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Some options

Note: I moved this from within the above section to a new section for discussion.
  • A couple of thoughts on the above. I believe it is worth distinguishing the practicality of allowing articles to be created on schools from the practicality of creating a bot to generate stub articles. The former is, in my opinion, to be encouraged. The latter probably should not be (though the line is hard to draw). We should also distinguish between "verifiability" and "fully cited". If we presume that the existence and basic facts about any school could easily be verified, that is enough to keep an article, even if the original contributor hasn't actually done so. Providing sources falls under the process of article improvement, not article deletion. Deleting an article is NOT the proper way to deal with poor editing. Deletion is for articles that could never be improved to meet WP standards. That leaves us a choice between the following:

Choices

  1. All schools are notable and should have articles generated about them as soon as possible.
  2. All schools are notable enough for articles and therefore articles submitted about schools should be improved, not deleted.
  3. All schools are notable enough for articles, but until those articles are improved beyond stub status, with cited sources, the article should redirect to the school district and any information merged there.
  4. Many schools are notable enough for articles, but they must meet some minimum criteria, backed up by verifiable sources, in order to have a separate article. Otherwise they should be redirected to a section in an article on their school district or community.
  5. Many schools are notable enough for inclusion, but only notable schools with well-written encyclopedic entries should have their own articles. Otherwise they should be redirected to a section in an article on their school district or community.
  6. Grade schools (by which I mean grades K-12) are only notable enough for their own articles if they can demonstrate true notability in and of themselves (not by association with famous graduates or events, but through their own institutional achievements and history). Most schools should not even exist as a redirect unless something more than their existence is explained in another article, such as one on their school district or community.

Comments

Of these, I would count myself as supporting either the second or third option. Only the last option calls for going through the deletion process, and is, in my view, rather extreme given the usual comparisons to articles on Pokemon, reality show contestants, sitcom episodes, etc. --Dystopos 23:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
I more tend to be toward 6, at the very least (though remove "grade" from "schools", it is nowhere near universally accepted that all high schools are notable either.) I guess that shows the nature of the divide here... Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:42, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I would support a policy based on either the fourth or fifth option. What is a grade school? Dahliarose 09:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I just looked that up, it appears that it's sometimes used to mean all pre-college schooling, but it's also frequently used to refer only to elementary schools. (That's the only way I'd ever heard it to date!) Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 10:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm using grade school to mean K-12 (I added a parenthetical note above). --Dystopos 18:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Combine 2 and 3, i'd support that. I would also support 4 and maybe 5 if somthing was deed to them about not deleting them but rather improving them. KeepOnTruckin Complain to me | my work here 23:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I could be happy anywhere from 3-5, provided the tone is welcoming. I strongly prefer redirects to articles, not to sections, because only then is the reader is given the friendly redirected message. SmokeyJoe 23:25, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Somewhere between 4 and 5, I'd say. In fact, 5 is just about ideal, minus the "well-written" part -- an article that's not well-written but does have sources can still stand on its own. It's just a matter of copyediting. As a practical matter, I'd accept 4... but 4 is a minimum. If there aren't verifiable sources, the article should not exist, period. That's a very minimal standard to meet, and it's also Wikipedia policy, so anything less is simply not acceptable. Unless, of course, policy should change. Shimeru 08:33, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, since 4 seems about the center, why not do that, with redirects provided to a parent locality until/unless sourcing is established? Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 09:13, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
That's fine by me. I think again we need to strive for international clarity. I presume school districts only exist in America. In the UK we have local education authorities but I don't think there are any UK articles about individual LEAs. Schools would normally be mentioned in an article on the town or village in which the school resides. There are again no UK articles about "communities". A grade school seems to be the American word for primary school but as far as I can establish K-12 seems to cover both primary and secondary education. I full support number 6 if it refers to primary schools. Dahliarose 09:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
Regarding internationalization, I wouldn't presume to have an entirely new class of articles created merely to handle redirects from former school stubs. I am using the terms "district" and "community" in the loosest possible sense, to refer to whatever article would likely contain information about a number of related schools. This could also be an association, denomination, village, town, zone, county, parish, shire, canton, prefect, ward, league, etc. --Dystopos 13:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
This is a good point. There should be no need to create that many new articles -- only in cases where the locality articles are already lengthy and well-developed, such that splitting would be preferable to adding new content. Phrasing is tricky, though. Maybe use "community" and footnote something to the effect of your last sentence. In general, I think a more specific article (school district) should be preferred as a target to a more general one (town), in cases where both articles exist. Shimeru 07:15, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Accepting the current version

Given that the current version is about as close as I think we are going to ever get to having a consensus and given that whatever end result we have is unlikely to satisfy everyone, who would be in favor of accepting it as is? JoshuaZ 19:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, I would be opposed to this. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose It seems premature to (a) validate that this merits a separate guideline as it is substantially a restatement of [WP:NOTE], (2) I don't see any consensus yet on the scope of the guideline, and (3) there is still a lot of excess material here better off discussed in an essay. --Kevin Murray 19:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
    • The reason it is a restatement of WP:N is because someone edited the barely useful version we already had, and turned everything into a footnote, thus justifying your statement using your own edits. See this link for a summary of your turning WP:SCHOOLS into WP:N. I would be more than happy to revert your changes if that removes your own objection. Alansohn 20:29, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, in distilling the fluff from the text, it becomes more apparent that schools are not a special case requiring a separate guideine. Over-wording does not make something more "useful" or justify it as a separate guideline. --Kevin Murray 20:37, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • No request was made for a reversion. This was spiteful at best. This has been thoroughly discussed above without abjection to condensing the text. Try to build a consensus to add more if you can or wish. --Kevin Murray 20:49, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Claims of spite are a personal attack and will not be tolerated. There has been no discussion that says convert the WP:SCHOOLS proposal to a pale version of WP:N with footnotes. It just doesn't exists. Support it, and soon, or the non-consensus changes will be reverted again. Alansohn 20:56, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Alan, let's try to work togehter as I think that we only disagree on the details, not the big picture based on what you have written above. --Kevin Murray 21:54, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Opposefor reasons previously given. I agree with Dystopos, I support a guideline that contains no special criteria (existing policies suffice), but is basically an essay on how to improve school articles. The current content can be used to describe a good school article. SmokeyJoe 07:15, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Oppose, we've got enough subarticles of what's supposed to be the main point here-WP:N. If I'd suggest anything, it would be to merge all the subtopics of WP:N to that page as suggestions when something is likely to be notable. Far too much of this is getting lawyered over and construed as exceptions to secondary sourcing. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 07:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)


Content consensus

  • It looks like the attempt at brevity has brought on an edit war, which can only lead down an unproductive road. I suggest that we discuss this a little more to see whether those who reverted my work having the backing of consensus. I tried to get the ball rolling and am not trying to protect a specific wording, just a simpler wording, which could remain here or be consolidated elsewhere. --Kevin Murray 21:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Per Alansohn's comments above, his actions here are almost a "poison pill" to keep this guideline artificially complicated in order to prevent a "hostile merger." We need to keep our eyes on the ball here; this should be about what is best for WP not defending a kingdom or WP:CREEP. --Kevin Murray 21:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • The version which I posted this morning, which was reverted is now posted at Wikipedia:Schools/compromise, where we can fine tune my proposed compromise wording. I tried to reflect the comments made above in opposition to my original draft. I moved the old paragraphs to footnotes verbatim. --Kevin Murray 22:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think we had reached any consensus on the re-wording. I thought we were going to postpone any further debate until the outcome of the WP:N guidelines had been resolved. It might still need some work but if you over-simplify it you take away all the meaning. Dahliarose 23:14, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Dahlia, you had proposed postponing further debate, but it still continued and this morning someone called for adopting this as a guideline. I don't think this indicates widespread support for postponing. Please look at the version which I posted this morning before it was reverted. That is an attempt to compromise, but I would be open to any suggestions. I did not believe that you opposed condensing, but had problems with the specifics of the language. --Kevin Murray 23:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I've looked at both versions but I feel our original longer version is more specific and less ambiguous and I would prefer to maintain the status quo as I thought we were making some progress though I agree that it is still somewhat cumbersome. If you over-simplify the guideline we might as well not have one at all. We certainly don't want to go back to having two separate proposals running at the same time as we had before. If Alansohn's happy to maintain the existing wording then so am I. At least we agree on something! Dahliarose 00:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • OK, here is another attempt at condensing without over simplifying:

Present text:

(2) The school has gained national recognition for its curriculum or program of instruction, or for its success at the national level in extracurricular activities such as art or athletics. For example, the school has been recognized with a notable national award, has won a science competition at the national level, or its athletic teams hold a nationwide record. Or, the school has gained recognition at the regional level on more than one occasion or in multiple such areas.
(3) The school has gained national recognition by virtue of its architecture or history. For example, the buildings used by some English schools have been classified by English Heritage as listed buildings and are included on the Images of England website, while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Many schools have published histories. Details will be found in one of the online catalogues such as Worldcat or, for UK schools, COPAC.

Condensed text:

The school is assumed to be notable if it has gained national recognition for its curriculum, extracurricular activities, architecture or history. Or, the school has gained recognition at the regional level on more than one occasion. For example:
  • the school has been recognized with a notable national award,
  • has won a science competition at the national level,
  • its athletic teams hold a nationwide record.
  • the buildings used by some English schools have been classified by English Heritage while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  • Many schools have published histories. Details will be found in one of the online catalogues such as Worldcat or, for UK schools, COPAC.

--Kevin Murray 00:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Additional notability criterion - alumni

  • One obvious omission from the current notability criteria (as far as I know) is eminent alumni. This should be rectified. If an important person merits a biography in Who's Who or multiple internet articles (or even Wikipedia?) which states they were educated at school X, then that school becomes notable. Apart from anything else, their Wiki biography should have a hyperlink to the school - obviously impossible if the school article itself is suppressed! Hyperman 42 22:17, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Hyper, I'm pretty inclusion minded (I think), but this opens the door to notability for parents, employers, etc who are thus related to a notable person. There are some precedents such as an author being notable if one of his books is notable, but the work of an author is exclusively his, where the alumni of a school are the result of several schools and other experiences. I still say that each subject can only be notable if there is enough acceptable source material to write a sufficient article. --Kevin Murray 22:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I would tend to disagree to the "notable alumni" criterion as well. Because John Doe, who is now a superstar, worked at a local restaurant while a teenager, does not make that restaurant notable. Similarly, having stepped foot in a given school doesn't mean that school is notable. Notability doesn't "rub off" or transfer. Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 05:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Perhaps not automatically, but I think people have grown to accept that if George Washington slept somewhere, that it's worth having a plaque to tout it, even though his stop may have been necessitated by convenience (or fiction) rather than by a judicious survey of all possibly noteworthy inns. I think you're correct to say that it is not an automatic transfer of notability, though one would mention notable alumni in an article. I would also say that it is feasible that if, say, a Nobel winner spoke glowingly about the extraordinary climate of her high school science laboratory, that the endorsement would carry some weight toward notability even though the subsequent 30 years of research made a more verifiable impact on her achievement. --06:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm sure that there are some alumni of a school whose future success (and Wikipedia notability) is utterly unconnected to their attendance at the school. Yet for most alumni -- especially athletes, actors, politicians, comedians, Nobel Prize recipients, etc., at the high school and college level -- their attendance and participation in school activities was an integral factor in shaping their future notability and are inherently interconnected. I would say that this is near automatic at the high school and college level, while requiring greater documentation below that. As such, the attendance of notables at the school would be a strong indication of notability for the school itself. Alansohn 17:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I don't think that this is the time to have a nature vs. nurture debate, and I certainly agree that parents play a major role in shaping their children. Schools are designated by society to have the role of molding children in many of the aspects that may confer notability to an individual, in many cases in academic and athletic areas where most parents are unable to provide the same guidance and instruction as most schools can and do. A parent who is notable for shaping their child's notability is exceptional, and would probably only be signicant if the parent did so for two or more children. An excellent example of a notable parent would be Richard Williams (tennis), whose notability is directly related to his being father of tennis professionals Serena and Venus. For a majority of notables, again especially athletes, actors, politicians, comedians, Nobel Prize recipients, etc., at the high school and college level, it is hard to argue that the school played no role whatsoever in shaping their future notability, and far easier to argue that it had an integral role, despite any parental contribution form either genetic or developmental input. On top of its inherent claim of notability as a school, a single notable alumnus should tip the scales of notability for a school article. Just as with Richard Williams, a school that has done so for two or more notables has an extremely strong claim of notablity. Alansohn 03:23, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
  • Parents are mentioned in articles about their children, as are spouses and children of "notable people." The Biography template has places to enter all three of those sets of facts. It seems to be agreed that a close relationship to a "notable person" does not make another person notable. But what if somebody has two or three "notable" children? I think that an article about Jolie Gabor would belong here, even if all of the facts had to be gathered from publications about her daughters that only mentioned her in passing. Suppose a couple had 20 or 30 "notable" children? Major league ball players, famous comics and actresses, infamous founders of Satanic churches, senior officials of Communist front groups, jazz and rock stars, librarians? I would certainly write them up just for having managed that. I don't know any parents like that, but I've put a list of those people in my high school's article under Notable alumni. While researching one All American athlete on the list, I found out that Roy "Wrong-way" Riegels was his high school football coach. Now, anybody who looks at any of the three related articles (player, coach, high school) can find out the same thing, which seems to me what this place is all about. Whether you think that notable alumni make their school notable or not, they certainly belong in the article, or in a related list.--Hjal 03:40, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Clarification of positions

It seems that over the course of discussing all of the options preferences can get diluted in the minutia and efforts to compromise. I suggest that each of us briefly restate a summary of our objectives.

  • My fist preference is to delete this guideline as superfluous to PNC (primary notability criterion), and make this text an essay
  • My second preference would be to merge the most basic guideline into Organizations with detail in an essay
  • My third preference is to offer a simple and concise guideline with detail in an essay
--Kevin Murray 00:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I am most concerned about high-minded rules, intended to describe ideal articles, that instead get used to hastily delete articles before they can be improved. SmokeyJoe 07:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I am most concerned with seeing that any article possesses multiple reliable non-trivial independent sources. I further believe that we should treat school articles as we do articles about companies, charities, people, hospitals, churches, etc. I don't really care whether this goal is accomplished through turning this into a guideline, by deleting this and falling back on WP:NOTE, or by something in between. Shimeru 08:08, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • I just want to see good encylopaedic school articles which satisfy the existing guidelines WP:N, WP:V and WP:NOR and WP:NOT. I don't think we should make any exceptions for schools and I don't think we should set the bar higher for school articles (I don't personally think that the existing guideline does set the bar higher). I don't know what PNC means. I don't agree with a merger with Organisations. I prefer to have a simple guideline outlining the key issues. I think there is a need to have a separate school guideline to define some of the basics once and for all. Otherwise we will be forever going round in circles arguing about whether the existence of an OFSTED report makes a school notable or whether the presence of a famous person at a school confers notability on that school. The footnotes in particular in the present guideline need condensing and tidying up but I see no point debating any changes until we've decided what we're doing. Dahliarose 10:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
  • My position is that the existing criteria for notability can and should be interpreted such that any legitimate school, even elementary schools, have the potential for good articles. Therefore, in my opinion, notability is only at issue if the existence of the school is hard to verify (as it might be for various shifty organizations that call themselves schools, schools described in works of fiction, etc). Therefore in discussing deletion, I am of the opinion that no verifiable school should be deleted. Articles which are nowhere close to good should be made into redirects and stubs should be improved as quickly and as competently as possible. --Dystopos 17:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Evaluating consensus

Reading through the several sections above, it appears that no consensus will be reached on including this as a guideline, and the proposal should be considered to be rejected by the WP community. --Kevin Murray 23:35, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

  • comment this is just shifting the burden of the dispute to every AfD debate on every school. , for all of these opinions will be voiced there, and the school will get in WP or not based partly on its merits, and partly on who is around to take part.

Would it not be correct to summarize the views and say that that there is no consensus, because there are still people at AfD saying there is. DGG 06:31, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

  • Essay This proposal should be demoted to {{essay}} instead of {{rejected}} because:
    • It has been rejected before only to reveal hydra-like abilities.
    • There actually seems to be a lot of common ground underlying fairly subtle disagreements.

SmokeyJoe 06:57, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

This proposal has been Rejected per Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines

"A rejected page is any proposal for which consensus support is not present, regardless of whether there's active discussion or not. Consensus need not be fully opposed; if consensus is neutral on the issue and unlikely to improve, the proposal is likewise rejected. Making small changes will not change this fact, nor will repetitive arguments. Generally it is wiser to rewrite a rejected proposal from scratch and start in a different direction." --Kevin Murray 07:03, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

  • On the other hand, school deletions (and mergings) remain a controversial topic that has a tendency to inflame tempers on some people. It would be beneficial for Wikipedia to have a guideline on the topic. While it may be necessary to start from a different tack, I strongly recommend interested parties to discuss the issue and form some compromise over the matter. >Radiant< 10:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
    • I agree, but it is impossible to reach any consensus when a significant number of people want to make exceptions to the existing Wikipedia guidelines by insisting that all schools are notable. Rather than a proliferation of essays I suggest the best compromise would be an expansion of the existing page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools which already provides guidance [albeit focused entirely on U.S. schools] on how to write a school article. We could for instance add a section of useful sources for school articles, based on the material already gathered for this guideline. No doubt this page will appear again in a new re-incarnation before too long. As this page has been deleted should there now be re-directs so that this page is now redirected to WP:N?Dahliarose 11:10, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
      • This page has not been deleted (it's still there, no? Only has a tag on top). I'm quite sure people will want to discuss this once more. Perhaps we should archive some parts, and add in some parts from the wikiproject you mention. >Radiant< 15:30, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
        • I'm going to go ahead and interject that it is not necessary to make an exception to the existing Wikipedia guidelines on notability in order to insist the most schools are notable. --Dystopos 18:06, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Should the archiving robot be turned off, so the (temporary) end of this discussion stays here for newcomers to see when they first visit? {Perhaps it should ahve an "Abandon hope all ye who enter here" banner.)--Hjal 15:48, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I turned off the Werdnabot code, leaving the end discussion here is a good idea. (And Radiant, I think we need one of those...) Seraphimblade Talk to me Please review me! 16:16, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
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