User talk:AAAAA

Dr. Michael M. Krop High School

You're probably following the discussion here in VfD, but I thought I'd say the same things here, and at somewhat greater length.

I'm sorry your article was listed for VfD, but articles about high schools are always very risky.

The chance of acceptance depends a lot on how good the article is. Wikipedia:Your first article notes that: "Local-interest articles are articles about places like schools, or streets that are of interest to a relatively small number of people such as alumni or people who live nearby. There is no consensus about such articles, but some will challenge them if they include nothing that shows how the place is special and different from tens of thousands of similar places. Photographs add interest. Try to give local-interest articles local color."

For examples of very good articles about high schools, articles that survived VfD, see Moanalua High School and Montgomery Bell Academy.

The VfD discussion runs for several days before any decision is made, and the article can be improved during that period. If you think you can beef up your article by mentioning a notable alum or two, and something special, almost anything, about the school, go for it. Pretend that your audience is a fellow alumnus. When they look up the high school in Wikipedia, you want them to get a warm fuzzy and have the feeling that the article is really about their school.

Show that you really know this school.

If you don't really know this school then I'd suggest that it is much, much safer to expand one of the articles about a town you have lived in, any town you have lived in.

Most towns in the U.S. have Rambot-written articles, and few of them have any interesting details about the town. And don't worry if it has less than 1111 people; despite the note in Wikipedia:What's in, what's out the Rambot articles are a fait accompli and I don't see anyone deleting them any time soon. Wikipedia:What's in, what's out isn't really a reliable guide; it is at best policy-in-the-making. On the other hand, Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is a very reliable guide to point of policy that most Wikipedians really do agree on. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 00:29, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• You have been SUPER helpful. I will work on the article --AAAAA 01:59, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • As it happens, I am in the process of revising my vote right now and I had the VfD page open for edit. I think it's a borderline keep now, and I think you did a good job of revising the article to meet the objections of several editors. I don't think you should be viewing it as some kind of contest or battle. Try to relax, you've probably done as much with this article as you can, unless you can come up with any brainstorms. I suggest you try to avoid too much ego-involvement with this article (that's very easy to say and very hard to do!) and look for something else you can write or edit that will be non-controversial. One other suggestion to avoid VfD: when contributing a new article, wait until it is reasonably finished (say, three paragraphs) before actually creating the article. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:15, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • • Your comments and suggestions are NOTED and APPRECIATED.

• • • I've had a look at the page, and can see you've done a lot of thorough work on it, but I'm sorry to say it still doesn't make it notable for me. I'm not looking for quantity or depth of detail, more the shining light that says why this is a particularly notable school. I'll congratulate you on the thoroughness, but my opinion of the level of note needed for a school clearly differs on the fundamental level from yours. Average Earthman 12:20, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
      • You are right. There's nothing really notable about this school, yet. It's too young (only 6 years). But I think it would not hurt anybody if this and all high schools that had somebody write a thorough article on them could "stay". As mentioned in different parts of the discussion, this article is of interest to about 3,000 people every year (1,000 students and their parents). Over 20 years, it will be of interest to more than 50,000. Maybe a few of those will contribute continously to the article. I estimate that eventually Wikipedia will let High Schools "in", as it is customary for Colleges and universities. Why not start now?--AAAAA 12:29, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your message. I'm afraid that I'm keeping my vote as delete. This is not a comment on your article, you've obviously put in a lot of work, but I'm afraid that I'm not convinced that schools become notable until they're in the national media (and preferably international media). As I've said on the VfD page, I think that your info on the STAR programme would be useful merged with the Magnet school article. Perhaps you'd add info on the STAR programme to this page whether or not Dr Krop school is deleted (which it now probably won't be). --G Rutter 07:58, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Problems with High School articles

Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Your answers did not cover my questions. Please also check my comments on another article at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Alonso_High_School and the response by another user. The difficulty is granularity. To cover a 70-year old high school in the depth you are attempting here would probably amount to writing a short book on the school. And yet you have not yet named in full the current teaching staff by department.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I don't think so. A 70-year old high school would probably have NATIONAL awards, that will REPLACE the State awards currently on the article. It would probaly have Nationally or Internationally famous Ex-Alumni, that will REPLACE the local recipients of $500 grants currently on the article. It might have few instances of events that have some national interest.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I would quite like to see such material existing on the web, but possibly another project than Wikipedia would be the proper forum, just as the rambot articles, really, are not appropriate to Wikipedia though they are tolerated here. The conflict I am having is that I really think that what you are doing is probably about the best that can be done for a normal, non-notable, high school. And it's not encyclopedic because it covers only the present. (This is a problem with many articles in Wikipedia, contributed by editors fixated only on what is current.)Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I think Wikipedia is the perfect place. You are right that the school is still non-notable, but I have no doubt that with years it will have some kind of national interest (as most high schools will, I think).--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Regarding covering the present, the problem is that this school started operations in 1998 (I believe). My main source of information is the web, and it's hard to find articles about events that happened before 2003. I guess that with time that will change. Also, I guess that some students of the school will eventually read the article and contribute to it.

• What your article feels like is the beginning of a kind of web log for Dr. Michael M. Krop High School.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • The difference between a Wikipedia article and a Web Log for a school is that a Web Log would the "journal", and an article evolves (with time) to a more enciclopedic state.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• It would probably be a good thing if every high school and public school and local charity and university club and so forth had one of these.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I would not mind.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• And I would not want Wikipedia to ever become the "main" source of information in the world. (Imagine the edit conflicts! Argggh! Millions of dollars might depend on getting a single line into a Wikipedia article and making it stay there. Kids and teachers at Dr. Michael M. Krop High School in great editorial fights to insure that the entire world sees the correct viewpoint about some event happening in Dr. Michael M. Krop High School that year because on that single article depends how the world views their school. School boards would get in on the act.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • This WILL happen (if not happening right now already). The higher traffic Wikipedia gets (and it is climbing), the higher probability of this occurring. I and believe it WILL happen, eventually.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Should all A students be listed in the article on graduation?Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Maybe the limit will be the size of a Wikipedia article. Maybe these kind of lists will be deleted by average wikipedians. I don't know.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• There would be thousands of undercover Wikipedians paid to assure that what their employers want to appear is what does appear. There are suspicions that some of this is happening now.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I am pretty sure that this is happening already.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• For something comparable, did you know that reviewers for amazon.com are sometimes sent free copies of books by publishers if they will write reviews?Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I didn't know, but I am not surprised.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Fortunately, there will certainly be forks in Wikipedia's future and competing projects or partially competing projects, partly because no volunteer project could sustain the kind of pressure of being anything close to the single source of information on all topics. The pressure alone would be hideously counter-productive. Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• And mirror sites will want to mirror something different to stand out, not just Wikipedia. What value to be just another of hundreds of mirror sites showing exactly the same Wikipedia content? But part of what Wikipedia must not do now is to try to be everything. There has been for a while a split on VfD between the "every high school is notable and deserves an article" group and "most high schools are not notable". The not-notable votes have tended to be outvoted resulting in keeping of what were often only stubs which never did get fixed up and only get in the way of people searching on the web for information on a school when the same bad stub comes up again and again on Wikipedia mirrors. Currently, the tendency seems to be the other way, for the first time, I think, perhaps because it has become more and more obvious that these articles don't get cleared up and that no-one knows what good articles would be for ordinary schools. The path you are following, that of recording the news of a single school year, seems to me far too granular for the Wikipedia project, to be unsustainable, unless you intend a master article on each school with dependant articles for every school year. If so, you should indicate this.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I have no intention of writing an article on EACH school. For now, I am only interested in ONE school. But I am already working on getting other people involved, so the article keeps evolving for years to come.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• But eventually downloading of every high school yearbook into Wiki-source or a comparable project will probably happen.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Probably.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• The problem is that the issue is bigger than your article alone. What kind of encyclopedia article can one write about a normal high school that is not simply what is happening at the moment? Do we want mere lists of minutiae for every year for each high school? Yes, we do, if we want to find that minutiae. It would be helpful if this were on the web. But should it be in Wikipedia?Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • My opinion here is again that although at the beginning you get minutiae, since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, with time contributors will replace MINOR information with more important and relevant information. Some information currently in the article will survive, some will be replaced. And not every high school will include an article. I think that even now, Wikipedia contains articles that all Wikipedians until today have written because they wanted. There are many things or events in the world that probably deserve a space in Wikipedia, but no one has written about it yet. What I am saying is: If there is interest in a High School, let the interested Wikipedian write about it and don't destroy his/her work. Maybe only a few High Schools will get a Wikipedia article. Maybe many. But why should we bother about the ones that nobody has written about yet? Let the interested parties write about them.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Unfortunately, on the topic you have chosen, the excellence of what you are doing is far from the only issue. Are you producing an excellent article of a kind that should not actually be in Wikipedia but in some other more specialized project?Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Maybe, but I don't see another medium for it yet. I have contributed on different articles in Wikipedia, and just recently decided on creating an article about this school, and make it better than the school's own web site, make it informative, interesting, and of Wikipedia value. But it obviously takes time.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I, AAAAA, have copied below what Jallan wrote at the Vfd discussion in another school, for further reference.

• • I vote to delete most high school articles not just because the article is a stub but because most schools are not notable and won't ever ever generate an encyclopedia article beyond a bad stub.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Maybe bad stubs should be deleted. I would not mind. But an article with a lot of effort into it, let it live.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • Most high schools are normal high schools much like any other normal high school. People mostly neither know nor care about any of them individually. Those who care about a particular school are mostly those employed at that school or by the local Board of Education or who are attending that particular school during a few years of their lives at most. Immediate family also care while a child or sibling is attending such a school. But most don't think that their school is special or notable or stands out. That most high school articles are uniformative stubs reflects the fact that the editor writing such an article either doesn't care much or just can't make a good article from information easily available oor both. What people do care about is their own years in "high school" in general rather than about the history of the particular high school or high schools that they attended.Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • In this case, this high school produces about 1000 graduates every year. This means that about 1000 prospective students (maybe more, because some have interested but never enroll) and their parents have some interest every year. Then, they have interest during the course of the years the student is attending. Then, they have interest after graduating, because the school is always part of their personal histories. So, in this case, 3000 people become interested every year. Over the course of 20 years it is 60,000 people that have or might have interest in the school at one point in their lives. And this doesn't count the people that might have interest in the school of an ex-alumni that suddenly becomes famous and starts appearing in the media.--AAAAA 21:17, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • Notable high schools, like notable people, or notable organizations of any kind, would be those mentioned in media as being recognized for some reason other than merely existing and performing their normal, mundane functions. The repetative litany that "high schools are notable" is belayed by the substance of most Wikipedia high school articles which don't provide any reason why a particular high school is notable and often don't say much at all. An encyclopedia article should not provide only the minutiae of present day information such as the name of the current prinipal and whether a football team is doing well, all likely to be out of date even a year from now. Yet a history of a high school would be mostly nothing but such disjointed minutiae: names of principals, lists of teaching staff, awards won each year by teams or bands or clubs, average grades obtained compared to other schools, additions and renovations of the building, and so forth. Such an article would be encyclopedic. But people don't write them. Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • As mentioned before, after 20 years of starting operations, a high school would be of interest or potential interest to at least 50,000 people. And with the growth in Wikipedia an in Wikipedian numbers, I am sure that articles of high schools will eventually evolve to become more "encyclopedic"--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• • And there's no point in retaining bad stubs when it would be just as easy for a knowledgeable editor to start an article fresh. Wikipedia is not improved by bad articles that don't improve and are unlikely to improve. Jallan 19:55, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I agree. Bad stubs should probably be removed. Articles with quite a lot of work on them should remain.--AAAAA 21:16, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

User:Aaaaa

A sock puppet was masquerading as you on the VfD pages, going by the name of User:Aaaaa. I have blocked him indefinitely. RickK 05:57, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

I can only assume that they thought that they could pass their vote off as you and so it would be counted (we don't count VfD votes of sock puppets). Yes, I'm a sysop, which is why I can block people. You are not a sysop yet because you haven't been here long enough, so, no, you can't block people. RickK 06:05, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

Try to relax on the Dr. Michael M. Krop High School

At this point, you've put a lot of work into improving the article. Things are more or less out of your hands. Improving the article was a useful thing to do. Trying to answer every delete vote in the VfD discussion isn't. It won't do your cause any good; it won't do it much harm, either, but it is stressful to you and to those reading the article.

Wikipedians vary as to what they think about high schools. You are not the only one who thinks all high school articles should be kept. But not all of us do, virtually all the things that can be said about high schools have been said, and it doesn't seem to change opinions.

One thing you can do, by the way, is put the article on your own user page, or a subpage of your user page. If you're not sure how to do this, ask. Within very broad limits people can put anything they like on their user page, as long as they don't try to store dozens of megabytes or try to use it as a personal website.

By the way, whatever you do, do not create sockpuppets (multiple accounts to allow one person to give the appearance of casting several votes). Wikipedians really, really hate that. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 15:45, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• Yeah, we really hate that! Dpbsmith002 15:20, 26 Sep 2004
• We hates it, we does! Dpbsmith003 15:21, 26 Sep 2004
• You can say that again! ARealUser 15:22, 26 Sep 2004
• We hates it, we does! Dpbsmith003 15:23, 26 Sep 2004
• I'm glad I'm not a sockpuppet! CertainlyNotASockpuppet 15:24, 26 Sep 2004

BEEFSTEW, etc.

Let me repeat: don't knock yourself out. BEEFSTEW is only my personal opinion, and I've already voted keep on the article. I think it's about a 50/50 coinflip now whether the article will be kept. Your ability to affect the outcome at this point is very limited. Just take Dr. Michael M. Krop High School off your watchlist and wait and see what happens.

You are going to be very bummed out if it is deleted, and at this point if you put more work into it you'll just get more bummed out.

In Wikipedia, edits happen. If you get emotionally involved in any particular edit or article or phrasing and try to conduct a personal crusade to keep it the way you think it should be, the results will not make you happy.

Wikipedia cannot be controlled. To enjoy working on Wikipedia, you have to accept that fact that people are going to do things you don't like.

Try working on something that's a slam-dunk: for example, find an article that you know you can improve, one that you can be sure people will see your edits as improvements.

Your wiki-editing and language skills are fine, but Dr. Michael M. Krop High School is a borderline topic and there's not much you can do about it beyond what you've done.

Just my $0.02. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:14, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I agree with you 100%. However, I don't like things done half way. I HAVE to put all my effort into what I start. That's the way I am. If at the end the article gets deleted, then I guess there was nothing else I could do. I will not die or cry if that happens. At least I know I put all my effort.--AAAAA 16:26, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

My tribute to you

I hope you recognize in that last sentence my tribute to you personally. And a tip of my hat to you. ---Rednblu 22:23, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Stu Ungar image

I'm not sure that image of Stu Ungar is fair use. Several of the images on the page that is on are taken from other websites and news sources. I've contacted both him and the owner of this site where he originally took it from. I'll let you know what I hear back from them. If you have any additional information, let me know.

• You are probably right. I don't have any additional information. I stumbled upon the Stu Ungar page by pressing "Random Page". I thought it might be nicer with a picture.--AAAAA 23:11, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Incidentally, I'm currently trying to get permission to use poker photos from various places, and I'm working on poker player bios.. you may be interested in User:CryptoDerk/poker. Cheers. CryptoDerk 23:06, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

• Nice. I will check it out.--AAAAA 23:11, 26 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fluoride poisoning

I took out virtually all of this article, which read like the beginning of an anti-public fluoridation argument. Please try to make this into an article, not a position statement on a controversial topic. - DavidWBrooks 21:39, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I didn't know it was controversial. Just today somebody asked me about this issue, and I found out that there was nothing on Wikipedia, so I decided to create a stub article.
  • I will reinstate most of what I put there, but will change it in a way that doesn't look controversial. Feel free to include as much information as you can on it.

Note that somebody has changed the page into a redirect to a long, long article about water fluoridation. Wikipedia has gotten so huge that often there are articles touching on areas that we think are new - it's worth the effort to do a series of searches before creating an article, to see if it exists in a slightly different name. This wasn't a problem when I started on wikipedia, more than a year and a half ago; back then it was EASY to think of new articles! - DavidWBrooks 23:08, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fine, I'll VFD it if you insist. Rhobite 02:48, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Lori Berenson

I noticed that you've been conflicting with User:Neutrality as to whether this article should be included under Category:Terrorists. Is it just this particular inclusion that you disagree on? You've already reverted from the removal of the category several times, so it would be great if you could instead resolve this on the article's talk page. Please let's try to avoid edit wars, and not violate the three-per-day reversion rule. Thanks! Postdlf 14:49, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

• I agree with you. This should be resolved on the article's talk page. However, User:Neutrality has made NO ATTEMPT to respond to my personal messages or the postings I have made in the article talk page.--AAAAA 15:08, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Vote: Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Violence against Israelis

See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Violence against Israelis. Thank you. IZAK 11:39, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Need for support

Please see: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/IZAK. Thank you. IZAK 02:46, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Shining Path

Please see my comment at Talk:Shining Path#Recently added link: dubious description. -- Jmabel 01:11, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC) I appreciate your rapid response. So when you looked at that site, didn't it look damned unlikely for the PCE? (BTW, it might be worth some research to work out just who the Bandera Roja folk are.) -- Jmabel 01:21, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sam Spade

Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/Sam Spade

Vote "NO". Opposed to SamSpade's unfriendly views in the Jew article. IZAK 08:38, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)