Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Party school

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The result was Keep per withdrawn, Non admin closure, Cenarium^Talk 17:32, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Party school[edit]

I put PROD on this article a while back and it was removed. I explained my concerns on the talk page and allowed time for improvement. There has not been any. My concerns are:

It is not clear that there is an encyclopaedic topic here.
The article is meant to be about "party schools" but it is actually about some lists of party schools, which are recounted in full. It seems to be a bit of a coat rack.
The lists seem to be arbitrary and published primarily for humorous reasons.
The lists are referenced solely to their primary sources. There is no good evidence provided of secondary coverage or notability. Note: The Encarta reference is not an encyclopaedia article but syndicated content from the Princeton Review.
The lists are published without explanation of their significance or methodology. Even if the topic is considered encyclopaedic, the article does not cover it in an encyclopaedic way.
The lists may be copyright and including them in full may be a copyvio.
The article is occasionally tweaked to change the rankings. It is a vandal magnet.

To be honest, my main objection is that just "feels wrong" to have this in an encyclopaedia. Whether it all adds up to a case for deletion is for you to decide... DanielRigal (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nomination withdrawn due to improvements in the article. --DanielRigal (talk) 12:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Yeah, as it is this is obviously just a dumping ground in order to avoid AFDs on articles for the individual lists (or perhaps some of them were merged pursuant to an AFD -- who knows?). But there's not much that's encyclopedic here. On the other hand, it's a pretty notable concept. Didn't Playboy do the first list back in the 1970s? Or was it something like National Lampoon? Certainly it became a big deal after Animal House. Weak deletish as is, no bar to a better article being banged into place. --Dhartung | Talk 00:14, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. It's obviously a much-discussed concept. See [1], [2], [3], etc (to use one set of search terms). At the very least, we could just trim this to a stub for the time being. But there certainly are things that can be said about the lists. The Princeton Review's list, for example, has been criticized by the American Medical Association. [4] Zagalejo^^^ 00:58, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Zagalejo. The rankings themselves should be omitted (we can link to them but we should not reprint them, given that it would be hard to establish their accuracy). However, the article can discuss the idea of "party schools" and how colleges have reacted to being named as such -- or not named as such. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 02:10, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. While the current article may be in bad shape, that isn't a reason for deletion, as that can be changed through normal editing. Obviously, the subject itself is notable and verifiable per both the sources that have been presented in the AfD and the sources that already exist in the article. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 02:13, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I understand what you say, in fact it mirrors my logic in not sending it to AfD straight away after the PROD failed. I wanted to see if anybody could do anything with the article. The problem is that the it has been tagged as deficient for a while and there has been no progress at all. That is why I decided it was a dead loss and sent it here. If it is possible to rescue it then I have no objections but, one way or the other, it can't stay as it is. --DanielRigal (talk) 11:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fortunately, Wikipedia isn't working toward a 5-day deadline cycle. In the future, you should look into venues such as WICU and ARS as places to point out poor articles whose subjects assert notability; AfD is not forced cleanup, although that's exactly what you're trying to use it for. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 12:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I explained myself poorly above. Please don't misunderstand me. I would not have sent it here if I didn't think that there was a good chance that it really should be deleted. Before I saw the AMA criticism (linked above), I was of the view that there was probably no encyclopaedic topic here, although I admit that I was not 100% sure. There are real concerns about its notability, arbitrariness and its copyright status. These are valid reasons for deletion. The reason I held off sending the article to AfD was in the hope that somebody would resolve my uncertainty by demonstrating notability. That didn't happen. All I got was a cryptic response on the talk page saying "Don't doubt me". I wasn't trying to game the system. I really did think that this was the right thing to do. I would also point out that notability of the topic is not the only issue here. Articles on notable topics can be deleted if their content is of no merit at all or is copyvio. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strong keep It is a notable term, and has been used by many, many mainstream references (just do a google search). "Just feels wrong" is not a basis to delete an article. The article needs improvement, sure. But the best way to improve is to work on it, not delete it Stanley011 (talk) 03:12, 13 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]
Delete The article libels various academic institutions. It also does not have a NPOV since it focusses purely upon American colleges and has nothing to say about the thousands of such institutions elsewhere. And I suppose that most of them have parties of some sort at some time, so the concept is quite subjective. This is journalism, not encyclopedic material. Colonel Warden (talk) 09:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To say that the article "libels various academic institutions" is false. All of the lists are taken from other sources, which are the subjective opinions of the editors/writers of those sources. Since the claim "party school" cannot be proven or disproven, the term libel is completely unapplicable in this context. I suggest reading up on libel before using it in your justification for deletion. Thanks. Stanley011 (talk) 16:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please read it yourself - innocent dissemination would not be a defense in this case. Colonel Warden (talk) 17:07, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You completely miss the point. I am not saying "innocent dissemination" applies in this case. I am saying that "libel" emphatically does not apply because the term "party school" is a subjective determination that has no truth value. If I were to write that you were "ugly" even though eveyrone else in the world agrees that you are handsome, would I be guilty of libel? Stanley011 (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, even if it were the case that "party school" has truth value, (which it emphatically does not) and that the labeling of certain schools in this article as party schools is false, it STILL would not be libel because all the article does is report what other sources have written. For example, if a newspaper (let's call it the "Faulty Herald") falsely asserted that you robbed a bank, and then I were to write "According to the Faulty Herald, Colonel Warden robbed a bank" I cannot possibly be held guilty of libel because my statement was true. That is exactly what this article is doing Stanley011 (talk) 18:54, 13 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]

Comment. I'm not saying that this should or should not be deleted, but I will say that this article fails to mention that this term appears to be specific to the United States, and the whole article is completely US-centric, which is appropriate if its subject is connected to the US (this term presumably isn't used outside the US), but it should still mention that it is a US term.--h i s ^{s p a c e} _{r e s e a r c h} 15:09, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I created, around the same time as this article was created, two articles on the Playboy rankings ("Playboy's Top Party Schools 2002" and "Playboy's Top Party Schools 2006"). Playboy's was the original one, going back to 1987, so I think it deserves a prominent place, but instead of keeping separate articles on those two rankings I transferred the information over to this article. I've tried to use more prose, and keep it well sourced, so I hope this can be an indication of the direction the article should take. Also, under the "Party School Network" heading the "CollegeHumor" list was repeated, simply with a different school as number one. I assume this was some kind of vandalism, so I removed it. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 16:20, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update To further improve the layout of the article I have put the four rankings into a chart. It could still need expansion and more sources though, but I think it looks better now. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 17:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The article has room for improvement, but I haven't seen any good arguments for deleting it. I also think the lists would have to remain in, since the article would be more or less meaningless without them, but perhaps in a somewhat reduced form. The weightiest argument is copyvio. It seems a borderline case, and I don't know if any of us here are lawyers, but it should be said that Wikipedia does contain certain notable lists – based on subjective criteria – published by magazines, such as Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 16:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But that is precisely the problem. Without the lists the article is almost non-existent! The whole things is just a coat rack to hang republishing the lists on. The Rolling Stone article differs considerably from this one in that it is actually a proper article with content explaining the significance and methodology of the list. It also only quotes a small portion of the top 500 list. As a bonus, it is also referenced from a proper secondary source. --DanielRigal (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see no reason why this article couldn't look something like that. There are hundreds of newspaper articles in reaction to the Princeton Review's list alone. I'll try fiddling around with the article in a little while. Zagalejo^^^ 18:25, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've started it over from scratch. I'm far from finished -there's no shortage of material to work with - but I plan to add a "reaction/criticism" section later this evening. Zagalejo^^^ 20:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, but I see no reason for entirely discarding the lists. I've added back two of the lists in a somewhat abbreviated form; this isn't much different from listing some of the colleges in the text, but it will facilitate understanding for the reader. The point that most clearly emerges from this is the disparity between the two lists, implying that one or both of them must be based on rather imprecise criteria. As I see it this isn't original research; it's simply using a table to clarify a point that doesn't come through as clearly in normal text. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 21:26, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I removed the lists because of all the talk of potential copyvio. I figured that just mentioning a handful of schools in the text would be better. But I agree that the lists are useful for comparison purposes. Let's see what other people think. Zagalejo^^^ 01:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it might be a gray area, though it seems clear to me that presented like this it must be considered fair use. But perhaps we could ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions? Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 01:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep It's WP:SNOW in my mind. I would be willing to bet that the only people who are pushing for this odd deletion are some university administrator or lackeys thereof. Pontiff Greg Bard (talk) 22:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, this seems like it was done in good faith. Zagalejo^^^ 01:44, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree there's no point speculating in alternative motives, but I also agree it's SNOW, for two reasons: 1. the consensus seems clear, 2. it has improved manifold since the nomination. I think we might as well close the nomination now. Lampman ^{Talk to me!} 01:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I am happy to confirm that I am not a lackey of any educational estabishment. I am also happy to confirm that the article has improved so markedly that I withdraw the nomination. The article still needs some work but it is well on its way. Zagalejo has exposed notability that I had no idea existed when I nominated the article for deletion. Many thanks to everybody for their work. --DanielRigal (talk) 12:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Appears to be inherently notable. --Sharkface^T/_C 01:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Keep~~ Weak, Weak Keep The notion of a party school is notable and verifiable. --Firefly322 (talk) 04:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep A pretty notable concept. Maxa megalon 2000 05:30, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Though I agree with what I believe Colonel Warden's underlying concerns to be above, I also believe that the journalism, NPOV, and extra-legal libel aspects he rightly sees aren't so hopeless in this case. I have somewhat similar concerns with the article Corruption in India as I do with this one. Perhaps the references of the Corruption in India have been written by academics at mystical "partying" schools, the nearest Indian mystical, spiritual institutional equivalent to the North American corporeal abuse of alcohol. (I realize it's a mind-bending stretch of a comparison. A trance either patry-school rave-induced or Indian-Academic Mysically self-induced can make this comparison easy to see. Pepperdine is supposed to have a bunch of "Christians" on all sorts of mind bending drugs. Those students should understand what I wrote easy. )--Firefly322 (talk) 12:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very curious to see you explain what "extra-legal libel aspects" apply in this article. How can something that reprints the opinions of other sources ever be considered libel? Stanley011 (talk) 15:04, 14 April 2008 (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.