Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Archive 11

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Afd

Hi, A school related article is up for deletion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Osceola County School For The Arts. May be the project members would want to comment on it. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛^{Talk to me/My edits} 05:21, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

There's another one at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Cincinnati Christian Schools. Are secondary schools considered inherently notable? If not, is there no stated guideline for what would make them notable? --BlueMoonlet (t/c) 02:39, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Work is in progress - see the thread above. Schools are not inherently notable. They have to satisfy WP:N. Dahliarose 13:48, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

That is arguable. Better to have said many do not believe they are inherently notable. However, every good article should have reliable, secondary sources anyway. DoubleBlue (Talk) 17:10, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

I suggested keeping it as it appears to be a notable school, and a few improvements have been made. I do generally believe school articles should pass WP:N, but potential should be looked at too. Camaron1 | Chris 17:42, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Katherine L. Albiani Middle School is in progress; can anyone help me improve the article? I think the school satisfied WP:N. JERRY ^talk _contribs 01:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Hopkins School

Hopkins School has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here. Loopla 06:09, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

It failed the review and has been demoted from FA. The details are at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Hopkins School/archive1. I briefly attempted to address the lack of references, but Hopkins is nearly invisible on the net, other than the its own web site. I think the article could be brought forward as an FA Candidate again, but someone with access to reference material would have to work on it first. After that, cleaning up the prose and addressing the other editorial problems would be a task any of us could attack. RossPatterson (talk) 02:24, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Feeder lists

I've seen previous questions re the inclusion of long lists of feeder schools and it seemed the general opinion was to remove them. There is some disagreement on this at Bellaire High School (Bellaire, Texas). What do people think? Arthur (talk) 08:23, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not terribly fond of them, but I haven't removed any yet. I changed L. D. Bell High School (Hurst, Texas) and another HS article's feeder schools from a section with a list to prose in the "Student Body" section (diff), which seems to work much better. --Hebisddave (talk) 15:10, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

I do not mind if they are prose. As long as the feeder list is there, it is fine :) WhisperToMe (talk) 19:36, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Detecting puffery

I have just rescued another high school articles bad enough to have been nominated for speedy deletion as G11, advertising, using my guideline for Reliable signs of public-relations talk:
1. repeating the school name as often as possible
2. Always using full names of Each School Student Organisation, sometimes along with its (TLA) three letter abbreviation
3. discussion of the ethical values of the place--unsurprisingly, exactly the same as all other schools run by the sponsor.
4. mention of individual recent graduates with success in undergraduate colleges
5. brief tributes to honored current faculty
6. excessive use of the words "individual" and "opportunity"
7. that old standby, adjectives of praise
DGG (talk) 00:21, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. When I see things like that for schools, or indeed for any organisation, I usually head straight for the organisation's website, and 9 times out of ten, I discover to my surprise ;-) that it would fall to be speedied per G12!. Ohconfucius (talk) 04:08, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I strongly agree, but at first glance it seems like #2 would be correct in Wikipedia. Is it that PR-speak is indicated because they list every organization? --Hebisddave (talk) 18:34, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (schools)

Just to let you know there has been a new page set-up for reaching consensus on a school inclusion guideline. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 10:45, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Unity High School (Sudan)

This school article is currently a centre of attention as it documents a current event of the main page. I would suggest this project keeps an eye on it, I am going to assess it now, there seems to be a plan to re-direct the page. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 12:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I know folks over there are worrying about the controversy overshadowing the school, but this may be the best thing that ever happens to that article. Editting is like an avalanche - the more there is, the more that comes along. Stuyvesant High School reached FA in June 2006, but until November 2003 it was only just a stub - not even its involvment in the September 11, 2001 attacks was able to get it improved. But A1111 and Abulanov started working on it after that, and both the article and the editor pool ballooned after that. Since reaching FA it has settled down, modulo the usual vandalism and student puffery, but that's also to be expected. RossPatterson 15:55, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

8 FCPS Middle Schools up on AfD

Headsup: 8 FCPS middle schools are up for AfD here, including Rachel Carson Middle School that has previously survived AfD. Any input would be appreciated. Zidel333 (talk) 23:54, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

My daughter attended Rachel Carson, so I'm sympathetic, but these articles don't contribute anything to Wikipedia. If you want to save them, they need to be beefed up, including some evidence that the schools are notable in some way. RossPatterson (talk) 00:59, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Washington Middle School (Seattle, Washington)

I recently had occasion to look at the article Washington Middle School (Seattle, Washington), because I was doing some work on Seattle Public Schools and found some good material on the history of the school. I added my material, but the bulk of the article is poorly formatted, uncited (and often uncitable) sub-trivia. I don't tend to work on articles on middle schools, so I have no idea what is "normal" for these, but this article is clearly problematic. Could someone from this project, who has more idea of what is normal for this subject matter area please take a look and fix it (maybe with an axe)? Thanks. - Jmabel | Talk 06:43, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

• I did some: moved music stuff from lead to its own section and formatted from ??? into a list, removed names of minors, moved reflist to references section. It's not done and who knows if it would survive AfD, but it's a little more sensible, I guess. --Hebisddave (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Requests?

Does this WikiProject do review requests? _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN} 20:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This project does not as of yet have its own peer review request system - though I think it ought to have as many big WikiProjects such as WikiProject Video games do, and it has been suggested before. However, you can currently request an article assessment at WP:SCH/A. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 22:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Hong Kong schools

A whole bunch of HK elementary schools have been prodded. I have pulled the prod on Quarry Bay School, that has an interesting history that looks potentially notable. I am mentioning this here in case any editor has an interest. TerriersFan (talk) 23:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Bicester Community College

The Bicester Community College article keeps getting reverted by user 213.105.192.81 (talk), which appears to be the College's own IP address. Someone claiming to represent the College has posted a comment, directed to me, on their talk page, which states "Any article published about Bicester Community College has to be agreed with the Headteacher first". I have pointed out that this is not necessary, but could do with some more eloquent support. I have reverted the article twice today, so I have left their last revert in place and don't plan to make any further changes just yet. ~ Scribble Monkey (talk) 14:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Proposal

Is is it possible that school districts in Texas can be categorized by county? --Java7837 (talk) 01:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Maybe? They can be, but school district borders sometimes cross county borders, so at least some school districts would be listed under multiple counties. List of school districts in Texas exists and is nice. Tarrant_County,_Texas#Education lists the school districts in that county, and those school district's articles should all link to the Tarrant County article already - that system may be preferable to creating a new template or list page. Texas_Education_Agency#Organization was recently added, and lists counties divided by TEA regions - those regions may also be a useful division. (Just wanted to provide a few links I was aware of.) I think it's an interesting idea - is there any particular reason or problem you're aiming to solve? --Hebisddave (talk) 16:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming conventions (U.S. schools)

I have now closed the straw poll and have tried to make changes to address concerns raised. Any feedback on the talk page would be appreciated. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 14:57, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Baton Rouge Magnet High School

The Baton Rouge Magnet High School article continues to have problems with WP:OR and WP:UNDUE as relates to the photo gallery. This has been discussed without success on the talk page as well as at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Photographic_evidence and to the current editor that is reverting the changes User talk:68.13.73.193. Having another set of eyeballs would probably help on this article. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:01, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I will take a look as it as it could do with a re-assessment. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 13:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Articles in need of emergency, short term attention

How and when does the "Articles in need of emergency, short term attention" section get trimmed? Should I just do it? AliveFreeHappy (talk) 21:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, generally somebody just trims it when they think it has gotten to long. The list length is alright currently, but will need trimming when it gets any longer. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 22:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking of age as well, it seems like at some point "short term" is not short anymore. ;-) AliveFreeHappy (talk) 00:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

ROTC Staff lists

We've got a series of anonymous IP's adding ROTC info to a lot of schools. Unfortunately in many cases they're going overboard. Much of the info has been duplicates of the ROTC and JROTC articles. Much of the info consists in lists of name of staff, unit commanders, etc that doesn't seem to pass WP:SCH#WNTI. A few extra eyeballs and opinion would probably help. North Valleys High School and Fontainebleau High School are the most problematic, also there have been issues with Deer Valley High School (Glendale, Arizona) and Air Academy High School. Thanks. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 00:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Drive by tagging

Just a heads up, AnteaterZot (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · page moves · block user · block log) is drive-by tagging school articles for prod and merge. You might want to keep your eyes out on any school articles. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 17:41, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Most of the articles tagged recently by AnteaterZot seem to deserve the tag. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 18:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I do try and frequently check PROD tags added by AnteaterZot and others, I do often find they are added to illegible articles, such as ones previously discussed at AFD. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

I may have applied a prod tag to an article that was already discussed at AfD, or was previously prodded. I always check the history for such, but sometimes it doesn't appear in the history. According to Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Proposed deletion if a Prod tag has been removed, it cannot be reapplied. However, if an article has been deleted by an admin after a prod and recreated, I think it can be prodded again. When you say "often," how many examples or erroneous tags have you found? AnteaterZot (talk) 03:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

if you go a little slower, they will be fewer. Every mistake made causes work for other people and possible drama. And I do not like merge tags that read "to the appropriate article for the locality" Find or create the article, then suggest the merge. DGG (talk) 03:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I was unaware that the tag allowed the insertion of a merge target. I'll be happy to insert it. AnteaterZot (talk) 04:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

It would be great if you could do that. And also if you could start putting comments on the talk pages for PRODs and suggested merges. It lets people know what your specific concerns are so that they can try to improve the article, or your reasoning since they may well agree with you. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 05:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I will not do that for Prods, my reasons are enshrined right in the tag. As for the merger tag, putting some boilerplate text in the talk page saying "this school article is on a non-notable school, and the salvageable part of article is a two-sentence listing of the school's name, district, address and/or principal" will duplicate what the tag itself says. The vast majority of the articles are created by well-meaning people who don't know Wikipedia policy. My goal is to educate them. I've tagged about 408 schools for merger. How many of those tags were inappropriate? AnteaterZot (talk) 05:47, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

If your goal is to educate users that you already realize aren't familiar with policy, you'll probably get much further by spelling it out for them on the talk page in a helpful manner, rather than assuming they'll understand the tag. And when you do a prod, do you first check for possible available references? Or do you just see none on the article and tag it? Re the "how many were inappropriate" the problem is you've tagged so many it will take a significant amount of time. You should already know if they were appropriate, if you're unsure you shouldn't tag them. I noticed this today because I removed an inappropriate tag. I just now did a spot check on a random article Arden Middle School and on google search for "Arden Middle School" you get over 2,000 hits.[1] A google news search for the same gets over 150 hits.[2] I would hope that you'd already done this work before tagging. It's possible that this school IS notable. The talk page would have been a great place to bring it up, or better yet, actually work on improving articles that you're tagging. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 05:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Prior to bringing an article to AfD, one is supposed to check if online sources are available. However, the Prod tag says, "It is proposed that this article be deleted because of the following concern:

Bla bla bla

If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. You may remove this message if you improve the article or otherwise object to its deletion for any reason. To avoid confusion, it helps to explain why you object to the deletion, either in the edit summary or on the talk page. If this template is removed, it should not be replaced."

Thus it seems to me that you are attempting to impose a new policy on me. I am within my rights to propose the deletion of articles that simply appear to be on non-notable topics. If you want me to stop Prod tagging articles, I suggest you get the policy on Proposed Deletion changed. AnteaterZot (talk) 06:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The policy at WP:PROD says "Tailor your reason to each individual article; generic messages are not helpful" and also "it is considered courteous to notify the article's creator and other significant contributors that you have proposed an article for deletion". The problem with the mass proposals of such tags is that it clearly doesn't allow enough time for the editors to deal with all the things you've flagged. In addition, without having explanation other than the generic one which lists a variety of reasons rather than something specific, the editors don't have guidelines on what to do to improve. Again, we have to realize here than many new and inexperienced editors are working on school articles. Let's try to help them rather than tag/merge/prod the articles out of existence. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 06:53, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Please point out an actual example of a prod tag where my reason for proposing deletion was inappropriate. AnteaterZot (talk) 16:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Here's two quick ones - they're the first two I checked in fact, and both were in error. [3] is a blue ribbon school and [4] where due diligence was not done - google news search show hundreds of articles alone, including from the NY times. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 18:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so perhaps a blue ribbon school should not have been Prodded. However, the article was extremely short, and did not provide references. Even if the Prod had not been caught, the article could have been recreated easily. As for the due diligence, that article had no claims to notability, and could also have been recreated as it was very short. You are wrong to even suggest that I have to do due diligence when I Prod. As an admin, you should know better. I refuse to do it. AnteaterZot (talk) 18:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you read WP:DELETE? "If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion." AliveFreeHappy (talk) 18:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

As for Arden Middle School, I proposed a merger, not deletion. Part of the reason I am doing this tagging is to get editors who are not currently members of WP:SCHOOLS involved in the editing of their articles. You, TerriersFan, and a couple of others who try to patch up school articles are not enough. When high schools are nominated for deletion, have I not stepped in, found sources, and in some cases saved an article? AnteaterZot (talk) 06:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The point is 1) Leave an explanation when putting a merger or prod tag and 2) If there aren't enough people fixing articles, why not put your efforts there? I don't think that drive-by tagging articles is encouraging anyone and it's gone on long enough. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 06:48, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• No, I have said all that needs to be said about that. Take a look at my contribs. Several editors have come forward to work on their articles. How do my merge tags harm anybody? There is no time limit on them, and people can remove them, and have. The articles I have prod tagged richly deserved it. If they get deleted, nothing stops their recreation. How does it my tagging harm you? How is disruptive? AnteaterZot (talk) 07:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • It's disruptive because there are so many of us who have to clean up after you spam nearly 500 pages with ill-considered and unreasoned tags which i doubt you ever check back in on you are doing nothing to help anyone. The harm is easily found in the animosity you generate and in the number of new contributors you frighten off. For every article you are "helping" you are sending ten other notable schools down the drain. Have a look at WP:BITE, we need to support new editors no matter how bad their initial contributions are Adam McCormick (talk) 08:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Ill considered? The Project made that tag, for a reason. A merge tag is dirty? I frighten people off? I'm sending an article down the drain? These schools are notable? Please provide proof for these inflammatory statements. AnteaterZot (talk) 08:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
      • I have no problem with recommending merges for appropriate articles but what seems to have happened in this case is that merge tags were added wholesale without the articles even being read. The nominator seems to have assumed that every single primary/elementary school should be merged regardless of the content and the sources. I've removed the merge tag from a number of quite legitimate articles which should never have been tagged in the first place. Dahliarose (talk) 11:34, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Really? I looked at your contribs, it seems that you removed one merge tag, Westende Junior School. Did I count wrong? AnteaterZot (talk) 16:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
          • There have been a spate of these careless nominations in recent months. I didn't look at the history and obviously miscounted, but it is quite clear in this instance that you made no attempt even to read the article. If you had done so you would have seen that the merge tag was quite inappropriate. Dahliarose (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
            • Maybe, maybe not. The statement that it won a Bronze award of some sort in 2004 is not supported by the citation given, and certainly not that it is "working towards a Silver"; that's Crystalballery. It has, as far as I can see, an Autism program (but the source says Asperger's) and an unsourced claim of having some sort of connection to a education theorist, which is of debatable notability. This page could be trimmed and merged. It mught not even survive an AfD. AnteaterZot (talk) 10:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
              • • The references obviously need updating which can easily be done. If you had done a quick Google search you would have seen that the school now has a silver award which can be fully referenced. The healthy eating award is however not what establishes the school's notability. I can only assume that you are completely unfamiliar with the education system in England. Special schools are being closed down and the children integrated into mainstream schools. The fact that the school has a special unit for educating children with autistic spectrum disorders is notable in its own right. Very few such units exist in the whole country. The article needs expanding not merging. Dahliarose (talk) 18:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
                  • If something is happening countrywide, then it becomes less notable at the local level. Anyway, as you may have noticed, I don't put a merge school tag back. I rewrote the tag to emphasize that it was a suggestion only, and that it can be removed if an editor feels that the school deserves its own page. I pointed the guidelines in the tag to a little section that I wrote on how to write a district article. The vast majority of the articles I tagged still have the tags, since those pages were created as stubs and abandoned by their creators. That is in contravention of WP:SCHOOL's guideline for not creating articles "in bulk". AnteaterZot (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I look at it as that PRODing is not supposed to be a big deal; PROD tags can be removed easily and even if an article is deleted via PROD it can be undeleted/re-created without discussion. I do appreciate if people provide a reasonably detailed reason on why they PROD/de-PROD an article, and in reply to the question of how many illegible PRODs have a found, when doing a scan through a list of currently PROded articles, I usually find at least one that is illegibly PRODed and/or should very likely be kept. I will continue to remove PRODs for articles which have been re-created after been deleted via WP:PROD. My reason is: WP:PROD does not list in detail every situation when PROD should/should not be used, so it is important that the spirit of it is looked at instead. If a person re-creates an article deleted via PROD it almost certainly means that they disagree with its deletion - note that when re-creating an article the software tells you that it was previously deleted and the concern given in the PROD is by default the reason given. The policy says WP:PROD is for uncontroversial deletions (so it should be clear that no one disagrees with it) and it says an article can be proposed for deletion, though once only - if an article is re-created on the same topic, and even has the same content, I don't see why it should not be considered a second time. Camaron1 | Chris (talk) 16:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The problem with PRODs is that the article can be removed within just five days. The article creator could be on holiday or without internet access and then find that his or her article has been prodded and removed. People do sometimes patrol the PROD pages but there is no guarantee that nothing will be missed. Obviously it would be much better if people could write proper articles in the first place, but it would be much more helpful if editors could contribute to articles and add sources rather than spend a lot of time adding unnecessary PROD and merge tags to quite legitimate articles. Sometimes the tags are justified, but editors should spend time researching each individual article before adding these tags to see if suitable sources are available. Otherwise it just wastes everyone's time. It might be more appropriate as a courtesy to add Template:Notability instead which gives people time to improve the article. Dahliarose (talk) 22:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The articles I Prodded were so pitifully short that their recreation would be no problem. People should not create such articles in the first place. They tend to be what has been called "permastubs". If I want to "waste" my time adding merge tags, how is anybody harmed? On the other hand, the trend lately has been to have an endless stream of sub-par articles up for AfD, with people running around trying to save them. The continued existence of non-notable school articles makes people who debate over in AfD suspect that most articles are on non-notable schools. This increases the likelihood that notable schools will get deleted. The amount of work caused by these AfD nominations is greater than just merging the articles. The Project created the Merge-school tag for this and other reasons. AnteaterZot (talk) 10:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The point is that there is no one going round merging school articles so adding a merge tag doesn't achieve anything at all apart from cluttering up the pages. If you think articles should be merged it would be much more helpful if you raised the subject on the talk page and did the merge yourself. I've since checked some of the other articles you've tagged and removed a few more merge tags which seem wholly inappropriate. English primary schools founded in the 1800s will inevitably have substantial sources available to improve the articles. These were the original town/village schools which every child attended before the full primary/secondary education system was established. Experience at AfD shows that virtually all secondary school/high school articles are notable and that adequate sourcing exists to satisfy WP:N. Most primary/elementary schools aren't notable but some are and we need to find a way of identifying these. Dahliarose (talk) 11:55, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

One might also consider these permastubs themselves to be "clutter." Many of the town pages could benefit by having their education infomation merged to them. And, if you haven't looked deeper into my contribs, I fight for high school retention. AnteaterZot (talk) 19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Beverly Hills Unified School District is an example of an article to which individual schools have been merged post-AnteaterZot ... I must say I think this is an improvement. If individual schools then do get properly established notability they can be demerged. The fault seems to me to lie with the vast number of inadequate articles on schools rather than with an editor who points this out. (I have personally found it very difficult to find suitable sources even for UK secondary schools. Establishing facts is easy but not notability.) -- roundhouse0 (talk) 21:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Schools Infobox

I think WP:SCH really needs to have a look at overhauling Template:Infobox School, it is simply a mess. This project says in the what not to include section; that we dont include things like phone numbers, yet there is a section for that in the schools infobox. There are numerous examples of this, can it be fixed, so the infobox doesnt become cluttered with cruft? Twenty Years 15:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree that some fields could probably be removed ("nobel_laureates"?) or combined ("head" and "head_label" might deprecate "principal", "dean", etc), but I haven't seen any examples of overkill yet. How would you suggest approaching it? I could see one separate page to hold discussion of each of the debated fields. Does it makes sense for a template to have a sub-page? --Hebisddave (talk) 19:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I couldn't find a phone field, although there is a free field used in some cases for phone. "enrolment" and "enrolment_label" could deprecate "enrollment", "students", "pupils" etc (which are at present scattered throughout a long list). -- roundhouse0 (talk) 02:41, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

When I looked at it several months ago, I left with the conclusion that many of the fields exist to allow for differences in cultures. In the US a school generally has a principal, in the UK they might have a head or headmaster. I don't think it should be trimmed to the point where it becomes geographically biased. Pairadox (talk) 12:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

CotM

Sorry about the undeliberate US-bias. _{WEBURIEDOURSECRETSINTHEGARDEN}^{play it cool.}☆ 19:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

New Article - Requires Attention

Hello all, I've created an article for my old school. I'm still finding references for all the information that is on there so that still needs more work from me, but I just want one of you guys to have a look over it and give me some pointers on where I can go with it to improve it and what other content I should look at including or to 'sort it out' for me so it meets the usual standards. It also needs marking up appropriately as part of the WikiProject for Schools, but I don't know how to do that or if I'm allowed to. The article is Caistor Yarborough School. I look forwards to hearing from you. Crazy-dancing (talk) 12:08, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• Just in addition to this, I have added a wikiproject tag to the page, I looked on the project page for how to do it, so I just need some advice on how to build on the article! Thanks Crazy-dancing (talk) 15:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

• • Have responded on your talk page. Thanks. Twenty Years 16:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

School years / cohorts

There are a number of articles now entitled, for example Year Seven (School) which contain very little detail about the labels applied to year groups - largely referring to England & Wales. Notably, lately someone has tried to amend some of these to include the system used in Australia which differs slightly. It seems that maintaining separate articles for each year group seems a little pointless at the moment since all are so short - would it be worth wrapping these up into one article which outlines the system applied by country (thereby separate England/Wales, and Australia into separate sub-sections), have having the separate page links redirect to that one article? Or do folk think it is worth expanding the separate articles to contain separate sections by country, with an outline of the curriculum content as seems to happen on US grade articles. Any thoughts? Tafkam (talk) 11:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I have put a possible outline article - if folk wanted to keep separate year group articles - on my userspace. Tafkam (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Very good. Looks fine to me. -- roundhouse0 (talk) 16:26, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

There is already an article on Educational stages which gives the cohort groups by country. I think it is best to expand the existing articles on the lines which you suggest. I find it quite useful to be able to link to an article on Reception or a specific school year without having to explain in the article what the terms mean. I also find the US grade articles useful as I never know which grade corresponds to which age. We need to make sure that there is not too much duplication with the existing Key Stage articles. Dahliarose (talk) 16:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Ongoing discussion about TLA for schools and their place on DAB's.

Your views might be of use on Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Acronyms that can refer to names of schools. Taemyr (talk) 17:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Colleges attended list

What is the project stance on lists of colleges/universities attended by graduates of a particular school? I've removed a few today because they seem really unnecessary (see [5], [6], and [7]). It seems just like an advertisement for the school (Hey! Look where we send people!) and pretty unnecessary because, well, eventually the lists just seem to be the same (We sent someone to Georgetown....we did too....we did too, etc.). What are thoughts on this? Metros (talk) 15:46, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the project has a stance as of yet. It seems that it might merit a sentence if the school sends a lot of people to some specific school, but otherwise it seems somewhat less-than-notable. One way or the other it would really need a source external to the school to verify. Adam McCormick (talk) 21:56, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Sports and music programs

What is the Projects position on sport and music sections? I've seen many school articles that include detail on division titles won (or lost), placement in regional competions, lists of themes for music productions, etc. While much of this may have local news coverage (especially in smaller communities), I question the long-term notability of such information. Any thoughts? Pairadox (talk) 23:22, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

The project doesn't have an official stance that I know of. For the most part, it's all crap, or what some of the more vehement exclusionists call schoolcruft. The useful information is stuff on long-term accomplishments and statistics (100 year record of 1000-3-2), particularly recent accomplishments (National champion Gymnastics team), and awards which are notable in and of themselves (Newsweek top 100). Information on performances, games, records, are pretty much junk. Adam McCormick (talk) 08:22, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. I am interested in contributing to the schools pages, to provide content surrounding athletics, and have a couple of questions on this subject. In an effort to provide content that is wanted/valuable/relevant - is information regarding recent performances/games/records less valuable because it lacks historical significance, or is it less valuable because it is too quickly outdated? I ask because I have the ability to provide ongoing performance/games/records, if this is desired, on a weekly basis, for a number of schools in my area. I accumulate this data from coaches and athletic directors almost daily, and have it in almost real time. I would be happy to share this, for as many schools as I can, if this is valuable. If there is a preferred type of content to be posted, please let me know, specifically, what would be valuable. My hope is to make the athletic data available on school articles more robust, so please let me know how I can help. I have a wealth of athletic data for the schools in my area, but it leans more recent than historical, so I would love to get a feel for what the Project would like to see. Thanks! Digitalsports (talk) 01:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

As I said above, my concern is with long-term significance of these things. It may seem important in the moment, but what about 10 years from now? I can see going to a state championship being notable, but anything less is really questionable unless there's something else that makes it significant. Pairadox (talk) 02:02, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

To that end, I offer one question - if that stuff is constantly updated, does it provide any additional value? If not, thats fine, just trying to understand. What about highlighting a longstanding rivalry? What about noting athletes who have gone onto to play professionally or had a contribution to a significant athletic accomplishment (member of NCAA National Championship basketball team)? Any other ideas? Digitalsports (talk) 03:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I'd have to say that "constantly updated" still doesn't address the long-term notability of it - I see a lot of that sort of edit from current students, and as soon as they lose interest it quickly becomes out of date. Football scores from 2005 isn't the stuff of a good article, especially if it was a losing season. A long-standing rivalry, on the other hand, could stand up under that criteria. "Notable alumni" is often a valid section within school articles, but you have to be careful to source everything. If the player has their own Wiki article, linking to that helps. Pairadox (talk) 03:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Understood. The good news is that I'm not a current student, rather, a community member that has been doing this in the area for years, so I have the capicity and interest to continue, but I understsand your point, should I one day stop. With that, would it be appropriate for me to simply place external links on school pages, that link out to external school/team pages, where stats/scores/rosters/records are stored, and routinely updated? Like, media sites? I might also be able to provide citations, inside of articles that already exist, if that could be useful. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks for your help. Digitalsports (talk) 15:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alanbly (talk • contribs)

I would say that if you post any such information, it should all be cited. Make sure you read through WP:OR and WP:CITE. Best to link to articles that will exist as permanent links. I wouldn't suggest posting scores or "play-by-play" but long-term records will be fine. As a rule of thumb, the more often the information changes, the less notable it is likely to be. Adam McCormick (talk) 19:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Image work

There are a large number of school images inserted by User talk:20176 that are up for deletion due to lack of sources. If someone could find them, it would be a big help. MBisanz ^talk 04:54, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Might could use some attention

Maybe some of you folks more familiar with school articles could swing by Karunya University and take a look. I know next to nothing re: notability for schools and would feel better if more expert-like people checked it out. I ask because of a number of related articles that have been repeatedly spammed here (Dr. Paul Dhinakaran/Dr.Paul Dhinakaran, Dr. D. G. S. Dhinakaran, Jesus Calls Ministries). The school's article is referenced from primary sources only and needs quite a bit of work even if it is notable. Thanks in advance. —Hello, Control ^{Hello, Tony} 14:07, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Mill Primary School, Crawley

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Mill Primary School, Crawley, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add {{db-author}} to the top of Mill Primary School, Crawley. Rockfang (talk) 22:00, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

Generic 'Xxx High School' page template?

When I'm bored I smash valdalism; this has unsurprisingly led me to a whole lot of high school pages.

Some of these pages strike me as pretty well formed, others strike me as full of silly lists of topical trivial and other useless cruft. And often missing some of the important bits. And of course, there are many HS articles that are lucky if they have a single paragraph of text, though they might be years old.

As I've been going through sticking wp:schools tags on the pages I find that don't have them, it struck me that a generic template to be used to start a HS article could be a Good Thing. This could give a reasonably standard format to the article, much like the standard infobox gives structure to the article. Having a group of "fill in the blank" prefabricated headers would hopefully indicate to authors the information they should go looking for.

I don't really know if a template would be a Good Thing, but I thought I'd throw it out for discussion. I also don't know quite how one would be used most effectively, maybe a semi-protected page that could be copied and pasted to start the new article, or maybe there is a more elegant solution? Loren.wilton (talk) 05:15, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

My only concern here is that there is some dissension as to what information is valuable, and what is cruft. Other than that it seems like it could be valuable. Adam McCormick (talk) 06:11, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, there will always be that. But in reading over the some of the stuff around here I find that undated lists of teachers and school menus aren't considered particularly useful, and I've seen quite a number of them in various articles. I also see lots of 'notable persons' with neither a wiki link nor a cite, and in many cases not anything more than a bare name. A good template might include a comment after the Notable Persons header describing in one sentence what needed to be in an entry. Loren.wilton (talk) 09:28, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

for info re UK schools

I found Secondary education in the Borough of Halton. This seems a very good way of dealing with schools of marginal notability. The redirects that have been set up mean that they can appear in lists like "High Schools in ?????shire" etc. Nice example so I thought I'd share it. Victuallers (talk) 09:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, a very good idea - the redirects can be expanded if info arises (and redirects can be put into categories). It would be particularly good for primary schools, most of which are unlikely ever to be deemed notable (quite a few in the UK are in listed/old/notable buildings, but not much tertiary info tends to be available). -- roundhouse0 (talk) 11:44, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes this is an excellent idea. There's another similar page for primary schools entitled Primary schools in Dacorum. Perhaps we should incorporate links to these articles in the WP Schools guideline. Dahliarose (talk) 14:07, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Definitely agree. I wrote a similar article for Schools in Crawley, West Sussex. Perhaps if we're suggesting it's a good way forward then we ought to try to agree on a preferred model and article name (easier said than done, I realise!) And perhaps decide whether things like the Ofsted data shown in the Halton article are worth replicating. Tafkam (talk) 14:21, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure I'm up to a standardisation debate .... but you may find this link useful - if it wasnt obvious. If you look at the ones in italics then you can still find them even though they have no article. They can even be rated I think for WPSchools but not tried that Victuallers (talk) 14:29, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Mill Creek High School

This school page seems to be the creative endevour of first a series of ip addresses, and now a new editor that appeared after i reverted a number of highly creative (one might say fantastic) edits. Curiously all of them have reappeared, and seem to be continuously embellished.

I'm not quite sure what do do with this page. If it has anything to do with any existing school it is coincidental or more likely accidental. Suggestions? Loren.wilton (talk) 06:44, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Article appears to have been protected by an admin. Everything random added by the students has been deleted. Twenty Years 07:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

{{WPSchools}}

Just so that everyone knows, a kindly admin dropped by our template and placed a protected tag. This means that if anyone wants to change any of the functionality you will have to go through and admin to do it. Just thought I'd let everyone know. Adam McCormick (talk) 20:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

For what it is worth, I have this page watchlisted and have the tools, so you can also just ask for a change here, if it is preferred. SorryGuy  Talk  20:41, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, it's good to know we have admins (even brand new ones) watching out for us. Adam McCormick (talk) 21:10, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

User:BoxCrawler

BoxCrawler has completed its most recent run, and added infobox tags and done some cleanup. Please let me know if you stumble across any major issues or bad edits. Adam McCormick (talk) 03:48, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

brookfield school

I moved the following item incorrectly inserted in the middle of an old discussion down to the bottom of the page here. The anon user left a similar comment on my talk page (also stuck in the middle of some unrelated stuff), but he doesn't seem to have identified which of the many "brookfield school"s he is talking about. Loren.wilton (talk) 01:36, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

This article has sum incorrect information about technology for more information visit brookfield school. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.6.23.200 (talk) 16:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)