Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools

English schools in <LEA> templates

I noticed a converted effort recently to separate out academies from bog-standard comps in some of the English LEA school templates. There now seems to be a corrective swing back, with many being merged back together again. Can we agree some guidelines as to what should and should not be included as categories in these templates?Fmph (talk) 19:57, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

I favour separation. Local authority maintained schools and academy schools are managed differently so they should be listed as such. --Bob Re-born (talk) 23:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

In what sense are they managed differently? Fmph (talk) 20:27, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Deletion discussion of Carmel School Giridih

Just to let you know, Carmel School Giridih is currently being discussed for deletion here; some members of this WikiProject might like to express their views. ItsZippy ^{(talk • contributions)} 16:33, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Pupils vs Students

Please see Wikipedia_talk:Schools#Pupils_vs_Students and contribute if you have an opinion. --Bob Re-born (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Notability revisited: proposal for taskforce: Taskforce to improve US Highschool articles

See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Secondary schools should meet WP:GNG or are they exempt? for the full story.

Although the RfC about notability has not (yet) led to consensus, I my opinion we can boast progress. There is a loud and clear disagreement about what sources are suitable to prove notability. Especially the use of school websites and local newspapers is controversial. Further discussion is necessary.

Also it is now clear that any change can lead to major problems. If, and if, there comes a change in the notability rules, grandfathering seems a proper solution to ease the challenge. The risk of mass nominations and mass deletions is, in my personal opinion, an important factor in the resistance/reluctance against changes. So be it, but it should not stop the process.

In an attempt to continue making progress, I suggested a different approach: first start a taskforce to improve articles on secondary schools, and concurrently have the discussion about changes in the notability guidelines. The taskforce, nicknamed by me as "Taskforce Improve US Highschool Articles", can identify articles that might run into trouble with a change and can coordinate the effort to improve those articles. It can take months before an agreement on the guidelines is reached, time enough to improve a lot of articles and ease the effects...

Finally, I don't think I am the most suitable one to coordinate the taskforce. I stepped on a few toes here and there. The coordinator should be diplomatic enough to achieve agreement on the question what the desired level to reach is. And to get agreement on the question: how do we do that? Of course, it is just a proposal to name it "Taskforce Improve US Highschool Articles". Another scope or more then one taskforce is also possible.

So, anyone willing to take up a role as taskforce-coordinator? Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:23, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Surely it is clear by now that there is no consensus for what you are doing. Please, just drop it. -- Alarics (talk) 22:12, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Drop the stick and back away from the horse. --Bob Re-born (talk) 23:27, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I have no problem with your opposition. Sooner or later those Guidelines will be changed to bring them in line again with WP:GNG and WP:ORG. Many people are afraid that even the slightest raising of the threshold will cause mass nominations and a massacre. What I try with this taskforce is to prevent a massacre by anticipating of the inevitable change. It is a pity that you two prefer the massacre above the quality of the encyclopedia. Night of the Big Wind _talk 01:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Certainly if one reads between the lines concerns over a massacre are evident. However, that also runs in reverse, with some users being concerned that enshrining liberal guidelines will open the door to a flood of new articles. There are a lot of people which are yet to be convinced about what was proposed at WP:VPP, particularly in regards to local sourcing, and while I cannot speak for everyone, I opposed it because I think the claims that it is bringing schools in-line with the GNG are wrong, and that a blanket local sources ban is a bad policy for the encyclopedia, not just because of concerns over a "massacre" with school articles. Nothing is inevitable, and opinion could go in any direction in the future, though I hope that if a formal guideline specifically for schools is ever established, it will be well thought through, reflective of evidence, and actually have a good consensus. CT Cooper · talk 21:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Night, As elsewhere I have been bold and changed the heading in order to clarify what the topic of the conversation now is. I have followed the link given and it has taken me 95 minutes to read it, and only after 90mins did I find out what the task force was proposing to do. Several task forces were implied that could have had massive remits. The parameters are fairly limited- and restricted to US secondary schools (KS4 and KS5 in UK currency) and I agree that this is a good idea. But the heading here was far to open hence the change. This task force has merit but I can't really help as I keep my edits to the right of the pond save on rare occasions, I don't see that there is a very large pool of editors available to help. --ClemRutter (talk) 01:15, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

The USA is also out of my comfort zone, but I am willing to lend a hand to prevent disasters. Night of the Big Wind _talk 01:47, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

We are short of human resources on this project, though I am open minded towards focusing on a specific area, such as US highschools, to get the strongest output. CT Cooper · talk 21:51, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, working slowly is quick enough. Every article done, is a positive result. I was quite shocked when I started filling User:Night of the Big Wind/Schools with notability problems. The list of schools in Wyoming was much longer then expected. And I did my best to exclude as many as possible. But still I have 22 schools on the list, most of them (20) not sourced at all or only sourced by their own website. The two other are written like an advertisement according to the tag (Woods Learning Center) or is a real confusing thing what looks like a fail disambiguation page (Cowley High School. Even if the threshold is raised to "being sourced with third party sources", they are unnecessary potential victims... Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:34, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

List of schools in Bangladesh

Hi folks, I found List of schools in Bangladesh while following a vandal around. It's a mess - broken tables, typos and goofs all over the place, incorrect column headings, and it's all completely unsourced. Do you think it can be rescued, maybe between you guys and WP:WikiProject Bangladesh? ~ Kimelea (talk) 18:48, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Looking through past versions of the page, older revisions look less broke than the current one, so maybe a revert would be a good start. The older revisions are still unsourced though unfortunately. CT Cooper · talk 21:55, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Was not that bad to do, most thrash is now gone. But some further tweaking is necessary. Night of the Big Wind _talk 14:33, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the cleanup! :) ~ Kimelea (talk) 15:20, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Graag gedaan1 You're welcome! Night of the Big Wind _talk 15:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Confusion about duplication of efforts and discussions

Can somebody please explain the difference between this page and Wikipedia talk:Schools? Both seem to have the same purpose. If they do, then can we do something to keep everything in one place e.g. by moving all existing discussions onto one page (whichever is most appropriate) and setting up the other page as a redirect? --Bob Re-born (talk) 13:58, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I meant to reply, but it slipped off the radar. The problem started when Wikipedia:Schools was created in its current form as a general project space disambiguation page, after old notability proposals were moved out of the way. Since this page is watched more and is older, I have often directed users here for general schools' issues. I would suggest putting a note on the top of Wikipedia talk:Schools restricting it to discussion on the Wikipedia:Schools page itself and directing everything else here. CT Cooper · talk 19:38, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Locally notable teachers

• Context
• Talk page discussion

In my mind, this is what WP:WTAF is for. I could really use a third (and fourth and fifth) opinion, though. tedder (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

While I would prefer that notable teachers/students have an article on them, I don't think the lack of one is automatically grounds to remove them from notable teachers/alumni lists, providing that clear evidence is available that they are notable. That said, "Outstanding teachers" is not an appropriate section title, in fact the entire article seems a little promotional and could do with some trimming. CT Cooper · talk 19:49, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

WTAF might be convenient for the project and the regular editors, but it's not policy and not a very good guideline. People do not need to be WP:Notable enough for a separate article in order to be named in another article or to be included in most lists. Many individuals could be suitable encyclopedic content for a high school or locality article, without being notable enough for their own article. Even if the meet GNG or other notability guidelines, it still might be better to include them in a larger subject, especially if we don't have much other information about their lives. Dr. Whirry and the other winners of National Teacher of the Year might be good stand-alone articles--there's only one named each year--but the entry here seems appropriate as well. Mr. Fauver is only one of 16 annual Teachers of the Year named by LA County. The details show a distinguished career, but don't seem to justify a separate article. He would fit into a list of other outstanding teachers, with fewer minor details. There are far too many teacher names elsewhere in the article. The band leaders and club advisors aren't encyclopedic and shouldn't be named unless they are worth describing for some reason--State Band Leader of the Year, say. In general, I would only list the principal/head and, perhaps, the assistant principals, based simply on their existance. Everybody else needs some reason, like many winning seasons or a major award or a well-covered scandal.--Hjal (talk) 19:56, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Possibly section blanking non-encyclopedic testing statistics

Hello all, I had asked here before if insane amounts of state testing results were appropriate such as on West Perry School District, and was told no. Can't find it in the archives, unfortunately, but I had never gotten around to figuring out, with your guidance, what the best course of action to cut out all the garbage in all of these school district articles would be. I did find a few likely IP culprits, namely User:75.97.15.100 and User:70.44.160.82 which will help with identifying articles that need cleaned up. My first instinct is to just blank the "Academic Achievements" sections entirely. Several subsections are non-specific to the articles (college remediation, dual enrollment), and all of it requires an insane amount of work to keep the information current. In addition, all of the information involved could much easier just be linked to, as the bajillion references all point to two or three state department of education sites. I really want to get these cleaned up, please advise. Thanks! Search4Lancer (talk) 06:32, 3 April 2012 (UTC)