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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. Kingturtles application to precedent does indeed need to take account of verifiability, because we should be judging this article on its own as well as in light of the running debate. -Splashtalk 00:08, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Genius Home Collegiate School

[edit]

Advert for Non notable school. (It started in 2005!!!!) Ragib 09:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Bangladesh-related deletions. -- Rob 09:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, if third-party proof of existence can be found. Looks like an important component of education in Mirpur-10 Senpara Parbota, Dhaka. Also helps to redress systemic bias, we have thousands of articles on schools of equal significance in the United States. See also WP:SCH Kappa 09:59, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: If there's enough verifiable information, then this school should be kept. However, at the moment, there's a real problem that the sole source is just a free web host of the school, and there's no independent source cited yet. I'm awfully suspiscious of a free web host for a school. I'm also suspiscious of the reason for providing a English site without an obvious non-English *main* version (presumably Bengali), and then having an application form not in English (Bengali?). I would assume you normally have a web site that's mainly in the local language (Bengali?), and then secondarly may have some parts in English. This looks fishy (but I have no real evidence anything is wrong). --Rob 10:04, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is the issue that, particularly in the upper/educated classes in countries like Bangladesh, India, etc., English is the predominant language in education. Most everyone will speak a local language, but why bother when English is the language of the educated classes and the school likely isn't catering to the common people? -Rebelguys2 14:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good points, which I previously considered. However, the application for the school is non-English, so if they're catering to English, they would logically give an English application form (at least as one option in an otherwise-English web site). It's the combination of the almost purely-English website with a purelly non-English application form, that seems pecular. Normally you are a) 100% in one language or b) you provide at least some text in both languages. This company uses two languages, but never both for the same thing. Plus, if they're catering to the upper classes, I'm sure they would be available to afford $5/month for web hosting, and not rely on a free web host. --Rob 17:41, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yeah, I'm not arguing against your points, though here in Texas, for example, I would not be surprised at all to find a place with everything in English and solely an application form in Spanish. It's a different example, of course, but I don't know if either of us have enough knowledge to argue either way. I really don't have any first-hand experience with how languages work over there, though; all I know is that it is nothing like the foreign language education and usage that I've seen in the U.S. -Rebelguys2 18:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added: So far, this job ad (one of two) is the only mention of the school outside the free host, Wikipedia, and Wiki mirrors. Of course, anybody could put it in there, so this is far from adequate. --Rob 10:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - I beleive this school is not verifiable. I'm pretty confident it's probably a legit school, as I doubt anybody would make a hoax with as much effort. But without any verifiable information about the school, nothing about the school can be written about. Hopefully, over time, the school will get some coverage in media (at least locally) but until then, it has to go. --Rob 10:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, lack of reliable sources. - Mgm|(talk) 11:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Mostly unverifiable information about what appears to be a primary school. -Rebelguys2 14:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a staunch inclusionist I hate myself for this.....but Merge with Dhaka as a primary school. Highest age children are 13. Jcuk 16:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Dhaka (which I assume is what you meant) is a city of over 12,000,000 people. Even if this information was verifiable, why would you wish to merge such as a small entity to such a large entity? Also, how many schools do you think could even fit in one article? --Rob 17:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • If this requires merging, you'd have to include 3,000+ older and more notable schools to Dhaka. Are you really serious? --Ragib 17:12, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Deadly. High Schools are kept, and Primary Schools are merged with the city/town/village or other community they serve. Jcuk 22:49, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Ok, I just checked New York City and didn't see all elementary schools listed there. You are missing my point, this school is in no way notable enough to be included in the Dhaka city article. There are other good schools that deserve this, but not a 6 month old non notable school. Thanks. --Ragib 00:00, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • On the contrary I follow your point entirely, however, there are three criteria at WP:SCH by which a school may have its own article. If it does not meet any of those criteria (one of which being verifiability apart from the schools own website) then the guideline states "If it meets none of these criteria, it should be merged into the appropriate district (or other higher-level article such as city or education in that city or region, if private), preserving all relevant content, and be redirected." The school is only mentioned in its own website and one other site (at the moment) so is not "verifiable" in the Wikipedia sense, although it does seem to exist. My vote and my succeeding comments merely reflect this guideline, as they would for any of the elementary schools in New York, Moscow or come to that Albrighton. Jcuk 00:34, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Ok, just tell me why perhaps the 10,000th school (in terms of notability) should get a mention before 9,999 other schools, just because the school's founders were crafty enough to create an entry here? The school's only claim to fame is the article, and the discussion in this page, other than that, a very small number of people in Bangladesh know or care about the school (try finding any reference to it anywhere). Just because someone add's their own 5 month old school here doesn't mean the city article needs to be stuffed with free adverts. I'd be happy to add notable schools or colleges to Dhaka, but again, there is no reason an obscure school need to be forcefully merged into a city of 12 million people. This school article, even if it can ever be verified, can be linked or merged with a list of schools in Dhaka (which would contain thousands of schools and would be totally unmaintainable) but your proposal of merging it with the main city article is not viable or fair at all to the other, 1000 times notable schools. --Ragib 00:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1. It is not MY proposal, it is the guideline which has been discussed and agreed upon by the Wikipedia community. I repeat, my comments and vote are based on that and that alone.á
  • 2. Wikipedia is not fair. It is not the fault of the author of this article that the 10,000 other more notable schools you talk of have not had an article written about them. Jcuk 01:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep not tagged with "verify" until 3-Jan-06, after AFD nom. Wait untill verification process fails before calling something not-verifiable. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:38, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • All the tag does is place the article in Category:Wikipedia articles needing factual verification which is overloaded with many hundreds of articles, most of which will never be attended to. This article has already had more then it's share attention compared to those other articles. I think the precedent with schools, is pretty simple: verifiable real schools are kept (though sometimes merged), and the non-verifiable ones are deleted. That seems pretty reasonable. If we kept this article now, and it still wasn't verified weeks later, would you want yet another AFD, all over again? When there are so many schools with ample verifiable info, why write about one with no such info? --Rob 18:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • How has this article recieved more than it's share of attention? I am working on verifiying it right now, and was not aware of it untill approximately 1/2 an hour ago. I would support an AFD of this article if it was not verified *AFTER* appropriate steps, but not before. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I took steps to try and verify it *before* voting. If it was sufficiently verified, I would vote keep. If I needed more time, I would wait to vote. I don't expect you to vote delete, without attempting to verify first. But, there's really no basis for voting keep. No article should get a single keep vote, until after it's been verified (note: that even applies to municipality articles). --Rob 18:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or barring that merge with city and/or district. School is currently unverified which fails Wikipedia:Verifiability which supercedes the WP:SCH proposal. Also currently fails WP:SCH proposal. Gateman1997 18:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • In the unlikely event this school is verified, I think anybody wishing a merger has to come up with a merge target (e.g. name it, link to it, and justify it). I've gone along with a number of mergers, for the sake of compromise, but in this case, no serious merge target has been named. I suspect most people here don't even know if there are the equivelent of US-style school districts in the country. WP:SCH is good basis for compromise, but it was developed mainly by Americans, for American schools, and when it comes to merges, often (not always) falls apart outside that. --Rob 18:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Seeing as this appears to be a private school I would suggest a merge with the city it is in. A once or two sentence blurb would do in the education section of said city.Gateman1997 18:37, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • But the city has twelve million people in it (millions more than NYC). As said above, there are probably 3000+ schools. A huge number are probably private. Just naming each private school would be problematic. Plus, while Dhaka isn't a large article now, it can be expected to become very large, to reflect the size and signficance of a major national capital. --Rob 18:51, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Then create a schools subpage for Dhaka if and when the list gets too long. However in this case it is probably moot since the school fails any measure of verifiability and should be summarily deleted unless people start bucking policy.Gateman1997 18:53, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Frankly, merger with Dhaka or any other article is not possible!! Dhaka is a mega city, with more than 10 million people, and *thousands* (5000+) of more notable schools. Let me explain something: In Bangladesh, private schools and kindergartens are not strictly regulated, and all it takes to open a private school is a house with a few rooms in it. In most cases, these schools have about 40-50 students. Among several thousands of schools in Dhaka, this is again in no way notable (look at the opening date and the lack of references). There ARE good, notable schools in Dhaka, and I'd often try very hard to improve those articles, but in no way you can add this to the Dhaka article. To put things into perspective, it's like adding a recently opened news stand as a major commercial company of New York city. That isn't feasible, and neither is this school's entry. --Ragib 18:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • In cases like that we can examine case by case. If a school is run by nothing but a mother in her house then it probably violates WP:VANITY and/or WP:NOT. Also I doubt any such schools are verifiable. The size of the city however should have no bearing on whether we merge acceptable merge candidates (per WP:SCH) or not as we can work around such issues by creating a city school list or city schools page.Gateman1997 19:01, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • The larger the merge target the harder it is to make a proper article. Making proper article for a large school district or "Schools in X"-type article is not trivial. If only a small number of verifiable schools have articles in Dhaka the time/effort of making the larger/composite (merge target) article would be many times the effort of mainting the individual school articles (as such an article would have to do more than just list a few schools). It's extremely difficult researching the school system of a non-English country, and it's to easy for editors to make gross oversimplifying assumptions about a large foreign school system. But it's often quite easy finding adquate info for a single school (just not in this particular, frustrating case). --Rob 21:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete. The debate about whether all schools are notable may make some people vote according to which 'side' they're on, but that debate is irrelevant here - there's no reliable source, and therefore violates WP:V. The supposed website is a blank page, as far as I can see (I tried with both Firefox and IE). I suppose it's better than a 404, but that gives us zero verfiable information. --Last Malthusian 23:17, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I suppose you can glean some information from the source. But bugger-all necessary for an encyclopaedia article. A subject's own website is not a reliable source for anything. If this is the standard for inclusion on Wikipedia I could go and create as many schools as I felt like right now. --23:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
  • Keep if third-party proof of existence can be found. Bahn Mi 23:23, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, browsing their school website it appears this "school" is little more then a glorified daycare with a flashy name. I can find no evidence they cater to anyone beyond preschoolers... and we've got a precedent of deletion for all preschools.Gateman1997 02:46, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • reply: They do claim to do more then preschool. On their application deadline page they mention class I-VIII, which I presume means grades 1-8 (primary+middle school). I interpret "Play" and "Prepatory" to be "Pre-Kindergarten" and "Kindergarten". Also, in their job add they seek "Full time teaching for Play Group to Eighth grade". Also, I don't think many preschools require their teachers have an M.A. (I assume that's a masters of arts). This is all unverified of course, which is why I support deletion still. --Rob 05:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • From translation of the admissions leaflet, the school does not have any students in classes 5 6 to 8, though they claim to have plans to open those sections. Also, I took a look at their school building, which is actually a residential house with a few floors given to the school. I don't see any evidence of their number of students being beyond the few kids shown in the website (Why are the same kids shown in every photo? This makes me doubt whether they have more than 30 - 50 or so. Also, the admission leaflet says that they opened the school in 2005 with the name "Genius Home", and renamed it to the current name recently. Other than that, I can't find any other information from the translation of the admission leaflet. Thanks. --Ragib 06:01, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • So in short they are a glorified preschool right now. This isn't worthy of an article by any measure right now. It's a large home school, nothing more.Gateman1997 06:16, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • From their website (which may or may not count for you) they cater for children up to the age of 13. Jcuk 06:29, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Actually according to their website (which is inadmissiable per WP:Verifiable they WANT to cater to 13 year olds. Right now they cater to the equivalent of 4th grade. But then none of this is verifiable which violates WP:Verifiable.Gateman1997 06:35, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • According to their website (look under "Features") they clearly *claim* to *currently* teach up to grade eight. They even state when class starts and stops for grades up to eight. There's multiple places where they mention grades up to eight in their web site. They also state they have 10 classrooms, which is consistent with teaching up to grade eight (such a small school probably wouldn't have more than one room per grade). It's only the non-English application leaflet, which says they stop at grade four. Anyway, it's all unverfiable, and that's really all that counts. Personally, I suspect the person who wrote the web site, and the person who wrote the leaflet, do not speak the same language (literally). There is no way you can reconcile those two versions of reality. --Rob 06:42, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • True enough. Infact if someone were to be WP:BOLD they could delete all but the basic info and the link because none of it meets current policy and none of it can. This school should be easily deleted unless voters get blinded by the word school in the title. This school is TOTALLY unverifiable and cannot be verified using currently available data.Gateman1997 06:47, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Seconded. Twice. If this is kept I, for one, fully intend on replacing the current article with "Genius home collegiate school is a website which claims to be for a school", that being the only fact that is even remotely verifiable. Encyclopaedias do not reprint subjects' claims about how great they are, unless reputable third parties pay special attention to those claims (e.g. The Beatles claiming to be bigger than Jesus is a notable fact: me claiming to be shorter than Jesus is not), so those should all be removed. In fact, an editor would be fully justified under WP:V in replacing the article with "The 'Genius home collegiate school' does not exist". At least then we could remove the factual accuracy tags. Everything is, after all, non-existent until proven otherwise - it is impossible under the laws of this universe to prove something doesn't exist, so the alternative is unsustainable. --Last Malthusian 13:18, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • One small but relevant comment, the article was originally created by Altafuzzaman (talk · contribs), who according to this is one of the sponsors (read owners) of the school. --Ragib 06:55, 4 January 2006 (UTC) (Also, a look at the meta tags reveal that he is also the webmaster of the school's site). --Ragib 07:14, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quite an interesting use of web resources (Geocities and Wikipedia). This is a difficult decision to make, because on the one hand it appears that this article was originally created as a means of advertising (read: spam), in which case it should be deleted. Then, on the other hand, it has been transformed by our fellow editors into an honest and straight forward article which informs the potential reader that this genius school is not accredited, nor does it appear to be licensed by their government. There is some value to that, so keep as rewritten. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 07:28, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I would agree with you *if* we had verifiable independent information that the school wasn't accredited or licensed. The reason for wanting accrediation isn't the accrediation per se, it's the inherent verifiability that goes with accreditation (or government licensing). Currently, nothing in the article, is known to be true. The simple statement of existence, can not be verified. Wikipedia does have some legitimate article on verifiably non-accredited schools, but this is not one of them. In fact, I fear, the school may legitmately complain our article (that I rewrote) unfairly depicts them, and we couldn't defend ourselves, as we can't claim to know what we're writing about. --Rob 07:39, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No vote in light of recent comments. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 08:49, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment OK, we've established that what we have here is a website that claims to be for a school, and nothing else. Until someone verifies by encyclopaedic standards that it's actually a physical school (which I don't think is going to happen in 5 days or 5 years), this article should be considered under the guidelines for websites. Which, surprise surprise, it fails, with no media attention, no forum and no Alexa rank (being a Geocity). --Last Malthusian 10:22, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I don't follow that logic. This article is about a school, not a website. Not that it meets verifiability either way, but it clearly doesn't fall under WP:WEB. Turnstep 14:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is no reliable evidence to suggest that this school exists, so I don't see how we can consider it as such if we're writing an encyclopaedia. --Last Malthusian 15:02, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • There's often no reliable evidence an nn-bio is about a real person, should we exempt them from rules on non-notable real persons? --Rob 17:21, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Rob I think you're both saying the same thing. However I think you're both seeing one or another rule as being more important then another. WP:BIO is subserviant to WP:V. Something has to be verified as being "real" before it can be considered non-notable.Gateman1997 18:31, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think there are huge numbers of bio articles of people who have been speedy deleted under A7, even though nobody can tell if they're real or not (but claim to be real). Yet A7 does exclude fictional characters. And non-verifiability is not (yet) a speedy criterion. Also, there's no dispute as to which rule is more important. We all agree WP:V is more important. I'm just arguing that when applying category-specific rules (music,bio,schools,websites) you apply *those* criteria based on the claimed category. If the claim is not verifiable, then you delete. You don't (shouldn't) ever switch categories in mid-AFD, as doing so constitutes the creation of entirely new unrelated article. --Rob 18:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • My main point is that people are wrongly applying WP:SCH to the article. There's a large debate above this post over whether it should be merged into Dhaka, which seems to imply that people are assuming that WP:V is irrelevant where a subject has a separate set of guidelines, which it isn't. Admittedly WP:WEB isn't relevant, since it was written for something else. I was grasping for a way to draw attention to the fact that there is no way anything could be written anywhere about this 'school' without violating our standards of verifiability. --Last Malthusian 20:05, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain as the lack of verifiability on the one hand is balanced by the fact the author seems genuine (no other hoax edits) and that the school is in a non-US country, which tends to make verification difficult due to poor media coverage. Turnstep 14:07, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment as somebody seems to have taken the time to delete my last contribution, I'll rewrite it here. I accept and understand that hoax articles get into Wikipedia sometimes. I accept they must be deleted. What I find hard to believe is that somebody has gone to the trouble of writing a hoax article about a school that doesn't exist, and THEN gone to the trouble to advertise for teachers job ad at said non existant school, to back up the hoax on Wikipedia. It just isn't going to happen. Jcuk 21:26, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • More elaborate hoaxes, with an "official" site, and planted third-party links have been done. But, I doubt this is a hoax. However,it's possible the owners of the school are wantonly exaggerating/misleading on their web site to make money, and we have no idea of they offer the service they claim to. But, I can't say that in the article, as I don't know it to be the case (it would be libel if I said it). We just don't know, and sometimes we have to admit we can't do what we wish we could. I wish we could write a good article, but we can't. --Rob 04:03, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep please to help redress systemic bias it is a real school Yuckfoo 21:40, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Ragib. Vegaswikian 08:20, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also Delete per Ragib. --kingboyk 20:16, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep. wikipedia has other non-notable school articles that have survived VfD. there is a precident to keep these. Kingturtle 06:29, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is ample precedent to keep *verifiable* real schools (regardless of so-called "non-notability"). However, there remains no acceptable verification for the information in this article. We have consistently deleted unverifiable schools (as is required by WP:V), and we should continue to do so. --Rob 06:47, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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