articles in which I have been "reported" for the normal non-controversial activity of responding to an assessment request. CT Cooper · talk 23:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

To Do List

Pasted from WP:DRN:

1. the school address in the infobox is over the top (city, county, state, and country is sufficient);
2. "rivalries" need to be sourced or removed as WP:SCHOOLCRUFT;  Done
3. inappropriate formatting (i.e., bolding of yearbook, newsletter) in the infobox should be removed;
4. the Lead has to be a summary of the article with less focus on the school's achievemente per WP:LEAD;
5. The history and campus sections should be rewritten per WP:WPSCH/AG to be less fragmentary;
6. Further discussion on school uniform, as this is unusual for an American school (btw, wtf);
7. Academics section needs a rewrite (besides what CT Cooper has said, I also take issue with each of the academies having logos included in the article, and, if all the points of paragraph are from the same reference, put the ref at the end, not repeatedly all the way through, and it's also way too overly finegrained, not everything needs to be listed);
8. Performing arts should be briefer, with less promotional language, and inserted into Extracurricular;
9. The language of the article needs to be more neutral; and
10. There needs to be more referencing, particularly of interesting/contentious points, and, in fact, extant referencing has to be improved too.

The above is a summary of CT Cooper's assessment above.

Once all this is done, then request a reassessment and we'll take another look (not guaranteeing that there won't be anything else). ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:07, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

School uniforms are a lot less common in the US than in many other countries, see School uniform#United States, and the current article content does somewhat reinforce that position. CT Cooper · talk 11:50, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

1. You will probably see me make many references to two specific Featured Articles on Wikipedia, from Baltimore City College High School and Stuyvesant High School. Reason being, either double standards or contradicting standards. In regards to this, I have no problem simplifying the address to what is used to be — City, County, State. My problem is, Baltimore City College's article has the exact same information found in the Northwestern article, that you are stating is "over the top." So before I make any revisions to this, could you please give me some additional insight as to why this information is acceptable on a featured article, but not in Northwestern's? Thanks in advance.
2. I have no way to source the rivalry, it's only something you'd know if you either lived in the area and/or went to the schools in question, so I will just remove the rivalries portion.
3. Again, I have to direct you to the Stuyvesant High School article. Their yearbook and newsletters section is bolded. Not to mention, the bold formatting was added by another Wikipedia editor. Before, there were no special formats. I questioned why the bolding was added, and upon looking at some official infoboxes from Wikipedia, it seems like something that is required. As with the school address issue, when further details can be provided to clear up any type of double standards, the bolding can either be removed or retained.
4. I have to once again direct you to the featured articles from both Baltimore City College and Stuyvesant High School. Both have lead-ins that are virtually identical to Northwestern's.
5. ...
6. This section used to be fairly detailed, but an editor came to the article (some time back) and basically deleted everything stated about it. The reduced it to the minimal sentence you now see.
7. Could you please elaborate what this issue is with the academy logos? I've had other editors who had issues with it, and others who didn't see the problem. What is the conflict of interest or issues with having them? They can easily be removed and requested for deletion if its indeed a problem, but I'd like further clarification as to what specifically is the problem. Also, why and how does the Academics section need to be re-written. It used to be written extremely different, but again, due to an editing conflict with several other editors, I had to extensively rework it. I based Northwestern's academics section 100% off of the academics section from Stuyvesant High School — again, a featured article.
8. ...
9. This is something I can agree on. I figured it could be an issue, but I wanted to wait until it was formally addressed. I'll work on the section and post Done when I have made the revisions.
10. ...

So I have responded to all of the issues, directly below the original comments. I hope it makes sense. I'm not sure if danjel is automatically notified of the comments, but I preemptively added your username, just in case. --Khemistry (talk) 23:31, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

I have this page on my watchlist so I can see when changes are made... :) Keeping in mind that I have a 6 month old, if you want me to not miss when you've updated, go to my talk page and write {{tb|Talk:Northwestern High School (Hyattsville, Maryland)}} down the bottom.

I've refactored what you wrote, just to make it easier to read and respond.

1. Yeah, I see that Stuyvesant HS and Baltimore CC have addresses. For the record, I disagree with those articles having that level of detail also, but that's for someone else to deal with. Just because some other article doesn't do the right thing doesn't mean that this article should either.
2. Are you sure? This probably doesn't need a first rate reliable source.. I'm sure if you could find it written down anywhere then that could be OK (let's see the ref first). My old high school has a "rivalry" with another school, which has received a little bit of notice (particularly from the alumni associations of both sides).
3. See my point in regards to #1, but I've removed it this time as it's a little more clear-cut that this is not necessary in the infobox.
4. Again, see my point in regards to #1 and #3. I'm not going to bring this up (honestly my primary interest is Australian schools), but if it needs to be discussed, raise it on the talk pages over there. If you don't get any joy, take it to WP:WPSCH.
5. ...
6. I can't find the edit that you're talking about but, I'd put the content regarding the dress code back in (with references, if necessary) and I'll take a look. I'm sure it just needs to be tweaked a little.
7. The problem with logos is that they're redundant besides the heading. The question you have to ask with images is whether it adds any informational value to the encyclopedic value to the article. Again, we're not talking about Stuyvesant HS here, but there are a couple of stark differences still between the two articles. First, logos. Second, the repetitive referencing. Third, the section goes into excessive finegrained detail that Stuyvesant HS doesn't. As CT Cooper suggested, I would summarise it down.
8. ...
9. OK, good oh.
10. ...

Keeping in mind that I was just summarising what CT Cooper had already said and putting it into a list, can we call the dispute closed? That way you can get to work without further worry. Get in touch with me if you need help on any specific issues in the article. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 09:00, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

While I appreciate Danjel's efforts to create a to-do list, my original assessment puts my recommendations in context, and hence any concerns about them should be in response to what I said in full. I should point out since this disagreement seems to be about the rating, the main thing holding this article back from B-class was criterion one of WP:BCLASS i.e. gaps in referencing. The rest of my comments were mostly general suggestions to help push the article towards GA.

On the featured article issue, I'm afraid there are somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 active editors of the English Wikipedia, and we do not act as a hive mind. We have policy and guidelines to try and create consistency, but some inconsistencies on more trivial matters like the addresses is inevitable. Featured articles are near perfect, not perfect, and are subject to editing like any other article - a few are demoted every week for falling below standards, and this should be kept in mind when reviewing them. Also, every school is different, so there are supposed to be inconistencies from that point of view - no section in one article should ever be identical with that of another article. CT Cooper · talk 12:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the input from both CT Cooper and Danjel. I'm not quite sure we can call this a close, yet, based on a few conflicts. I'd like to first start off with a statement: I personally feel as though we most likely wouldn't even be at this point we find ourselves in, now, had my initial requests for a reassessment been answered. As I stated initially, I requested no less than FOUR (4) times for the article in question to be reassessed, and those requests went ignored. It got to a point where I thought that it was just a matter that no one was assessing articles in the WikiSchools category, anymore. That obviously wasn't the case, as every time I took it upon myself to check to see what activity was being made in WikiSchools, I was seeing constant updates of school articles which had either been assessed for the first time, or reassessed. The reason I got so upset when CT Cooper came in with all of the edits and commentary and what not, was because I have been spending my time for many, many months, trying to make the Northwestern High School article a quality article that comes as close to conforming to Wikipedia's standards, as I can considering my lack of resources on a grand scheme of things. I feel that had CT Cooper (or any other other editors who frequently performs assessments) responded to me all of those months ago when the first request for a reassessment was made, I would have saved a lot of my precious time by making changes suggested to me--THEN--as opposed to making all of these revisions and editing, only to now be told there's one issue after another. I don't appreciate having my time wasted.

Next, this comment is more so directed towards Danjel. You claimed in your response #1 that "Just because some other article doesn't do the right thing doesn't mean that this article should either." I take issue with that. Reason being, the Stuyvesant article is a Featured Article. This is an article that is suggested by Wikipedia, to be used as a model for ALL editors, looking to create a quality school article. Wikipedia specifically states, and I quote: "Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Wikipedia has to offer, as determined by Wikipedia's editors. They are used by editors as examples for writing other articles. Before being listed here, articles are reviewed as featured article candidates for accuracy, neutrality, completeness, and style according to our featured article criteria." I also remember some time ago, when I first added one of the WikiSchools templates to the Northwestern article, that I can upon a help section on Wikipedia that specifically mentioned ALL EDITORS should use Stuyvesant and Baltimore City College High Schools, as examples for how a good article should be written. Following those instructions, I have heavily used those two articles for the vast majority of the editing I've done to Northwestern's articles. So I'd like to, again, ask: How is it that Wikipedia can make those statements (1) considering both of those schools are Featured Articles and (2) suggest that editors use them for examples of how to edit or create a school article... then someone else like you can basically usurp what Wikipedia says are articles that are considered well-written and proper (or else they would't be featured articles) and state that they are indeed, NOT correctly written, and essentially not be used as an example??? Again, I feel like I've had my time wasted if what you say is indeed true. This time by either you (as an editor with a conflicting viewpoint) or directly with Wikipedia. We aren't talking about a case where I erroneously created an article that followed my own rules. I took every suggestion I could which came directly from Wikipedia. Now, I feel as though I'm having to defend myself and as if I've done something wrong. I hope you aren't taking any offense towards my comments. Again, I have no issues with you, but I do have issues with the conflicting information.

Lastly, I am still at a loss. The issue now is the same issue I've had when having editing disputes in the past: Having several different opinions and not knowing who has the proper opinion to follow. Using the Academics section as an example --- there had been issues with this section in a previous editing dispute. Based on the resolution, it was determined that the Academics section should look more like the section found in Stuyvesant High School. I re-wrote the article and presented my changes. The editors in questions concluded the re-written Academics section was fine. Now, I'm hearing from Danjel and CT Cooper that the re-written section that was approved by other editors, is now not acceptable. It's way too much conflict in opinions and what's considered proper and improper. At any rate, I will remove the Academy logos and check back as often I can, to see what responses I get. I have no problems making the suggestions (or most of them) but I feel as though some of my issues should be addressed before I personally go out of my way to make any changes. Also, I looked at the list that was originally provided by CT Cooper, showing the criteria for a B-Class article. I feel as though those qualifications had pretty much been met. My own reservation was the article wasn't quite as cited as I wanted it to be, but based on the criteria checklist, it did not state the article had to be 100% cited for any claims or facts or figures. For the article to be considered a Good Article, I'm sure I'll had to provide more citations. I am working the best I can, to find more citations. It's sort of hard for a school like Northwestern, which isn't a big name school which has many articles covering things concerning the school. Thanks. --Khemistry (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

That you asked for reassessment 4 times should be irrelevant. This is a project mostly run by volunteers, and CT Cooper and I are both unpaid. I can't speak for him, but I have numerous priorities above wikipedia, including my 6 month old daughter, wife, and my actual paying work. Even playing Halo with my friends rates higher than editing on wikipedia, it's just that we're not often able to tee it up with each other. CT Cooper probably has similar "real life" demands on his time as well. We're volunteers, so if you're expecting more than a volunteer response, then... Encylopedia Britannica is somewhere else.

Your next point that the Stuyvesant article be held in such high esteem is also beside the point. The key to making a good article is following the policies and guidelines not following the example of another article that may or may not have been changed since it achieved FA status. This is from WP:WORKINPROGRESS (emphasis added):

Imagine that a featured article (FA) represents a finished article, one that does not need any further editing (this, of course, is not true, but a featured article is the closest thing Wikipedia has to a "finished" article).

An FA is not and never should be considered a finished perfect article. That an article is an "example" (from WP:Featured Articles) does not mean that said article's practices supersede guidelines and policies. As a school teacher, I will sometimes point to a student or a group of students as being "exemplary" for one reason or another, but that does not mean that I want others to completely and perfectly copy what that/those student/s do in every aspect of their schooling for-ever-more.

As an aside, this advice (that I'd like for you to take into heart) is also from WP:WORKINPROGRESS:

Rather than taking weeks and expending heaps of effort bringing one article that's merely "very good" up to "featured status", turn a hundred bad articles into good ones.

For the record, it seems that Stuyvesant might be undergoing review at some point and being dropped back from FA status, see Talk:Stuyvesant_High_School#Problems.

Lastly, and consider this a gentle rebuke, you're getting pretty close to the line in regards to WP:OWN. If your only desire here on wikipedia is to get this article to FA status, then you're going to be continually frustrated because we (the whole wikipedia community) believe that there is always likely to be something to improve. If this is your sole objective, then you're not working in concord with the community. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 09:29, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Well the thread at WP:DRN has been archived, effectivly meaning it is over unless someone starts another one, which I really don't see the need.

I have already responded to your comments about requesting re-assessment, and I'm not going to get drawn into that again - but you in short, relied on an inactive assessment department at WikiProject Maryland and you placed your request in July 2012 at WikiProject Schools in the wrong place, despite a clear note, resulting in it being missed. You previously contacted me directly to assess an article, and when you did so I responded prudently, but for some reason you decided not to this time round. Also, with due respect, I think you need to think about how other people feel as well. It took me a significant amount of time to write out a full assessment of the page, well over four times the time taken to request assessment, only to receive swift dismissal and abuse. Danjel is right on the volunteering point - on this project, we are all volunteers, and we will help and support each other where we can, but this is not a customer/employee type relationship. Abuse or unjustified criticism will not be taken lying down, and I did nothing wrong in informing you about the problems of self-assessment and re-assessing the article in full as originally requested.

On some other points, you repeatedly refer to "Wikipedia" as if it is a person or hive mind - it isn't. There are going to be inconsistencies, although like with the bolded statement in the e-mails, meaning seems to be being put into things where it is not given. Yes, FAs can be used as a basis for writing other articles - that doesn't mean use just one FA or use only FAs as the basis - policy, guidelines and other things should be looked at as well. There are plenty of reasons for this of which I have already tried to explain - no two schools are the same, so no two schools will have the same academics section, and FAs are frequently imperfect or have otherwise deteriorated, as Danjel points out. CT Cooper · talk 16:46, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback from both CT Cooper and Danjel.

Here's my take. It seems like all of the issues that the two of you are presenting, may be a large reason why I recently read an article citing how Wikipedia has lost a significant amount of volunteer editors in the last year. Wikipedia is touted as the worlds largest encyclopedia that ANYBODY can contribute to. Therein lies huge flaw. In order for ANYONE to contribute to Wikipedia, it must be assumed that MOST people are your average Joe Schmoe editor with very basic knowledge on how Wikipedia works. You must first familiarize yourself with all of the rules and guidelines that almost amount to a 500-page book of legislature written by the U.S. Congress. While there's a good amount of things that practically anyone can make sense out of an understand, there's an even larger amount of stipulations that I'm willing to wager the vast amount of people won't understand... me included. Using the photos that I uploaded that CT Cooper subsequently marked for deletion, it wasn't until I further looked into the seemingly endless array of options for licensing a photo for use on Wikipedia, that I began to somewhat understand that CT Cooper was indeed, correct, in most of his issues. So to that I will take the time to now apologize to CT Cooper for how I responded to him. Which brings me to my point: so much of that technical jargon is almost akin to things that only people with degrees and experience in law and fair use, could easily surmise. If Wikipedia wants to allow ANYONE to make edits and contributions, then it can't be expected that every editor will be able to understand all of the guidelines that comes with it. It turns into a giant headache of misunderstandings and not being able to properly comply with all the rules. That immediately would discourage me from wanting to contribute, if I'm always going to find that I'm in violation of some policy that can easily be misconstrued, overlooked, or not something that can easily be determined on what the average person knows. Several of the guidelines are akin to things that only people who have been professionally trained in the language/lingo that is used and expected of Wikipedia editors to abide by. Upon looking at the yearbook photo posted on the Baltimore City College article, for example, I found that the photo used was from a yearbook dating back to the 1960s. That was acceptable, as it fell under some guideline that—because the image was of a publication made BEFORE a certain date—it was acceptable. It didn't cross my mind to even question the relationship to that photo and mine, which is a photo from a yearbook produced a little more than a decade ago. So that one little oversight meant that, technically, my photo wasn't acceptable on Wikipedia because it didn't fall within the dates which would allow the photo to be legally used. Addressing the point that Danjel made in regards to following examples of featured articles, this is something else that allows far too much flexibility in interpretations and actual meaning. I'm not going to look at every single featured school article on Wikipedia, to decide which should be followed or not. Stuyvesant and Baltimore City College are only a handful of American school articles, which are featured. Hence, why I primarily used those two as examples. If I can't take the statements provided by Wikipedia to what can easily be perceived as its "literal meaning," then there's no point in anyone other than Wikipedia individuals who are paid and trained on editing, to contribute to the articles. I can't spend the majority of my time, assuming what is really meant or how another editor interprets policies or reading hundreds of other articles and somehow determining if my actions will take proper ideas from said articles.

Touching up on some of the points Danjel made — I am quite aware that Wikipedia editors are here on a VOLUNTARY basis. I'm not sure if I said something that insinuated I was not aware of that. In the emails that I made to Wikipedia, I started off by stating I was completely aware that people like Danjel and CT Cooper volunteer their time, and that I didn't expect you all (or anyone else) to rush to my demands on a whim. What I did state, was that I still felt it shouldn't take months and months before anything was ever done ... and in this particular case ... NOTHING was done until only after I made a visible change. Putting yourselves in my shoes, it came across as I was completely being ignored, as CT Cooper appeared less than 24 hours after my significant changes, which suggested someone was there all along and I was just being ignored. As I said, to add insult to injury, I felt that I now had to not only defend myself for actions things I didn't do purposefully to go against policies on Wikipedia — but I also felt that my voluntarily time had been wasted. Danjel isn't the only one with a life outside of Wikipedia. I contribute when I have free times and because I excel in English and I get a bit of enjoyment from writing. Going back to what I previously stated, I feel as though if my request for an assessment had been made way earlier, at lot of time on my part would have gone without waste, as CT Cooper (or anyone else involved in the project) could have pointed out violations or issues that could have been addressed in a suitable time frame BEFORE I contributed such extensive amounts of time and edits, only to be told way later that I have done a lot of things that don't properly comply to what is expected of individuals contributing to Wikipedia.

Also, Danjel, I have no thoughts or feelings that I OWN the Northwestern High School article. I would love nothing more if more people contributed to it and helped to make it a more quality article. Unfortunately, no one else has stepped up to that plate. So when I go out of my way to do what others aren't doing, and I subsequently end up going through what's happening now, I do tend to take it a bit personal. Again, please don't confuse my feelings with me being under the impression the article belongs to me.

I asked Danjel to not take any offense to what I felt was clearly stated (hence why I am basically writing books to the both of you all because I don't want there to be any confusion in what I'm trying to get across to you all), but it does seem like Danjel did get offended, despite him wording his responses in ways that said otherwise. Danjel, you stated I placed my assessment request in the wrong place... where was it supposed to go??? Looking at the assessment section on WikiProject Maryland, it states: "Requesting an assessment — If you have made significant changes to an article and would like an outside opinion on a new rating for it, please feel free to list it below." I'm not sure how many different ways a person can interpret that. It is rather vague, but I took that as "List it directly below this text telling me to list it below," to which I did. Everything else following that are just assessment logs, that you aren't supposed to alter or post in. So where exactly was I supposed to put in the request? If Wikipedia can't even make something that simple, obvious, then it just highlights my point and there's no point to any of this. I'm not sure what else can be said, other than I will soon become yet another Wikipedia editor who will just wash his hands of the whole mess, if it seems like everything has the extreme possibility of being contested due to poorly written guidelines and unreasonable expectations from contributors. There was a point in time where I literally had THREE different editors, all giving me three different ways in which I need to rewrite change I'd made to the Northwestern article. CT Cooper mentioned "...no two schools are the same, so no two schools will have the same academics section...". that's totally understandable and not something that I wasn't previously aware of, but again, this all ends up going right back to what I previously mentioned: too many ideas/opinions from too many people, and you somehow have to satisfy all parties involved. One editors tells me the Academics section is satisfactorily written, and then CT Cooper comes and says otherwise. All the while, I'm now feeling like I'm defending myself, again, because I have someone else telling me I'm wrong and I should be aware of it. I could make all the changes Danjel and CT Cooper highlight, and that doesn't mean that two months from now, some other editor can't come around and state you all had it totally wrong and there's a totally different method of changes I should have made. --Khemistry (talk) 03:43, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I'm only going to make a brief response here (in comparison with what you've said), because hopefully it'll resolve most of your worries.

The way things get done on wikipedia is through cooperative work. That's why I'm responding here, actually, because there's no benefit to me for involving myself here and I am generally disinterested in articles about schools outside Australia. So, yeah, the policy/guideline framework here at wikipedia is complex and overly bureaucratic, but we're here to help. Unfortunately, this can sometimes mean that there are competing perspectives; I likely disagree with CT Cooper on a couple of things. But, generally, throgh discussion we work it out.

I have no hard feelings about anything (except that one of my students has failed to turn in what I know is a really nicely done assignment, because I saw the drafts, and, yeah.. I'm just a bit upset), I assume that you're genuinely keen to get the work done (and we're keen to help), so we can all move on with our lives. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 04:18, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

I accept your apology. It is unfortunate in this case that the impression was conveyed that you were ignored - although from my perspective, that wasn't the case. I assessed this article as soon as I became aware an assessment had been made. If I was aware of the need for assessment earlier, I would have acted earlier - as as you say, earlier feedback is better. Yes Wikipedia has a lot of rules, particularly when dealing with copyright, and the reason I give feedback at assessments is to help users understand them - I try to use plain language but some jargon is unavoidable. I think is unlikely that anyone will come along and say I was completely wrong - there may be some disagreement on minor points, and we will just have to work those out though discussion and consensus. CT Cooper · talk 21:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Image size

The standard size for infobox images on school articles is 180-250px. Look around. Do you see any that are larger? It may not be written into policy, but it is the common practice. Do you have any reason other than WP:ILIKEIT this particular school's images should be larger? John from Idegon (talk) 23:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

WP:SCH/AG specifies that logos should generally not be larger than "about 150px". Nothing is specifically mentioned about images in the infobox, but keep in mind we write these articles for the users of Wikipedia, not each other. A significant portion of the population accesses Wikipedia on a phone or tablet that may not have the graphic processing power of a computer nowadays. I can see no reason for them to be larger on this article. Ease of access is a real good reason to keep them smaller. Uniformity is another reason. Again, what is the reason for wanting larger than normal images on this particular article? John from Idegon (talk) 00:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The general practice is to include only the school's logo in the infobox, placing any additional images in the article body, thus keeping the infobox what it is supposed to be: a very brief overview of the most important facts. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:33, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Moved from User talk:John from Idegon John from Idegon (talk) 13:55, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

You mentioned in your re-revert that you would use the Wikipedia "burden of evidence" route, if need be. The problem is, that route is for verifying RELIABLE CITATION sources, not providing evidence of a Wikipedia policy. I have purused Wikipedia and looked at several Wikischool featured articles ranging from high schools to private academies to prestigious universities. As I hinted in my revert, based on my research which included looking at the official Wikipedia Infobox Schools template, as well as looking at model Wikipedia Schools featured articles, there IS NOT a rule or policy restricting infobox schools image sizes. I have seen all types of custom sizes ranging from very small to just as large as the photos in the Northwestern High School article.

If you can provide me with a direct link to an official Wikipedia guideline or policy that explicitly states there is an infobox schools "standard" image size or "image size restriction," I'll be delighted to abide by official rules and your changes can stay. If you cannot provide this, I will revert the photos to the custom image size that looks presentable within the parameters of the article. There's a reason why image size was specifically included in the official WikiSchools Infobox Template. If there was a standard size, as you have claimed, there would not be an option to specify the size of the photo to be displayed.

Regards,

--Khemistry (talk) 06:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I would not advise reverting to the "310" version, as there is now a discussion taking place here about the subject and that would be edit warring. At this point, my "preffered" version is kinda in the middle of the 3, so let's just leave it for now, ok? I would be interested in the title of the high school (which is all WP:SCHOOLS covers--universities are covered by a seperate project with their own guidelines) "featured" article that has large pictures in the infobox. Awaiting that, I would propose a compromise version between myself and Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. Since the so-called logo of this school is so small in height in comparison to its width, I would propose leaving it at 200 and also leaving the top illustration, losing the lower one. There are plenty of illustrations of the school in the article already, but I feel the one at the top of the infobox serves well to balance the undersized height of the "logo". A side note...Wikipedia purposely does not have policy to cover each and every situation. The powers that be have felt all along that the best version of the truth will be found by reasoned discussion leading to consensus. Reasoned discussion will best occur if the participants try to answer each others arguements. I see nothing from Khemistry addressing any of my arguements. As I stated above, expecting a policy to cover this situation is somewhat unreasonable. There is not one apparently, but there is practice. John from Idegon (talk) 21:57, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

The info I'm citing can be found in most school articles in the talk section. WikiProject Schools link or an associated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Universities link. I was vague with my usage of the term "size." While there are definitely enough examples of sizes exceeding 200px, that could reinforce my standpoint, I was more so referring to logos and/or photos that were no wider that the width of the infobox. You can browse the list of Wikiproject Universities to schools with 200px-sized photos and those with larger. For WikiProject Schools, Plano Senior High School uses an actual photograph that is 270px (I believe) and while this next example is an SVG image, School for the Creative and Performing Arts uses a logo that fits the width of the infobox. Both of these schools are Featured Articles. To me, your changes only really suggest a personal preference, not something that is a policy or warranted. As long as the image isn't obtrusive or clearly disturbs the articles presentation, it doesn't seem to matter if the image used in the infobox is 200px or 400px. --Khemistry (talk) 01:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Deleted a lengthy comment I made due to misconstruing the information presented on my monitor. Apologies. --Khemistry (talk) 05:18, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

It is obtrusive. It artifically widens the infobox leaving a bunch of white space and as I stated above the bigger graphics are hard to load on a phone format device. I'm old school and prefer a computer too but we have to recognize that a sizable portion of our users access us on devices other than computers. And not to be insultive, but when someone has called you on it like I have here, you need to justify the difference in size. The only arguement you have made is an WP:otherstuffexists arguement, which is not valid. I recognize that citing common practice is somewhat the same kind of arguement, but when enough other stuff exisits, it does indicate a defacto policy. John from Idegon (talk) 19:46, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Again, it seems like this is all boiling down to your personal preference, and not a policy or general guideline violation. There have been dozens of wikipedia editors who have given their input on this article, this article has gone through official wikipedia article ratings assessment by people who are tasked to know Wikipedia guidelines like the back of their hand... you are the first and only person who has decided to make this an issue. One person's preference doesn't take precedence over another. I had specifically gone through lengthy processes that included giving me detailed instructions on what need to be done to this article, to conform to standard wikipedia article guidelines. I have not been able to get to some of the things mentioned, but your infobox issue was not one of them. I still haven't seen any real evidence from you to suggest that your gripe is anything other than a personal issue. I, on the other hand, have provided you with links to show other Wikipedia articles that have gone through the motions, have been assessed up and down by many editors, and have been deemed quality enough that they are Featured Articles. Wikipedia guidelines have stated to use feature articles are a model for all other articles. If it's okay for a featured article, it's okay for this article. I will revert the infobox images. The burden of proof lies on you to show why this is such a big deal when no one else has made it an issue, and so far, I do not feel as if it has been satisfied. If this continues to be an issues, I have no problem with you (or myself) initiating a third party editors dispute claim to get additional input. --Khemistry (talk) 04:22, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I fully concur with John from Idegon that any images that disturb the Wikipedia default size for infoboxes is intrusive and detracts from the standard practice of trying to maintain a standard appearance of all article pages across the site. That said, as the major coordinator (along with CT Cooper) of the WP:WPSCHOOL for many years, I have viewed and reviewed literally 1,000s of school articles, improved and created many, and uploaded hundreds of school logos to infoboxes, I have also gotten several school articles up to WP:GOODARTICLE status. I would not bend the standard practice to make a point, and I would never edit war to insist upon it.

This article is neither a good article nor a featured article and is unlikely to be any time soon, and if it were up for review for either of those, I as a reviewer would fail it not only, but also on the grounds of the inappropriate infobox size. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

BTW, Plano Senior High School was promoted to featured article seven years ago, and may well be worth considering a re-review to ascertain if that staus, many edits later,is still valid. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:45, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

It appeaars we have a failure to understand WP:BRD here. Maryland Pride, you are editing against consensus here and that is a serious issue. Prior to your last edit, there was, in this ongoing discussion, a consensus not to re-increase the image size. You ignored it and increased it anyway. You are refusing to engage in discussion here, instead just saying 15 different ways, WP:ILIKEIT. I have yet to see a reason from you why there should be a larger picture in the infobox than almost any article has. As Kudpung กุดผึ้ง has told you, he is the co-director of the Schools project. But guess what? I some what disagree with him over the image in the infobox question. Rational discussion will resolve that and we work side by side on many many school articles. My feeling is that an image is fine at the top of an infobox if there is no available logo. I will also sometimes add an image to the bottom of the infobox when there is a logo at the top in an article where there are no other images and the copy is long enough to fill the area next to the infobox but too short to find a good place to plant the image in the body of the article.

The "logo" on this article is quite problematic actually. Firstly, it is not a logo per se. It is more accurately termed a banner. Secondly, as I am understanding the verbiage on the upload form, the author, a participant in this discussion, took a copyrighted image and modified it and then uploaded it, claiming fair use, for use on this page. Unless someone re-wrote the copyright laws in the last few weeks, that is in and of itself a copyright violation. I have nominated it for CSD, G12. John from Idegon (talk) 15:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

BTW, in reference to Kudpung กุดผึ้ง's comments above, I have tagged the article with some areas that need work. At one time this was a "C" article. Really don't think that is the case any more. It has become very bloated with info that is only of interest to the local population and has numerous instences of WP:WEASEL/WP:PEACOCK. In addition, most of its referencing is to either the school itself or some organization connected with it. John from Idegon (talk) 15:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)