Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/School timetable

School timetable

[Hide this box] New to Articles for deletion (AfD)? Read these primers!

• How to contribute
• Introduction to deletion process
• Guide to deletion (glossary)
• Help, my article got nominated for deletion!

School timetable (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

The article is not suitable for an Encyclopaedia. Significant coverage cannot be found. Delete because Wikipedia is not a dictionary GoldenHayato (talk) 13:59, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Education and Schools. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 14:09, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• Keep There's more than adequate sourcing in the article to establish notability. The article could certainly use some improvement to make it more encyclopedic, but WP:NOTADICTIONARY is primarily an argument to be deployed in AfD when it's unlikely the article could ever be expanded past a dictionary definition. That is self-evidently not the case here. PianoDan (talk) 18:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)
• Keep – Notability is beyond established. Article cleanup is necessary (including what appears to be some copyvio), however a topic that has had competitions, research papers, recent events (all included in the article) surrounding it more than clears WP:GNG. Bgv. (talk) 21:57, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

*Delete from what I can tell the references in the article are either dead links, trivial, not even remotely about this like the links to Cheg.com and techwalla.com, or otherwise not usable for notability. So the arguments that there's adequate sourcing or that it's notability is beyond established are just laughable. In the meantime, I couldn't find anything that would establish the subjects notability and Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. --Adamant1 (talk) 04:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• Keep, passes WP:GNG, due to having significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources.

References

SailingInABathTub (talk) 17:44, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep Sources provided by SailingInABathtub establish that the subject meets GNG. Qwaiiplayer (talk) 13:53, 4 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:HEY. As I teacher, I live by them. Bearian (talk) 15:31, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:49, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I was looking over the references in the article a minute ago. From the looks of things there are 5 references that don't even use the word "timetable" and have nothing to do with them, 5 dead links, and only one reference might be even slightly related to the subject of the article. Which is no better then how the article was when it was nominated for deletion. So I'd really like the people who voted because of HEY or whatever to say how exactly that's the case. I'd also like to know how there is significant coverage in multiple reliable secondary sources about this when the sources that aren't dead links don't even have anything to do with school timetables. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:15, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep. Adamant1 is correct in the count and evaluation of the sources in the current state of the article, but according to WP:ARTN: ...if the source material exists, even very poor writing and referencing within a Wikipedia article will not decrease the subject's notability. No one is making the case that this article is well-written or sourced in its current state, but sources do exist and the subject meets GNG— even though someone needs to take a hatchet to most of the unsourced material in this piece and replace with content from the four sources provided above by SailingInABathTub, WP:HEY. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 09:37, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@Grand'mere Eugene: perhaps you missed it but Bearian voted keep based on HEY which 100% is related to the current state of the article and if it's been "improved" since the nomination. So your comment that no one is saying the article is well-written or well-sourced in its current state is simply wrong. That's literally what HEY is about "to point out that an article has been significantly improved since it was nominated for deletion." Other then that, I can't comment on the references Qwaiiplayer provided to the books since I can't access them, but I will say the PDF is a research paper by a couple of university students that ultimately has nothing to do with the subject of the article. Unless you think the article is specifically about how to create timetables, but as far as I'm aware that's not the purpose of the article or Wikipedia. To quote the PDF "First, we present a complete algorithm that guarantees fast optimal PECTP solutions for small educational institutions. Secondly, we provide a graph-theoretic framework to demonstrate how courses can be “bundled” together and treated as a single super-course." Both of those things are way out of scope of Wikipedia, let alone this article. Not to mention university essays aren't usually considered reliable sources anyway, at least not for the sake of notability. Since they aren't published. Ultimately I could really give a crap if the other references Qwaiiplayer provided are being used in the article or not, but I'd like to see some evidence that they are in-depth, direct coverage. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Delete: per WP:NOTDICT. ––FormalDude talk 15:03, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:44, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Keep. Although the article currently needs major improvements, the topic can generate quite a bit of useful encyclopedic information: What are the different ways of creating a timetable for a school, what does research show are the best ways to organize a school week, its part of enterprise resource planning issues, national timetable policies in certain countries, etc. Sda030 (talk) 17:04, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment –– Adamant1, I also initially was not able to check the 3 Google book sources provided by SailingInABathTub, but I had better luck searching on the term "timetable" for each source. Try these links instead, and maybe assume good faith?

1. How to run your school successfully

2. Teaching practice

3. School Administration and Management

4. The pdf file is not a school essay by a couple of students, but rather from the proceedings of a 2021 conference, an invited talk, and the presenters are computer science Prof. Richard Hoshino and graduate student Irene Fabris. They have used applied math (data analytics and optimization patterns) to identify the patterns and constraints that need to be considered by school admins who construct timetables. Having worked in school and university systems where scheduling was left to sometimes incompetent or clueless administrators, I found this source interesting and relevant to the subject of this WP article. Take another look. –– Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 05:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll look over them. In the meantime how is a graduate student not a student? Anyway, I'm not saying the article isn't interesting. I just don't know what can be in the article from it to give an overview of the topic since it's extremely detailed and doesn't contain any general information. I guess it would work if the article was for teacher's who deal with scheduling to read, but that's really Wikipedia's audience. The purpose of articles aren't to be manuals of niche subjects. Maybe someone besides me can summarize all the obtuse nonsense from the essay in a meaningful way that a general audience will understand though. I'm not saying it isn't possible, just not likely and still out of scope. It shouldn't really matter though if the other sources are usable. --Adamant1 (talk) 05:14, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

"How is a grad student not a student?" Well, when they publish, especially in collaboration with a professor, they are researchers. According to WP:SOURCETYPES, Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources. Conference proceedings are a notch below academic and peer-reviewed publications, but in this instance, the conference paper is being published by Springer as part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series. Virtually all secondary schools, colleges, and universities have scheduling protocols, some less successful than others. It's not a niche subject, although you may find it tediously detailed or boring. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 05:57, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't really feel like getting into a protracted discussion about this, but I think your doing some extremely heavy lifting with the word "published" in this case. Conference proceedings aren't really "published" in the way the notability guideline is using the term because often times there is no peer review process involved in presenting a research paper at a conference. I actually asked about conference papers on the reliable sources noticeboard once. If I'm remembering correctly that also seemed to be the general consensus there, that they have questionable reliability. The fact that it might be included in a book at some point is really immaterial. If anything it just shows that the paper is still a draft that hasn't been fully reviewed and vetted yet. Otherwise we could use authors signing a book deals or getting an advances for their manuscripts as reasons why un-published manuscripts are reliable sources. I'm sure you'd agree that would be a ridiculous way to do things. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:30, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Not all published conference papers have the benefit of editorial review, but this one does. I've removed quite a bit of unsourced content, and added more sources as I found them.

On a personal note, I learned at age 12 about badly constructed school timetables when I was unable to schedule 2nd year Spanish and Orchestra. The school resolved my schedule, registering me in Band, rather than orchestra, but since my instrument is the cello, I had to read the tuba music, which was in the key of C, unlike other brass instruments, and sit with tuba players, who I learned quickly had to drain spit a lot. Not saying I was permanently scarred, but my repertoire on the cello is pretty heavy with marches, and in spite of the spitting thing, I have an odd fondness for tuba music. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 22:14, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

OK. I'm sorry you had to go through that :( If only your school's administrators had access to Wikipedia and this article. "Shakes fist at sky." --Adamant1 (talk) 05:04, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, if only... then I'd only need a time machine back to 1960... Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 17:16, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

• Keep now that I've look at the book's I think there's enough references to justify keeping the article. Although it will probably be a short one, but that's fine and better then nothing. Plus, WP:THINKOFTHECHILDREN! --Adamant1 (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• STRONG KEEP per WP:HEY - Passes WP:GNG. Think of the children... Hansen Sebastian^Talk 02:56, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Keep per WP:HEY, and article is not a directory. Inspect61 (talk) 15:54, 16 March 2022 (UTC)