Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication (2nd nomination)

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 redirect to University of Oregon#Academics. —⁠ScottyWong⁠— 19:49, 29 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication

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Procedural nomination as closer of Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 June 27 § University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication, where I found consensus to restore the article and send it to AfD; I am neutral. Article was originally redirected in February 2019 by Drmies with rationale

there is no proof that this school is independently notable--a few references don't make that point. alumni are already at List of University of Oregon alumni, and note that the list here didn't separate faculty and alumni

Three years of back-and-forth BLARing and restoring has ensued, with Drmies, Mccapra, Orangemike, Viewmont Viking, and Spf121188 favoring redirection; and Zdemars, Oregonian20, and Nmkru favoring an article. The Grid also spoke in favor of redirection at the RfD, while Wiseoleman17 felt the school is notable. (The other restore !votes were more procedural in nature.) Arguments for inclusion have included

Notability was substantiated in the talk section, quoted here: "The School of Journalism and Communication is notable. It is over 100 years old and was one of the original 34 schools to be accredited by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. It has thousands of students and has created 15 Pulitzer Prize Winners as well as other notable alumni."

from Oregonian20 and

I’m an alum of the University of Oregon, and the UO School of Journalism and Communication is relevant in the industry. There are far smaller schools represented on this platform, and the school has a 100+-year history. It's also one of the oldest schools of journalism and communication in the nation and one of the first to be accredited.

from Nmkru. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Journalism, Education, and Oregon. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 00:38, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Same as it ever was--a couple of editors with tons of experience editing such articles agree, and two or three editors with no experience and an interest (and possibly a COI) only in one or two specific articles derail it with hollow arguments. "Exists for 100 years" and "graduated thousands of students" and "other articles are like this" are all invalid arguments, which people like Orangemike and Viewmont Viking have probably refuted hundreds of times already--I know I have. No, it takes secondary sourcing, and solid discussion of the topic in a number of those sources, to make something notable, and we simply don't have that here. Delete. (Or redirect, I don't care.) Drmies (talk) 01:52, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- I need to make a procedural comment of caution: assigning more authority/seniority to editors with more experience in Wikipedia, while belittling those with less experience, I believe it to be contrary to the Wikipedia policies and principles. It may run afoul of our civility and don't bite newcomers policies and guidelines. As you say, deliberations should focus on the substance of the issue. Al83tito (talk) 17:08, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This article completely fails any notability requirements. Out of the 50 refs, 32% are self published with 16 from the school (refs 1-2, 4-8, 10-15, 17-18, 29, 40). I'm tempted to remove those just to clean the refbombing up a little bit, per WP:SELFPUB. What's left? A long list of refs barely mentioning the school (so-and-so was dean, or so-and-so attended, or so-and-so went on to win an award much later in their careers). For example, the Eric W. Allen Jr. ref from the Oregon Encyclopedia literally just mentions him being dean (here). It's not sigcov whatsoever. The Eugene Weekly article is about the coronavirus and namechecks the school once. The only possible sigcov there might be is an AdWeek article, but it's behind a paywall here so I can't read it. One paywalled source for a university's school of journalism falls far beneath the level of coverage WP requires. The relevant info should be folded into the UO article. --Kbabej (talk) 19:53, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Update: Given the article was basically one large university course catalog, I've removed most of the self-published sources per SELFPUB. I've left the ones for enrollment and the school's magazines/projects. I realize this messes with my percentages and the ref listings up above, but the sentiment remains: this article is not suitable for WP. It's a glorified program description that could have been lifted from a university course catalog. --Kbabej (talk) 20:25, 5 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 12:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Star Mississippi 15:17, 12 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The article is indeed poorly developed (more akin to a catalog), with a dearth of actual encyclopedic information (i.e: the history section). The question is whether it can be kept and improved, or deleted. The WP:BEFORE policy states: "Search for additional sources, if the main concern is notability", and "If you find that adequate sources do appear to exist, the fact that they are not yet present in the article is not a proper basis for a nomination." A google search of "University of Oregon School of Journalism" yields about 30,000 general search results, and 1,800 news results, at first sight mostly from local media. I have searched but I haven't found yet Wikipedia guidelines or policies about how to weigh local media as sources to establish notability. Can anyone point to the right policy page on this? Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 05:14, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello @Al83tito! To be fair, the nominator @Tamzin has been editing since 2012 and has over 36,000 edits. I'm sure they are very aware of BEFORE, but I have no doubt your comment was meant in good faith. I believe it that the search yields a large amount of hits, but it's the sigcov of the RS articles that matters. I think the local media sourcing you're talking about would likely be under the notability for organizations and companies (WP:ORG), in the audience subsection (WP:AUD). Please ping me if you have any questions. Cheers! --Kbabej (talk) 16:41, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Kbabej thank you for your helpful response regarding WP:AUD. There it says: "attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary.". If I have time i'll look again at the google search and see whether there are news sources that at least are regional. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 17:19, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Kbabej: Just to be clear, I am only the nominator for procedural reasons here—a little quirk in the deletion process that arises when someone takes a redirect to RfD that used to be an article. I have not expressed an opinion for or against deletion, and did not myself conduct a BEFORE because I assume that previous BLAR-ers, all pinged, have done so. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (she|they|xe) 22:26, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification, @Tamzin! --Kbabej (talk) 22:29, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Question: @Drmies, you note that several "keep" arguments are invalid. There is one of them that gives me pause, however; and that is the fact that this is a 100+ years old institution. I am not definitively saying that that argument alone wins the day, however, looking at other parts of Wikipedia policies (about small towns inter alia), I find this: "Populated, legally recognized places are typically presumed to be notable, even if their population is very low. Even abandoned places can be notable, because notability encompasses their entire history". I honestly do not mean to be facetious or frivolous, I understand that those policies are about geographic places, and not about institutions. What I draw from it is the logic underpinning that argument: that the age of something can lead to the presumption of notability. At least in part it can help. I honestly ask the question if the argument of age of an institution does warrant some consideration. The article claims that that school is one of the oldest schools of journalism in the U.S. My logic tells me that that is a strong indication of notability. Further, for old institutions-and especially those that their heyday is in the past- may be better covered with print/offline sources than more rent online ones. I am also pinging @Kbabej since they offered to answer additional questions I may have. Thank you both and anybody else who wishes to chime in. Al83tito (talk) 17:53, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Happy to offer a perspective, @Al83tito. I offer it only as a perspective, as I am not the arbiter of all things WP. I can definitely see your position and don't think you're being facetious or frivolous. As for my thoughts, I think more historical a topic, the more is leans toward notability (or, as you say, can at least help). Will an educational institution chartered a century ago be more notable than one founded in 2021? Likely yes. Even with a presumption of notability based on the historical aspect of a topic, WP should not have an article about a subject if it does not meet the general notability criteria (WP:GNG), which states (in part), that a topic needs significant coverage in RS. GNG also states:
A topic is presumed to merit an article if:

It meets either the general notability guideline (GNG) below, or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific notability guideline (SNG) listed in the box on the right; and

It is not excluded under the What Wikipedia is not policy.

This is not a guarantee that a topic will necessarily be handled as a separate, stand-alone page. Editors may use their discretion to merge or group two or more related topics into a single article.

I think the lack of in-depth, reliable, significant sources means this page should not have a standalone article. There seems to be very little in the way of the school's history (two small paragraphs), and the rest is just course listings and other items that would appear in a school catalogue when advertising the college. The history part of the article could easily be made a section/subsection on the parent article, and the lists of notable students and faculty can be folded into the list of University of Oregon alumni and list of University of Oregon faculty and staff articles respectively. None of the important information will be lost, as the history and notable people will be covered in their respective articles. The only thing WP would be "losing" would be the course listings, which aren't encyclopedic anyway.
- Just my two cents, but feel free to chuck those pennies away if you want to! Again, feel free to respond and ask me any questions you have. --Kbabej (talk) 18:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Kbabej, thank you very much; I appreciate your kindness and thoughtful analysis. I'll keep those two cents :-P. While my intuition tells me that somewhere, maybe in print, there would be sources to formally establish notability, and to flesh out the article. As of now the article is in poor condition and additional sources are not easily findable (I did look for them a tad more without success). So, I think that what you propose of salvaging what can be by incorporating into other parts of Wikipedia, is a sensible approach. If someone is really committed to creating a real Wikipedia article on that school that meets the WP requirements, they are welcome to do so.
    - So for all the above (and below), I support Delete, while repurposing any bits that are reusable elsewhere. Al83tito (talk) 03:32, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
- Al83tito, geographical locations above a certain magnitude/size are considered automatically notable. Age helps in establishing whether something "is" an actual geographical location/inhabited place. That does not apply here. A company can be five hundred years old, a department can be a hundred years old, but if secondary sources don't prove that it matters one way or another, that's really the end of the story. If the school is one of the oldest, then that is an interesting thing to note--but if they only sources who comment on that fact are local papers and the school's website, then it doesn't add notability. Drmies (talk) 20:46, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Drmies on the notability point, thank you for your perspective, which is different from mine and something for me to ponder about. On the other hand, I think both you and I agree that beyond notability considerations, sources are needed for verifiability, and the article is lacking thus far. Thank you. Al83tito (talk) 22:27, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm not really giving you a perspective--I'm giving you a practice. Locations etc. are found to be notable. University departments are never found to be inherently notable; they are only notable if secondary sources make them so. Drmies (talk) 22:51, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect - to University of Oregon, per longstanding practice on how we handle subsidiary colleges of Universities. There isn't any indication this school meets GNG seperate from the university; notable alumni do not speak to the notability of the school per INHERIT, age is a red herring argument as there are older subsidiary colleges at virtually every state institution East of the Mississippi and the NGEO argument is not valid on its surface. 174.212.228.90 (talk) 09:19, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, TigerShark (talk) 20:21, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Question: Hi @TigerShark! I was wondering if you have time to help me understand the relisting of this discussion. After the nomination for review, there were two delete !votes before the AfD was relisted on 7/12. At this point, there have been three delete !votes and one redirect !vote before being just relisted by you today (7/20). There have not been any !votes to keep the article throughout the entirety of the discussion. Is there a reason this has been relisted twice with the participants who have !voted coming to a unanimous decision the article should not exist? Also, if this is the wrong venue and it needs to be brought up on a noticeboard, happy to do so. Thanks! --Kbabej (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, although there is clearly information about the institution is does not independently or reliably establish notability per WP:NSCHOOL >> Lil-unique1 (talk) — 12:25, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Perhaps this article is not notable and none of the college and school articles relating to this institution are notable and should also be redirected?--24.85.249.74 (talk) 19:18, 22 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
This AfD discussion is for the specific school. If you feel other schools within the organization are not notable, you are welcome to make suggestions on their respective talk pages, or register for an account and start a deletion discussion. —-Kbabej (talk) 19:37, 22 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Per your suggestion, I started looking at the other colleges for the uni. The Robert D. Clark Honors College article is arguably even worse notability and coverage-wise than this one. I've nominated it for deletion here. --Kbabej (talk) 15:49, 26 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Note - the redirect vote was mine, and I made it as an ATD, one that's commonly done in this situation. You can disregard it if that's all that's keeping this open,TigerShark. Also note there isn't really anything preventing someone from creating a redirect post deletion. 174.212.229.93 (talk) 23:10, 23 July 2022 (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.