Wikipedia talk:Notability (schools)/Archive 3

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Still going.

I don't see the utility of adding schools to AfD if the result of the AfD is pretty much predetermined to be no-consensus. Would any of the typical keep voters be willing to take what is not a cabal and turn it into a cabal, perhaps Wikiproject:SchoolVoting, where people could prescreen schools for deletion, and instead of wasting everyones time going through AfD, things could be run through the cabal, consensus could be reached and then some of the truly worthless school articles could possibly get deleted? The inclusionists win, because they don't have to patrol AfD for schools, and the deletionists win because they get to delete some of the schools? To really work, this would require that the deletionists promise to vote keep on things that are not broached at WP:SI, and the inclusionists vote delete on things where WP:SI reached near-consensus. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:58, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

What's WP:SI? Whatever it is, the simpler way of putting what you're saying is simply to have WP:SI become policy. ··gracefool |☺ 17:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I changed the name of the project later on in the post and then failed to update the whole thing. WP:SI would be WP:SV. My approach dosen't require making this de jure policy, but de facto policy. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:34, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
If something really is a "de facto" policy, then it has consensus and there's nothing to stop it becoming "de jure". I don't like that idea; it's easy to claim that something has support when it hasn't - something labelled as a policy has been through proper community debate (eg. at requests for comment) and come out the other side with consensus. Quite possibly WP:SV should be a policy (I think it probably should); but until it is, it shouldn't be treated as one. ··gracefool |☺ 17:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
  • How would this reach consensus to delete articles when AFD can't do it? Christopher Parham (talk) 23:35, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

While it would be nice to field new proposals (and there even seems to be *some* support for doing so in various quarters)these pages are not currently the place to do it as these discussions were effectively closed back in May with the existing stalemate. The suggestion above will never be implemented (even though I personally like the idea) because of the incredible tenacity on the part of the minority party of "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles on the basis of being a stub or "non-notable"". Frankly, I think that CalJW said it best back in May when he remarked that "The only reason to come up with some new policy is to create a means of deleting some school articles. Those of us who think all the articles should be kept will never accept such a policy, and as noted above we haven't lost once in the last 64 votes. The school deletionists have lost. It is time for them to move on to a new hobby horse - or maybe to spend the time they might have otherwise devoted to this matter writing articles." This statement is even more true today than it was 5 months ago because the record is even more overwhelming than it was back then. The last verifiable, non-preschool school which was deleted via the AfD process was on APRIL 15th, despite there having been over 275 nominations since that time. I am as frustrated as you all are (and likely as much as "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles on the basis of being a stub or "non-notable""), but I doubt that re-opening this debate will result in anything other than the spreading of the intense acrimony we all see on AfD on a daily basis (ie. providing yet another area to fight in). It is important to recognize that somewhere between 35-70 BRAND NEW school articles are being created EVERY SINGLE DAY and the loss rate of verifiable schools at AfD is ZERO. Even though "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles on the basis of being a stub or "non-notable"" do not wish to admit it, they have lost. While the claims that there is no consensus are *technically* true, we have achieved everything short of a complete consensus on school articles, to the effect that no schools are deleted as a de facto procedure on WP. It is also important to recognize that even the "there is no consensus" claims are not really true. Of all Post-Seconday institutions nominated for AfD in the last 6 months, not a single one has been closed as "no consensus" - they are all "keep" closures. Of all High schools nominated for AfD in the last 4 months, less than 5% have been closed as "no concensus" with the other 95%+ being clear "keep" closures. It may be profitable to work towards a POLICY on High Schools at this point, because there is not only an overwhleming precedent, but a consensus as well. It should also be noted that High School nominations also represent a lower percentage of the overall number of school AfD nominations at this point than previous (in large measure because "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles on the basis of being a stub or "non-notable"" recognize that there is no hope whatsoever of even achieving a "no consensus" closure. I suggest we continue to wade through the AfD process (as lousy as it all is), and perhaps put forward a policy proposal on High Schools. We can tackle policy issues on Middle/Junoir High and Elementary schools as the consensus and precedent continues to build for them at AfD.--Nicodemus75 09:07, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

  • While I agree with some of what you say. I do think it would be beneficial to hammer out a set of rules or guidelines that are in writing. The main WP:SCH page right now is so vague on how schools should be treated it is essentially useless. You've brought up two very good points I'm more the willing to latch on to. Highschools and above should be automatic keep. They are unique and rare institutions that invariably have some notable event/alumni/history for the most part. Keeping them should be a no brainer. Conversely I think we have almost certainly established with preceedent that anything Kindargarten or below (ie: Preschools) should almost certainly be deleted with few exceptions (ie: if someone was murdered there etc... or User:Yuckfoo is voting on it). The crux of the debate of course comes when we talk about Middle Schools and Elementary School. While you are right that almost all have been kept, there are 4 I can think of that were deleted since July and I can think of a few that were kept outright. But the vast majority of these schools were no consensus as you say. Each of them had a varying degree of "no consensus" ranging from just shy of delete to just shy of outright keep... so there is obviously some fluidity on this matter. While your suggestion to just leave it as is for these has merit for the keep camp, it obviously outrages the delete camp and they will continue to clog the AFD process with the vile rants that have become school AFDs. Wouldn't it be more contructive to come to some form of compromise on these so we can end this divisive debate?
Also I think adding the generally accepted rules for preschools and highschools < would be very helpful on the main WP:SCH page.Gateman1997 20:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Recent deletes are all based on verifiablility and current status (e.g. a school's closed, or is really an unlicensed homeschool). Reading the delete AFDs makes clear, they would have been kept, if there was verifiable information, that a licensed school was operating. A line has to be drawn somewhere to limit future growth. Stopping preschools is a good place to draw the line. Ironically, if opponents of schools accepted high schools several months ago, they might have kept out most elementaries as a matter of policy. Now, trying to fight to remove elementaries, may prevent codifying a consensus to exclude preschools. --rob 23:18, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
Not always. Both Netivot Hatorah Day School and York Hill Elementary School were verifiable elementaries and they were deleted for lack of notability. While I agree the genie is out of the bottle (and yes I think the line should have been drawn a long time ago however that was before my time), this isn't pandora's box. We could still come to some reasonable compromise on Elementary School articles using both verifiability and notability as measures. What needs to be determined I think if we were to move forward with determining this is what equals notability and verifiability. Some articles have had nothing but their school website as verfiability... which is below the bare minimum in my mind. And they've had no notable traits. However many elementary schools have been unreasonable AFDed when they had both many verifiable sources of data and notable traits. Somewhere in the middle is where compromise lives in my opinion. Some would jump the gun and say all elementary schools are notable, however the delete camp obviously disagrees with that sentiment. By the same token the delete camp often jumps on the idea that all schools are nothing but four walls... and that is also an unreasonable stance as many schools are more then that even if some are not. For instance Congress Springs School though it has no article is a verifiable school as it did exist in the 80s before being closed permenantly and bulldozed for houses. It obviously is not notable as so few students went through it that they had to close it, the people who live on it's land are for the most part unaware there was once a school there, and it has no notable events or alumni associated with it. This would be an example of a school that should not have an article... in my opinion. By the same token, I think it's not unreasonable for another closed school Jack Elementary School, Portland, Maine to have an article because of the unique nature of the school specifically the mold invasion (seriously how many elementary schools have been shuttered for mold?).
Those are not too long ago, but they're also the last such cases; and large numbers since have set a firm precident. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Netivot Hatorah Day School was also the last time I personally voted to delete such a case (and abstained from the other). I've learned from my mistake. Since then, a tendancy to keep all verifiable real schools, has turned to a stricter standard (with a very large number of test cases, given the huge AFD volume). I'm not worried the continued push against elementaries, will result in their deletion: it won't. I'm worried the endless anti-school campaign, will backfire into blind keeps. I'm very concerned at Straightway School, despite lack of independent verification, which I think shows that we need to stop clogging AFDs will verifiable K-12 articlees, and focus on one's which could actually be spreading misinformation (like the silly notion a Muslim fundamentalist school accepts Jewish students, as was postulated, due to lack of verifiable info). I think many think "verifiability" is so obvious, we needn't focus on it. Verifiability is huge, and critical, and where our attention should be. The notability obsession in school AFDs has been harmful and distracts from practical considerations. Few seem to notice, that months with the most AFDs actually resulted in the fewer deletions and the least selectivity. --rob 01:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
While I disagree with you that nobility should be discounted, I do agree that verifiability should be a primary focus of a VFD. And like you I have seen blind keepism take hold already, often times in defiance of either preceedent or logic. For instance that playgroup nomination the other day. Some users who shall remain nameless for decorum sake voted keep on it. We're talking about a subset of an elemntary/preschool and they wanted to keep it because it was school related. I believe a school band article had a similar reaction. Granted more informed opinions prevailed but I believe it is the first sign of the condition you're warning about. However as I say I don't think this should disuade notability from being used as a measure completely. It is by wikipedia policy a legit reason for an article to be considered for deletion and schools should be no different (assuming you don't ascribe to the oft given "inherent notabilty" situation). What I suggest is we come up with more concrete guidelines for elementary schools on what establishes notability so as to cut down on AFDs that start with "NN School" and AFDs that turn into mud sling contests. Obviously many (possibly even the greater number) of the elementary schools have SOMETHING notable about them. For instance and notable alum or take Sacred Heart School, Saratoga, California with it's housing a bishop and being a pilot for a new state wide solar power campaign. I consider those to be notable. I don't think it's unreasonable for an school author to find something notable no matter how obsucre and put it in the inital article rather then starting a one line stub as I did admittedly with St Andrew's School. I'm sure most elementary schools could meet that criteron and I don't consider it unreasonable for either side to accept. And most importantly if both sides accept it, most of the acrimony surrounding this topic would dissipate.Gateman1997 01:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
On a side note thanks for taking the time to discuss this. I only wish we could engage others in this rather then the usual AFD bashing that occurs.Gateman1997 02:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree conversations are much better than fights. I'm thinking a good way of getting better quality of articles, is to broaden the focus, off schools. Let's look at general quality standads. Why is it we allow people who never edited an article (never saw wiki-markup) to create a new one. I think an article with the contents "Abu is a villge in AFganstin" is as bad as "Abu Skule is a schopol in Afghanastannn". We also need to get people who want to make a "article request" to go to the appropriate place, and not actually create an article. Also, if we restricted anon/newbie article creation (at least somewhat), it would be possible to talk to the mass-stub creators and politely suggest they fix their first article, before they create their 100th. This has nothing to do with school articles per se, but it seems to be noticed most with school articles. It's also not related to notability as "General X be prez of CountryX" may be a notable subject, but is still worthless and unwanted. Our current approach of getting rid of stuff after its hear, just doesn't work with 1000-2000(?) articles created every day. --rob 02:34, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
On that we can most definitely agree. I have always been at a loss as to why anons can post articles when it is so easy to gain an account. But I would definitely be ameanable to a school article request set up along the lines of the general requested article section. That would definitely help root out any articles that should not be created in the first place (ie: Such and such school band, or Ms. Molly's Preschool). This would also by nature cut down on the amount of AFD articles that would eventually come about making any that are still debatable much more manaagable. Hopefully we might be able to convince others to do this.Gateman1997 04:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Another potential area of agreement between us (but not my fellow "keepers") is that unwikified school articles under an extremely small size (objectively defined in characters) should be speedied, but for safety, and to discourage abuse, could be listed, with their micro-contents, in a "requested school article" section. That way, the request isn't lost, and the admins actions are observable by others. Anybody thinking the school warrants an article, would be free to write one. --rob 05:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
That seems to be a very reasonable position to take. Infact if you want to persue such a notion I would support it wholeheartedly and try to convince the deletionists as well. I think everyone would be able to agree that some level of objective completion on an article is required as long as it isn't abused by adding nonsense to a said article. And having it in an easy to find format would make any such abuse transparent and hard to get away with so your idea does seem to cover the bases quite well.Gateman1997 05:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
New(?) term: requestify: To convert an incomplete stub into a request by speedy deleting article and listing micro-contents in appropriate location. I think the main selling point to both sides, is that requestifying an article doesn't mean there's a decision on whether there should be or shouldn't be an article on the school. It's simply acknowledging the fact that there is no article. I'm actually not worried about the whole padding issue. Keep in mind, much of the the requestifiable articles are made by people utterly clueless of Wikipedia. Think of all the articles with no wiki-links. If somebody can't make a wiki-link, I doubt they'll know about required article length. Now, my requestification proposal, still won't address the larger issue of improving article standards, and I don't want to pretend it will. It's just a narrow proposal, that can target the worst stuff, preventing the need for AFDs in many cases. More work on raising overall standards for editors would still be needed. --rob 06:18, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately to do that I fear we'd need to change wikipedia policy at it's heart... which I'm not up for in this lifetime. I'm willing to voice my opinion but I don't have the energy to attempt that magnitude of a change. However I think what we've discussed here will go a long way to placate the school issue, provided we can get others to accept it. I can think of a few hard sells on both sides, but I feel progress can be made. Gateman1997 07:51, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
It's always good to dream. Do you see any hope of it for just schools at least (rather than a global thing)? Surely, people want something that can head off school AFDs. Maybe for non-school articles, admins wouldn't want the bother of "requestification", but if somebody makes a sub-micro-stub for a school, requestifying would be less work the inevitable long-winded AFD. --rob 08:11, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Summary of some ideas discussed above (with the odd addition)

Hopefully, both sides can agree on something short of what they want, and here's some things for schools compromise, and general wikipedia improvement. I'm sure I forget something, so add away (I don't pretend to properly summarize about discussion):

  • Allow incomplete school articles to be speedied if they fall below a very objectively defined size/unwikification level (very narrow rule). The micro-contents could be listed in a place where others could see, and make real articles if they wish (much more open than current speedy process). Key points: no data is lost, and this doesn't in anyway effect decisions about which schools will or won't have an article, when somebody wishes to actually make one.
  • Tell new users, about to create an article, in a much more explicit clear manner, they're invited to make a request for a new article, if they aren't personally able yet to make a new article.
  • Seek to restrict creation of new articles somehow to anons, and perhaps require edits before article creation. We desperately need to be able to talk to article creators (we can't talk to anons) and politely tell them to please fix your their first one-line stub, before creating their hundreth.
  • Give another shot at making an inclusion/exclusion guideline. For the keepers, codify existing precident, and for the "deleters" draw a strong line against stuff like preschools/homeschools/classes/individual-teams. Also, make explicit that non-verifiability is an absolute rule for exclusion (but not universal rule for inclusion of all things on Earth), and any AFD must first address verifiability, before the usual debating points.
  • Look at how we can better communicate what articles are, and aren't wanted, with new contributers. While we debate about which schools we wish to keep, we can agree some schools (larger and more famous high schools) generally should have their articles created first, when possible.

--rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

If you generally agree with the above ideas, but wish to refine/improve, I invite you to remove my signiture above, and put in a revised wording (we got edit history, to figure out who said what). If you wish to propose something totally different, than please do so, but without editing the above points. --rob 11:05, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Rob I would say that is a good summarization of what we've been discussing. I would support any steps we can take to impliment this and help in any way I can to get one or hopefully all of these points adopted.Gateman1997 18:34, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Speedying stubs on legitimate topics is just not on, and nor is restricting article creation to the in-crowd. We get tens of millions of visitors a month, so it is certain that less than 1% of visitors have ever started an article. Surely a high proportion or regular contributors started their first article before registering. I did for one. People are very slow to jump the hurdle of contributing and it is really quite a rare event for someone to make the leap to becoming an article initiator. This may sound ridiculous given that we have 810,000 articles, but given the vast number of users, it isn't at all. Most people are much more likely to edit an existing article than to create a new one. We should not be looking for ways to slow the growth of wikipedia when there are still huge number of missing articles in just about every topic area I am familiar with. CalJW 02:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Discussion of these or other ideas

Some thoughts on the above ideas. I feel some of the less-important points aren't practical, but there'sa very important proposal that has to be dealt with ASAP.

  • Allow incomplete school articles to be speedied if they fall below a very objectively defined size/unwikification level (very narrow rule). --rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • This isn't a practical solution, given how controversial a new speedy criterion would be and how difficult it would be to set a standard. Perhaps a more practical solution would be redirecting such articles on sight? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Where would you redirect to. So far, I've seen big problems with wild inconsistency, so I'm not clear if your talking about the typical redirect-to-district, or something else. --rob 17:58, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
        • District if there's a district article, city if there isn't, defaulting to larger regional entities (provinces/states, nations) lacking a city article. This has the nice side-effect of positively encouraging articles on districts and such before individual unremarkable schools. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 18:05, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
          • That might work in some of the US. Here in Calgary, Alberta, I live inside the physical boundries of four school districts (each of the four contain the entire city-proper, and 3 include additional area). Plus there are charter schools, and private schools, independent of any district (often these privates and charters make the best articles). The largest district has 200 schools, which means it would be horrible if somebody ever listed them all in one article. Many Calgarians are only aware of two of the four school districts they live in (and just two have articles). Redirects to local neighborhood/community articles would be problematic, as some have articles, but most don't. Few people know the boundries of school districts, and often make simple assumptions (e.g. City X district has same boundries as City X: not always). Picking where to redirect to is way more complicated than many think. --rob 18:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
            • In cases like Calgary I would suggest reverting to the city then if districts are incomplete/unsure. With merge of the usual stub line "Such and such a school is an elementary...".
              • Have you seen the size of the Calgary, Alberta article? Why would you send somebody looking for a school, to an article of that size? The only purpose of a redirect, is if the target article contains info relevant what somebody was searching for. If the target of a redirect isn't relevant, than it's the effect is equivilent to page blanking. Also, the US actually has a higher percentage of private and charter schools than Canada, which means a much higher percentage, don't relate to any district. I think we both want removal of articles under a certain size, and we know such a proposal will be controversial. But, I don't think you can sell something controversial by pretending your doing anything less than what your doing: which is denying article status to sub-micro-stubs. The focus, should instead be, to assure people, that no info will be lost, the process is transparent, and that this won't in any way prevent a real article from being made. --rob 19:02, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
                • I can't think of any process that isn't going to end up destroying some substubs. There's no way to bring all of them to the attention of cleanup (barring, I suppose, mass AFD listings), there's no way to make comprehensive or even marginally useful lists by merging microstubs, and many of them have no strictly relevant redirect target. (I suggested redirecting to the city as a not-unwiki way of destroying essentially useless stubs.)
                  I fear my own immediatist tendencies are shining through, here, though. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 21:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Tell new users, about to create an article, in a much more explicit clear manner, they're invited to make a request for a new article, if they aren't personally able yet to make a new article. --rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • This seems unwiki to me. New users who make band articles (the deletion of which is absolutely uncontroversial) don't get admonishments like this. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Seek to restrict creation of new articles somehow to anons, and perhaps require edits before article creation. --rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • This is exceedingly unlikely to happen on Wikipedia, now or ever. This is an essentially unwiki idea. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Conversely, seek to restrict AFD somehow such that anyone who nominates and obvious keep or obvious no-consensus will require edits before article deletion. Hipocrite - «Talk» 22:02, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Seems like that might be possible, but, again, it's a discussion far beyond the scope of this discussion. Getting some sort of consensus on how to handle school articles solves both of these points without needing to make sweeping changes in the way things are done. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 22:18, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
      • You're right it is seen as unwiki by most. It won't happen soon. But with the massive growth in article creation, I think it will actually force it. Currently, the only thing being done to handle growth of problem articles, without clogging the AFD list, is expanding speedy criteria (officially and unofficialy), which means handing ever-more control of wiki content to an elite minority, with little outside oversight, who are a shrinking percentage of the overall population. That's what's really unwiki. But, I realize my views on this are quite outside the standard. I just wish we could prevent problems before they happen, instead of only trying to fix them after. --rob 18:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Give another shot at making an inclusion/exclusion guideline. For the keepers, codify existing precident, and for the "deleters" draw a strong line against stuff like preschools/homeschools/classes/individual-teams. Also, make explicit that non-verifiability is an absolute rule for exclusion (but not universal rule for inclusion of all things on Earth), and any AFD must first address verifiability, before the usual debating points. --rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Perhaps we should start feeling out the absolutely uncontroversial points first, before moving on to controversial ones? I think there's a fair amount that everyone agrees on, and that needs to be codified given the rampant gamesmanship going on with both self-described "inclusionists" and "deletionists." WP:V is absolutely non-negotiable. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Look at how we can better communicate what articles are, and aren't wanted, with new contributers. '--rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, for better or worse, someone made a "missing encyclopedia articles" list of schools from a high school website. While I think this is a use of Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/High schools, that list could be adapted, and would be a good idea in any case, even if no compromise can be found. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 17:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Given that's a red-link, I'm not quite sure what you're refering to (I think I'm misreading what you said, sorry, can you reword). --rob 18:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I created this list of schools a while ago as an attempt to catalog all the school in Hampshire, England. I have only worked on area1' to date. I organised the schools into a hierarchy from high schools down for each town. On each of the town pages I wrote a little blurb on education that refers to this list. The idea is that those who want to write school articles will probably go to the town page first. This will lead them to the list and they can find the red link they are interested in creating. Every red link is associated with a link to the school details as presented by the Hampshire county council. In this instance the list provides several roles.
        1. It identifies which school articles are required,
        2. It identifies a www source for basic school info as well as proving verifiability for that particular red link,
        3. Even without the school article it allows users to get some basic information about the school,
        4. Using a basic info box the basic information can be included in such lists (see also, Elgin Area School District U46 although this page has problems with breaks between infoboxes, anyone know how to create breaks between the infoboxes?) prior to expansion by "organic growth".
          1. Such a format might be a compromise for deletionists who are arguing to merge schools,
          2. Such a format is a good place for inclusionists to find schools they wish to expand into full articles from the basic list template. David D. (Talk) 19:44, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Still uncomfortable calling anyone who doesn't want an individual article for every school a deletionist.
          You're still going to run into problems when people are arguing about whether a school should or shouldn't be broken out of that sort of list, but it's a start for a proposal.
          Yikes. I...don't think that Elgin Area School District U46 is a good format for school district lists, in any case. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 21:20, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
          • I agree with the 'deletionist' term but that is the terminology that is being thrown around whether we like it or not. Don't let the Elgin area format stop you thinking about the proposal. that page was an experiment, at this stage it is the concept that is important NOT the format. David D. (Talk) 21:37, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
            • Let's avoid unnecessarily polarizing terms whever possible, in any case. I think you'll find both self-described "inclusionists" and "deletionists" who feel merging school stubs is a good idea.
              What kind of thing would go in those lists, and at what point would you break schools out? What would you do when someone makes a microstub that isn't already covered by a list? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 21:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
              • A man in Black wrote "[people from both spectrums of the debate] feel merging school stubs is a good idea" and I agree which is why i think it might be a good starting point. With regard to when do we break them out i would assume when someone feels interested in expanding the page. One possible solution is to have every school page already identified as a redirect ready for the break out. An advantage of doing this is that the name and disambiguation issues can be sorted out sooner than later, see my comments above with regard to Madison Wisconsin schools. David D. (Talk) 22:01, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Archive

Can someone archive the old discussion? This is topping 150K. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 21:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Done so. Perhaps I should split the archive in half... --Celestianpower háblame 21:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Rob's proposed criteria for deletion

I feel a lot of micro-stub debates essentially bypass the school, and article, and are entirely about setting precident. Inclusionist are truly fearful allowing just one delete sets a precident for countless nominations. Deletionists (sorry about bad term) fear, if kept the whole of wikipedia will be flooded with one-line stubs. They also fear allowing preschools, and indiviudual classrooms. So, I wish to make a package proposal, that cements a line-in-the-sand of what's in, what's out, and assures both sides their worst fears won't come true (or not more than has already happened).

  • Pro-keep: Any verifiable real/accredited/active/open K-12 may have an article, and may not be deleted on the grounds of non-notability. The topic of such a school is valid grounds for an article, and may no longer be challenged. Such topics are deemed "notable". Yes, this is a *huge* concession I'm asking for, but keep reading for the other side.
  • Pro-Delete: A school micro-stub *may* be deleted for lack of content. Explicitly change current wikipedian policy, which forbids "Requires expansion" as grounds for nomination. (Note: This is a *major* reason why I routinely vote to keep the smallest of stubs, as I feel "need for expansion" is explicitly disallowed by *current* policy, but I wish to reopen this just for schools). The definition of "sub-micro-stub" would be interpretted very narrowly. A properly worded paragraph would normally suffice, as long as key points were included in the article, and proper categories put in. Nobody could put a requirement that would permanently keep-out a legitimate school. This gives inclusionists an incentive to "attend to" stubs marked for cleanup, as if they don't, they'll be nominated.
  • Pro-Delete: Being a preschool; homeschool group; or school sports team, school band, classroom, graduation year, or any such sub-element would require deletion in virtually all cases. Voters wouldn't be allowed for "inherent notability" in these cases.
  • Pro-Keep: In the event a school article is deleted on the grounds of being an incomplete micro-stub, explicitly change current rules, to allow for easy undeletion *if* somebody commits to expanding the article. However, the requestor must personally do the expansion, in a timely manner, and must show they've actually exanded such articles.
  • Pro-Delete: Certain basic rules for a *new* school article: All must be wikified. They must link (not just name) to appropriate community, they must state the district if any they're apart of, they must be cateogrized properly. (this part of my proposal needs real work).
  • Pro-Keep: Prior to an AFD based on an incomplete stub, a "cleanup" tag must be present for a set-time period (let's say 7 days).
  • Pro-Keep: The "Incomplete micro-stub" reason for deletion, couldn't be used for much older established articles.
  • Pro-Keep: If there's a consensus to delete for sub-micro-stub status, but the article is substantially improved by closing time, keep AFD going and don't close right-away, so new content is reviewed.
  • Pro-Keep: Requires the nominator to state precise reasons. If the reaons is "incomplete micro-stub", than that reason, they must tell what's missing. If it's another reason verifiability, school-closed, inactive, or unlicensed is the reason, then that reason must be stated.
  • Being closed is a reason for deletion only if the school was closed before the article made, we can't revist articlees because the school closed (I really don't get why people would create an article about a closed school, but they try).
  • Pro-Delete: Private schools must be verifiable licensed with a recognized authority. Sources must be official, and not just one of the countless unreliable school reporting/directory web sites. We would progressively build a list of valid and invalid sources of such information.
  • General: Verifiability trumps everything else.

Problems: I readily admit the definition of incomplete micro-stub is murky at best. I wish it be defined extremely narrowly. This, I suspect, is where much "haggling" will take place. So, hopefully people can agree on the broad principals, and then haggle over this next.

Personal thoughts: People may think I love going to AFDs to save articles but I don't. I would love to forget about some one-line stub, but I'm not about to allow any such article ever be deleted as an "nn school". Allowing the rejection of the *topic* of a school is unnaceptable to me. Rejecting the non-article's current state, is fine with me.

Here's the key: We set policy here, not in the AFDs. We draw a line, and this line won't be changed unless/until a new policy gains a new consensus.

Feel free to make a counter-proposal.

Discuss/improve/replace Rob's proposed criteria for deletion proposal

I'm still not comfortable with the idea of changing the deletion rules with regard to schools. This proposal has a lot of a "throw a bone to this or that interest" feeling, and a lot of these "bones" don't respond the problems many users (me included!) have with individual articles on schools with no significant differentiation (other than purely demographic or superficial factors, like percentage of population or name of the principle) from any other.

Personally, I don't see a big difference between microstubs and stubs with dated demographic info and nothing else. Neither of them are useful save as a directory of schools, and, assuming the microstub is an actual school, both of them are equally as expandable into an actual article later. (Whether you feel that the potential for expansion is great or non-existent, they both have an equal amount of potential.)

Other thoughts:

  • I really, really like the idea of restricting things to schools that can be verified with an outside authority. Despite any other disagreements, I'm right with you as a Verifiablist. ;D
  • I think the idea of keeping or deleting schools based on whether they're open or not illustrates a significant problem: encyclopedia articles should not be transient. Anything that isn't worth mentioning in an encyclopedia after it closes isn't worth mentioning before it closes. Then again, closed local schools are even less encyclopedic than open ones. *sigh*
  • I agree that getting the AFD merits to debate the individual merits of the article - even if the only debate allowed is about verifiability and notability is not an issue - instead of kibitzing about a precedent would be a great deal of progress.

Feel free to cut into my comments with your own: just make sure to add my sig to the end of whatever comment you're responding to. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm also a proud member of the Verifiablist cabal. I understand your concern with demographic, and other "stuffing". However, the sad fact is, that subjective criteria in AFDs just don't work. It's a total failure, even by those who insist they're being selective.
As an example I thought there was good basis for initially nominating Hillfield Strathallan College, as it was sheer nonsense, worthy of removal. However, even *after* I fixed it, to mention substantial history, a *new* delete vote was registered as "Delete, improved or not, fails to establish why it deserves an article on Wikipedia.". Note, how the voter found *nothing* whatsoever of value in the article. I even tried asking the user to take another look (after even more changes were done), and they insisted they looked at all the changes, and saw absolutely nothing of value. Ultimately, when the AFD closed there remained three un-retracted delete votes. I understood their initial reason for their votes, but couldn't understand them standing by them. Now, surely, anybody looking at it, *after* it was fixed, would see there's far more than demographics. Now, to me, this proves that no matter how much school articles are improved, no matter what's present, there will always be people arguing they have "nothing". I realize objective criteria, can be dodged with "stuffing", but sadly subjective measures just don't work. At some point, we have to face up to the truth, that subjective-based AFDs are a miserable failure.
Now, to be fair, there have also been unacceptable cases where "keep" votes were wrong, as the school article was unverified. I've even seen an inclusionist stand by their keep vote after a school article was proven conslusively to be a confirmed hoax (I'll avoid names here).
I feel, that so much subjectivity can no longer be permitted.
Also, frankly, I think the main purpose of this proposal is *not* to change what we're already keeping/excluding today (that's pretty steady and predictable, in terms of keeping almost all real/verified K-12). It's to control future growth, and prevent creation of articles that there's currently a consensus to delete, but won't be for long. Consider living with some small elem stubs, but keeping out future school football team stubs (don't laugh, as it will happen without policy). --rob 03:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't understand why the standards can't be subjective. WP:BIO, WP:WEB, and WP:MUSIC all have elements that are - in varying degrees - subjective. I think once we have some sort of policy everyone can deal with, then the partisanship will largely fade.
Additionally, you're not suggesting objective restriction by the subject of the article; you're suggesting objective restriction based on the content of the article. Not only do these standards anger those who don't think they're inclusive or exclusive enough (which is inevitable, with a compromise), but they don't address the argument that (most | some) schools are not (encyclopedic subjects | expandable articles). This compromise doesn't address those who have higher standards for (all | some) schools than simply existence, but just annoys people who are indifferent to schools while not making anyone happy. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 03:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

irrelevant rant on my part moved - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal retracted. I will never again get into another pointless school debate. I'll vote, with one line explanations, and ignore tirades. --rob 04:09, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
It's not pointless, and I don't mean to be attacking you, and I definitely don't mean to drive you away from this discussion. I'm sorry if this came off as an attck on you.
I just don't want to see the debate polarized (again). I should probably move my rant elsewhere, as it's not strictly relevant to your proposal. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:14, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to be so negative/huffy/mood-swingy. Anyway, I would ask others put forward their proposals also. I think' we've all said what we wish for, many, many times. I want to know what everybody else is willing to live with. I probably shouldn't haven't launched into a specific AFD example, but I'm just frustrated with AFD failure, and hope there's a policy solution, that settles it. --rob 05:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Even if you've retracted your retraction, I still stand by the substance of my comments above.--Nicodemus75 05:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I knew rob would come around. This enitre series of discussion on this page is pointless (as I'd pointed out above), and this is precisely why I refrained from participating in this exchange. As I pointed out when the re-animation of this page started, CalJW said it best back in April, (and I quote again): "The only reason to come up with some new policy is to create a means of deleting some school articles. Those of us who think all the articles should be kept will never accept such a policy, and as noted above we haven't lost once in the last 64 votes. The school deletionists have lost. It is time for them to move on to a new hobby horse - or maybe to spend the time they might have otherwise devoted to this matter writing articles." This statement is the heart and soul of the truth about school debates, and frankly, A Man In Black's rant (now moved to the bottom of the page) is the evidence that the statement is true. "Those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" are interested in one thing (in the terms of this debate), and that is to try and get an agreement from those of us who are school inclusionists to accept a policy that will lead to the deletion of school articles that are currently not being deleted via the AfD process. That is the only purpose that the implementation of any negotiated policy serves. There is a stolid refusal to accept consensus by "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" when it comes to high schools, still claiming that there is no consensus when there clearly is. 95%+ of all high school AfD nominations are closed with a clear majorty "KEEP" - that is a fact and it more than establishes consensus. These exchanges are fruitless, and notably, this conversation since re-animated has been participated in by 3-4 editors - hardly enough to go about determining new policies. I reject the process here as anaemic and manipulated. Discussions carried out between one inclusionist and 2 or 3 of "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" is not any grounds upon which to proceed. As far as this debate "not being polarized (again)" all I can do is laugh. Those comments and intentions (to overturn consensus in the one case, and precedent in the other) are precisely why this debate is polarized, and the idea that somehow this discussion on this page was an end to that polarization is wishful thinking by "those who would like to see more school articles deleted". In summary, I will repeat: "The only reason to come up with some new policy is to create a means of deleting some school articles."--Nicodemus75 05:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
This is why I don't like seeing this split into "the school inclusionsists" and "the school deletionists," again. You've got a lot of people who hold varying views about school articles, but right now the debate is being held hostage by the AFD rules, which currently favor the loudest plurality.
I think a working compromise is going to be more inclusive than I (and others) would ideally like, and I'm willing to accept that. Hell, it's likely to be very inclusive, and I'm willing to accept that.
Nico, are you entirely unwilling to accept any compromise that isn't "keep every school article, verifiability and significance and size be damned"? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 05:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I have no problem with verifiability. Many of inclusionists view this as the standard (irrespective of protest votes or whatever). But "significance", "notability" and "importance" are all just deletionist code words. School inclusionists (ie. Those of us who think all the verifiable articles should be kept) will never accept these absurd subjective calls for "notability". Why should we? The crusade against school articles has lost. It is time to go victimize cricket articles or "traincruft".--Nicodemus75 05:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Rhetoric aside, whose endorsement would you need to accept a compromise that wasn't "Keep all verifiable schools"? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 05:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll assume this is a rhetorical question, because if it isn't, it is an absurd one.--Nicodemus75 07:13, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
It's an honest question. I can understand you see this entire page as an attempt to "sneak through" deletions since AFD isn't deleting any article with "school" in the name. I assume (probably safely so) there are any number of Wikipedians you hold in high esteem.
Who would have to endorse a compromise with "This is a good-faith effort to make a compromise amicable to all involved, not an attempt to 'sneak through' deletions" for you to believe it? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 07:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I guess it was an absurd question. Obviously, I am not going to accept (nor will many others) any discussion that is populated by ONE well-meaning school inclusionists (who is a relative newcomer to the debate) and between 3 and 5 notorious editors who "routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" as in any way authoritative. In terms of endorsement, for some policy, a significant plurality of school inclusionists who have been active in the "debate" over the last 18 months must agree to the "compromise". This would include editors such as Kappa, Tony Sidaway, Rob, Silensor, RadMan, along with many, many others who have participated in the Schools Wikiproject, Schoolwatch, have actively been involved with creation and cleanup of school articles, etc. If you are looking for me to isolate "endorsement" to one or two editors - forget about it. Many good-faith editors have given of their time and energy to contribute to and improve school articles on WP. Any attempt to shoehorn in a policy (which as I pointed out quoting CalJW is merely a method of achieving deletion of articles that are not currently being deleted through the process) outside of the active participation and assent of these contributive editors is unacceptable (including nonsensical "merge" solutions - very few people know the name of the school district their school is located in, they know the name of the school). Since you already know the predisposition of some of the editors listed, you will immediately realize that any compromise that allows for schools already being kept through the process to be deleted, will be rejected by a majority of these contributing editors. --Nicodemus75 07:32, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Nicodemus you seem to be missing the point of this. This is not a win/lose situation, it is about building consensus which is the core of wikipedia. It's obvious that when it comes to Elementary Schools there is no consensus right now (consensus has been reached I believe on both high schools to keep and preschools/kindergatens to delete). The AFDs on elementary schools are going majority delete, but not super majority and that hasn't changed as you've been fond of pointing out. So the AFDs keep coming and new permenant stub articles keep getting made. What we need to do is clean both up. The tide of super stubs needs to stop and so does the AFD overload. The merge idea is a good alternative. The AFDs would not be made, and the same information that exists in many of these stubs would still be available, just in the district rather then a one sentence article. If someone wants to go back later and make a large complete article then they would be more then welcome too. Remember the goal is to satisfy as many people as possible, which the current situation is obviously not doing on either side.Gateman1997 18:49, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, the discussion has just started. Personally, I'd like to see a working compromise even if it's more inclusive than I'd normally prefer; the lack of even a useful guideline is causing problems.
I'm still curious; would you be willing to accept a less-than-every-verifiable-school compromise if other Wikipedians you respect endorsed it? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 07:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • These three had "school" in their name, and were appropriately deleted, with delete votes coming from people accused of blind keep votes:
  • Straight way school was kept, but might have been deleted, if the debate had been about verifiability, instead of "notability" (with no definition). Also, look back over history, and notice the months with the most AFD nominations, produce the lowest deletes. In other words, greatest selectivity occurs if we focus just on the few articles that may actually be harmful. Any blind/blanket voting is caused by an AFD process that doesn't work, due to its overuse. That's why policy should split out what's always in, what's always out, and what's left to debate. --rob 07:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Does somebody know the appropriate place to announce this discussion. What we really need is to get the people who've beens staying away, to come back (from all sides). I'm not sure, I, or anybody deep into this, can do much, but we need non-regulars on this. --rob 05:21, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Sidetrack: School article names

A little off topic, but I propose we have a vote on a final standard for school name qualification (tell me if I missed one somewhere else). Some common options seem to be:

  • Official School Name, City, State - Popular for schools in the US, less so elsewhere. Consistent with most place names, particularly in North America.
  • Official School Name (City, State) - Consistent with non-school non-geo article convention, which says that anything outside the official name goes inside parenthesis, so its clear its not part of the official name. Many consider "Calgary, Alberta" to be long form for "Calgary". But, "Example High School, Calgary, Alberta" wouldn't be long form for "Example High School". Also, I've noticed a growing number of people outside North America dislike the "comma" approach, even for place names (example: Witten (Germany) not Witten, Germany)

I think all that's important is that we just pick a standard, and avoid reverting each other. I try to avoid reverts of qualifiers, once put in place. I think this is the kind of thing, a quick simple vote can settle. I'm not sure this is the kind of thing you can "prove" through arguement.

In any event, I personally won't be reverting anybody's qualified school article name, as long as the redirects are dealt with properly (e.g. bypassed). I brought this up, as I've noticed others changing each others name qualifiers, and I wish to avoid this, as what counts is there's a standard, more than which standard. --rob 03:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Discuss naming options

Any general thoughts, or other options, besides what I said? Maybe extended comments can go here, and short reasons with votes can go below. --rob 04:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

General comment: One point I would like to make, is that, however we vote on this now, that will set a new standard, but I'm not sure it means we're obgliged to rename every single existing article the next day (either way). Generally, I think moves should only be done when somebody is prepared to take the time to fix all the links to the article. The big thing is to guide people making new articles, and also in red-links. --rob 07:13, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Straw poll

I guesse this is unofficial, since this hasn't been announced centrally, but its good to get a feeling where people stand. Also, I don't even know where one is supposed to make an official proposal. --rob 04:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Please vote on the above options (or make your own). I have listed this at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Style issues and Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions to gain further input. --rob 08:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I vote parenthesis Official School Name (City, State). I saw someone mention this also makes pipe trick easier see: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Schools#Disambiguation_-_Naming_Convention David D. (Talk) 04:29, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • parenthesis Official School Name (City, State) - For reasons I said above. --rob 04:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I would vote comma since the majority of school articles that have city/state in them already use this format. No need to waste our time moving articles around needlessly.Gateman1997 06:55, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis because it is clearer what is official name, and what is not. Otherwise when citing school name, it may not be clear whether to include words after the comma --Vsion 07:01, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comma it's clear since and it is a bit shorter. Vegaswikian 18:38, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comma because unnecessary parentheses are horrible. Parentheses where it is necessary for clarity. But it doesn't make much difference and I hope nobody is going to get anal about this. --Tony SidawayTalk 20:15, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis. What David D. said about pipe-tricks; more consistent with all other non-school buildings and other long-standing WP disambiguation guidelines; what Vsion said about clarity. I also completely challenge the assertion that comma is even commonly used, let alone the "majority" of the time--I can find plenty of evidence to the contrary, eg Category:High_schools_in_Texas and Category:High_schools_in_Washington. Commas have been long-standing disambiguators ONLY for cities/towns/neighborhoods, with parens for all other uses. Niteowlneils 20:38, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis. per above reasons. --Quiddity 21:00, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Perenthesis per above. --Celestianpower háblame 21:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis as per the above reasons. Silensor 23:19, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis per above. older≠wiser 23:48, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis; there is an interesting treatment of this matter in the context of person names at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people)#Qualifiers not between brackets (and the following, related sections) on which I in part base my recommendation. Courtland 03:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Parenthesis per above. Jiang was the first person to point out why it should be a best practice to use parenthesis when disambiguating school articles, (User_talk:Bahn_Mi#Page_move) and I agree with his rationale. Bahn Mi 21:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Rant about inclusionism/deletionism

This is moved down from above, as where it was it seemed like an attack on someone (who didn't deserve being attacked in any event).

Okay, time for me to rant a little. Take this part with a grain of salt, but sometimes there's a kernal of truth in words spoken in emotion.

"Also, frankly, I think the main purpose of this proposal is *not* to change what we're already keeping/excluding today (that's pretty stead and predictable). --rob 03:17, 8 November 2005 (UTC)"

Why the hell not? Why is the only possible proposal to "keep all foo" when the AFDs on foo are largely no consensus? Why does a minority get to dictate larger policy about what schools are encyclopedic subjects just because the AFD process is (rightly) built specifically to favor a minority to keep?

And no, I don't think there's really a majority to keep all school articles. I think there's a very vocal plurality to keep all schools, one large enough to force a no consensus on every single school AFD and declare it a victory.

Then there's everyone else. I think there's a significant number of people who want to keep all verifiable high schools but delete any lower school that isn't host to a cannibal cult of Marduk. (I don't know who coined that expression, but I love it.) I think there's a significant number of people who feel that schools have to establish individual notability but have a very low standard of individual notability. I think there's a significant number of people who think no school is notable, unless it meets a very high standard of notability. There are probably people who have weak standards for high schools and strong ones for low ones, no standards for high schools and weak standards for low ones, and probably many more.

This is why labels like inclusionism and deletionism are worthless, and characterizing this as a debate between the two is pointless.

Okay, I'm done ranting. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 03:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Why stop now just when you were making excellent sense? ;-)
I've said it before, I think, but I am absolutely baffled as to why we should bload Wikipedia out with thousand-word articles on schools which contain information of absolutely no significance whatsoever to those outside the immediate geographical neighbourhood. All towns get kept: the school can go in the town. Otherwise we get all townas and one or two schools per town (and one or two burger joints or non-notable high school bands, once those inclusionists realise they too can override the policies which guide all other content simply by voting to keep every time).
Here's the article for my old school: St. Albans School (St. Albans). See how it has a history of more than 1,000 years? See how it has the only English Pope ever among its alumni? Along with one of the most successful writers of musical theatre in history, the most famous cosmologist on the planet and the guy who directed some of the biggest-grossing independent films in the history of British cinema? And do you know something? That is considered a minor school in the UK, an also-ran in the listings. Alongside Eton, Harrow, Westminster and the like it is considered insignificant.
But we have articles many times that length telling us that Cowpoke High is a high school in Cowpoke, AL (who'd have guessed?) and that it teaches - wait for it - mathematics and English. It has sports teams! Quite unlike any other school on the planet (except all of them). It beat the neighbouring school in the chess league one year! But they got their own back another year, if you check out their article. 90% of this stuff is substantially unverifiable outside of a ten-mile radius, and mostly amounts to vanity on the part of current students. OK, make that pride in their school, which is fine, but this is supposed to be an encyclopaedia!
And because a small group of people think that no school, however modest its achievements, however short its history, should ever be removed once created, we have precedent of no consensus cited almost as if it were Holy Writ, and we're told that debate is sterile and that we (the ones who want a bit of aa sense of proportion) are the ones causing problems and strife. Now, well-versed as I am in the works of Douglas Adams, I do realise that the last thing mankind can afford is a sense of proportion, but even so, it is incredibly hard to think of a single justification for some of these schools which does not apply equally to legions of stuff we delete without qualm.
I am almost tempted to start an unsigned band inclusionist cabal... - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 13:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
It troubles me that your response to my rant used "inclusionists" repeatedly, and referred to "we" as if there were some distinction between "inclusionists" and either "deletionists" or everyone else. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Hey, it's just shorthand. I think there are two opposing poles and a lot of people in between. The in-betweens (which includes me, in my view) want to see a way of including information without massive redundancy. If you want to know about the schools in an area, the porposals below will give you what you need. No parent is going to use Wikipedia as their sole or prime source of information. WP is not a directory, but it seems fair that the schools in an area should at least be mentioned as part of the general policy of inclusion of verifiable geographic data. The two situations I have a problem with are huge entries containing a level of detail which is more appropriate for the school's own website and which are out of all proportion to the global significance of the school, and tiny stubs which say in essense "Mudpuddle High School is a high school in Mudpuddle, MO" - which as far as I'm concerned verges on the bleeding obvious. "Mudpuddle, MO is a town opf size X, latitude X, longitude X; schools include blah, blah, blah, Mudpuddle High" seems to me a far more useful article, not least becasue nobody is even going to know to look for Mudpuddle High without it. I suspect that in AfDs we probably agree most of the time, but I don't count either of us (or anyone else) as part of a cabal [TINC]. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 11:35, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


This approach really does make sense. I do think, though, that proponents of this should avoid using examples such as "Mudpuddle High" and "Cowpoke High". At bottom, I think a lot of the proponents of individual articles on each school are offended by the notion that schools are being belittled, and the amusing names support that impression.
I wonder, would it be at all possible to set a standard along the lines of
If an article on a town or city is less than 2000 words long, then all schools within that town should be included in the town article. Larger towns/cities should have one or more school district articles containing sections for each school. Each school shall have a redirect to the page that contains it. Only school articles of more than 2000 words should be moved to their own articles.
Or are we too far down the present road to even consider something like this? -- Mwanner | Talk 14:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
People can write 2000 words about anything when properly motivated. This would only serve to further decrease the quality of school articles without decreasing the quantity. No matter where you set the limit, people intent on keeping schools will find a way to pad the article to that limit. flowersofnight (talk) 14:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
For the avoidance of doubt, do not let a picturesque turn of phrase lead you to believe that I belittle schools. I am a governor of a junior school, something which takes up no small amount of time. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 14:25, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Basic principles

I need to go back to Ground Zero, and I guess the bottom of this discussion page is as good as anywhere to do that. I am presuming that all Wikipedians are coming at articles, school or no, with the intention of creating something useful. Yet the bulk of the discussion above is, in a nutshell, who has bragging rights for consensus. Not a single comment addresses why articles which read, in their entirety, "XYZ school is located in Reno, Nevada" should be voted on as "keep" by anybody. (Never mind "Keep this important and informative article" - go figure.) In an attempt to rationalize keeping most of the school articles, I had to consider who might make use of them. As I see it, the most likely readers of a school page are either going to be parents looking for information about a potential school for their child or about one which their child already attends, or a former student, curious to see what "other people" think about their school. In either case, most articles fail to provide useful information. Both of these user groups will go away disappointed with the large majority of articles here.

Some have said "Let the articles grow organically". That is great in theory, not so good in practice. I conducted a small survey of schools, looking at every school article for the states of Texas and California (chosen for their size). I was specifically interested in articles more than a year old, so that I could determine what organic growth looked like. Of the 110 articles I read, only twelve were over a year old; most of the rest had been written in a flurry of submissions in the last six months. Of these twelve articles, only two showed real improvement, and were articles I would be happy to vote for inclusion. Five others showed modest improvement in a year, and five - nearly half - of the articles showed no significant change from their condition upon submission. This bodes ill for the recent spate of articles, which, I'm guessing, comes about largely because of WP:SCH's efforts to encourage stub writing. I really have to wonder how much vested interest there is in seeing that these stubs are improved over time. My guess is not much.

Bottom line for me: I am prepared to accept a compromise on this one, but I cannot and will not accept that no-content articles like the example above are good for Wikipedia or its users. As long as there are users who feel they must vote to keep school articles regardless of their content (they know who they are), I will feel I have to provide a counterbalancing vote. I would like to see criteria for notability of schools established, just as they are for individuals, bands, businesses, and publications, but will forego that if some content criteria are put in place. I feel the minimum requirements for a school article are, beside name and location: history, special programs, staff or student achievements of note, community involvement, and noteworthy alumni. If a school article cannot provide all or most of this information, I am at a loss in seeing what use it is. Whatever the case, this silliness has definitely gone on long enough. Denni☯ 05:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I think there is a good solution, at least regarding American public school stubs. Those that, at present, do not present enough substantial information that is specific to the school should be merged and redirected into an article on that school's parent district. This should be an editorial decision made like those for any other subject matter on Wikipedia.
If there is enough independent information about a school to merit an independent article, then it should have one and be linked to from the school district article. Many individual schools have documented independent histories and characters that can be detailed in a manner that doesn't simply state what is true of the district as a whole (Torrance High School is an excellent example). Perhaps this is even arguably true of all individual schools. Accordingly, there should be no per se bias against individual schools having their own articles.
But what still remains is the necessity to make an independent editorial judgment on each particular school article (not a judgment as to the notability of the school) as to whether that article has enough independent content at present to justify separate existence. For example, Sheridan High School does not, because nothing is said of it that isn't true of its parent district; the high school obviously doesn't serve any towns that the district does not. If there is not such information available at the present time, then merging insubstantial articles about individual schools into articles about their districts is the best solution, because it preserves the content in a form and structure that is undeniably useful (see Newark City School District, Licking County, Ohio for an example). And when anyone finally does the research necessary so that the school profile can stand on its own, then the school topic can always be merged back out.
No one on either side of the deletion debate is going to deny that school districts are notable. Anyone who is a tax payer, property owner, or parent of a school-age child is highly interested in school districts, or should be at least, because which district you reside in will dictate which schools your child attends, how much you pay in property taxes, and how much your house is worth. School districts not only administer the schools within them, by allocating budgets at each school, hiring and firing personnel, and locally enacting the curriculum directives of the state, but they also frequently have the power to raise taxes and use eminent domain. They are governmental bodies, and information about how they operate is central to local democracy.
Because public schools are the functioning units of the school district, district articles are the appropriate place to satisfy the goal of documenting each individual school until such time as there is sufficient independent and encyclopedic information about a particular school to merit a separate article. Postdlf 06:24, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree with this idea, whenever practical.
I have to wonder, though; what do you do with private school or non-American stubs? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 06:29, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Private schools could go into town articles. If nothing else the bot town articles can be used as holders for such stubs until they get going. Other countries don't have school districts or equivalent? David D. (Talk) 06:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
That would be one possiblity, though it might be better to merge them to a List of private schools in X, whether we want to do that at the city, county, country, canton, or commune level. I wonder if there are superstructures for certain private schools that may also provide suitable merge targets. But even if not, we still have a solution to the American public school stubs and should implement it without waiting to also come up with a solution for American private school stubs (or non-American schools). Postdlf 06:38, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
The list sounds good. i did something similar to for the Hampsire schools at List_of_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom#Hampshire. In that case i just listed independent schools seperately. David D. (Talk) 06:51, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps, if mergers/redirects are to be done, its best to just exempt the complicated cases, at least for now, and just focus solely on US public district schools first. Leave separate articles for charters, privates, and schools in parallel/sectarian/specialized district systems (as well as countries that have no districts whatsoever). Also, maybe we can get rules that say if you wish to "save" such an article, by undoing a redirect, you must meet certain standards. Also, I think there's a tendancy for the "harder" cases to also be the ones with the greatest potential of article growth. There so many of the "classic" public district schools, who fall inside the physical boundries of just one district, I think it doesn't make sense to delay that, by trying to impose a model on the harder cases (and having a whole new area of debates). The way I see it, if we editors aren't sure of where to merge/redirect such schools, surely the readers would never be able to figure it out. Also, one reason for focussing on the US public district schools, is there's so many more American editors who can discuss approaches for it, and review/discuss each others actions. I see a nice benefit of this, in that editors interested in editing individual school articles (who don't care for districts) can focus their attention on charter and private schools, which may produce nicer/unique results. --rob 07:10, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Exactly. Postdlf 14:02, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I think the merging by district idea is a good one - with the stipulation that schools should not be broken out of the district into their own articles without a very good reason (i.e. establishing real notability just like any non-school article). Maybe educational system articles should roughly be arranged in a hierarchical fashion, based on who sets the standards for the curricula; the district-level articles should be the lowest. One could imagine a "Education in (state/province)" article above the district level, with a list of districts and common state curriculum requirements, etc. Maybe private schools could even go into the higher-level article. Then the district article could have data on individual schools, and information about how state policy is implemented or how district policy differs from it. What do you think? flowersofnight (talk) 19:26, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Seems to make sense. And it would inpart link private schools to their public counter parts. As for the restrictions on "breaking out" articles I just want to reitterate this is only referring to elementary/middle schools. High Schools per consensus/preceedent get their own articles by default if they are verifiable. And preschools do not get articles unless they are extrodinary in some way.Gateman1997 19:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Actually, I meant that restriction to apply to all schools; in my opinion the "every high school is notable" precedent is wrong and should be overturned or at least re-examined. All of the "X is inherently notable" stuff is a blind backlash by the "keep" crowd against what they perceive as excesses of deletionism - right or wrong. Let's do this right and not be bound by the mistakes of the past. In fact, eliminating breakout articles is part of the aim of my idea. If we summarize all the educational information at the higher levels of coverage, we won't need a separate article for the school unless there truly is something notable about it. But this is beside the point; my idea could still be implemented even if individual schools still get articles, and it wouldn't kill me if consensus doesn't go my way on the issue of individual schools. Any other thoughts on it? flowersofnight (talk) 20:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Honestly I don't think going back on high school articles is going to work at this point. That is one Pandora's Box that cannot be closed. I would focus your idea solely on Elementary School articles and then only ones with low levels of verifiable/useful info. The "keep" crowd will never go for going back on highschool articles and indeed they do have preceedent and general consenesus on their side. You can still make the heirachy for them, but the individual highschools should still retain their articles. The goal of this whole excercise is the eliminate AFDs as well as stub school articles. Bringing highschools into this will just end up creating more useless AFDs in the end.Gateman1997 20:18, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
My idea was actually to presume that individual schools were notable, because doing otherwise is simply going to slide back into deletion conflicts, and notability is an issue that's irrelevant to a merge decision. Presuming that schools are to be documented, the question should then not be whether an individual school is notable, but whether an individual school article has enough content to stand alone. Look at whether it merely states facts that are true of the district as a whole ("Half of the enrollment of Smith High School is poverty-stricken Armenian-Americans") or statistics that a district article list can easily digest ("Smith High School has an enrollment of 1500. It has 254 classrooms"). A high school article that has a paragraph about the architecture of its building, for example, is probably not a very good merge candidate. Read Wikipedia:Merging and moving pages to see how this is simply a particular application of general editing guidelines on Wikipedia. Postdlf 21:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I guess my idea is slightly different, in that I presume the average school is notable only for the education it provides, and that there are better ways to provide that information than reduplicating it in articles for every school. My view of things is that under my scheme, all schools would be fully documented without necessarily requiring their own articles. But perhaps the winds aren't blowing that way. I don't want to cause any trouble, so I'll drop the notion if it's not appropriate. flowersofnight (talk) 21:36, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
No, you are correct. I believe that the concensus is to include schools. The problem is over which ones merit an article. Your points are valid, no matter what way the winds are blowing. In fact only concensus was to do what you are suggesting. However that fact seems to have been lost along the way. Vegaswikian 23:00, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

YAWN--Nicodemus75 07:16, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

We woke Mr Constructive? :-) So what do you really think? David D. (Talk) 08:19, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
Seriously I would also like to hear his opinion.Gateman1997 19:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Starting a new "branch" since the discussion is getting too long and threaded. I did some research into my local public school districts, and many of them are districts that include only one school. How should we cover this in the sort of "merging" plan we've been discussing? Seems like kind of an odd case. flowersofnight (talk) 14:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Perspectives

Percieved as inclusionists

Perspective of Hipocrite

The solution to this problem does not involve using broken AFD. School sub-stubs should be mass-merged (with redirects) into category articles (multi-list for schools that cross whatever border is chosen). When the sub-stub is expanded to the size of a real stub, the stub should be broken off from the category article and into it's own stub. AFD cannot do this, so AFD is a non-starter for the process. As such, I vote blanket keep for all schools, in the hopes that failure will dissuade nominations.

Forward momentum will not be made on this, however, with both sides staring at eachother across the battlefield. Since the inclusionists have phyricaly won every single skirmish in AFD since the start, the only way that the other side will even start negotiations is to stop voting delete.

Percieved as deletionists

Percieved as neutrals

Perspective of David D.

I was interested to read the recent comments by Hypocrite at Afd for Grove School

I would be happy to help. I assume the intention is to take a bunch of stubs from a geographic district, create an article "High Schools in x,x,x" and then replace the individual school articles with redirects - for example, where I live now: "High Schools in Brooklyn, New York, USA?" Can I suggest that notable schools with longer articles be shortened and included in stub-format in the list, with a link from their name to their main article? Suggest a starting location! Hipocrite - «Talk» 13:10, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

A while ago I started an experiment with essentially the redirect approach, as Hypocrite describes above. The first page I tried was based on a, then, recent Vfd for Charlotte HS. You can see my effort at Charlotte Public Schools. I was trying to create a template approach that could be used to see the hierarchy of the schools as well hold all the information about the school.

Bartlett High School
Address
701 Schick Rd.,

Bartlett, Illinois, 60103
Information
TypeHigh School
Motto"Aude aliquid dignum"
Established1997
PrincipalDiane Longfield
Faculty160
Enrollment2,900
Information630-372-4700
MascotHawk
Websitehttp://www.u46.k12.il.us/bhs/




Bartlett High School
Address
701 Schick Rd.,

Bartlett, Illinois, 60103
Information
TypeHigh School
Motto"Aude aliquid dignum"
Established1997
PrincipalDiane Longfield
Faculty160
Enrollment2,900
Information630-372-4700
MascotHawk
Websitehttp://www.u46.k12.il.us/bhs/

While the school district templates, such as the template:infobox high school seen above, do not reveal all the possible information it is relatively easy for editors to transfer the information from the school district to a new article, when someone is interested in expanding the schools page from a redirect. With exactly the same information a different template, such as the 'infobox school' template (template:infobox school) seen to the right, can display more of the school information. The example shown is for Bartlett High School. The only difference for these two templates is removing the word high from the school district style template.

Early in this debate I was labeled as a deletionist by Nicodemus75 but I do not count myself as one. I have always tried to be a constructive voice in this debate. I know the solution I propose above is not perfect but I saw them as an experimental compromise. The most important thing for these school articles is that they are not hanging in cyber space with no context. I think this was summed up well by Aaron Brenneman in the recent Afd for Grove School:

"That's my point, Kappa. Why spend so much time and energy defending these little bits of low-utility information instead of gathering them together into some coherent form?"

I think if Nicodemus75 took a good look at this proposal it would be apparent that zero schools would be deleted. However, the low quality school articles would be more organised and consequently more useful. Also it would be more apparent which schools are missing from the project. With the redirect approach every school name and page is defined early in the project, however, the pages are only expanded when there is enough information. I'd be interested to hear comments. David D. (Talk) 18:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

I would be happy with this approach. While I believe that Wikipedia is not a phone book, and this approach is still a bit phone-bookish, it is a vast improvement over having a thousand low-grade substubs just sitting there and embarrassing Wikipedia (see Wikipedia talk:Schools#Forward from my mailbox.)The majority of articles I've looked at really lend themselves well to condensation in tabular form. Thanks for your work.

I would not concern myself overly with Nicodemus' opinion. He has shown a persistent inability to appreciate opinions different from his own, and has yet to make a constructive contribution to this debate. While I would hope this would change, I'm not holding my breath. Denni☯ 01:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

If you were to propose that as a policy, I would vote for it like a shot. Most countries have a convenient organisational hierarchy which could be used (e.g. education authorities in the UK) - and those which don't, frankly, we don't actually see that many schools entries for anyway. It sounds like a workable compromise. And for the record, "deletionist" is a futile term., seeking to portray those in the middle ground as being at an extreme. A deletionist would want to delete all school articles unless they could make a definite claim to fame. WP:ISNOT paper, we have no such concerns. It's about maintainability, scalability and utility for me. Even if I did go to a significant (but only just) school. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 13:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
David D., I would prefer the school statistics be compiled into a single table within the district articles rather than separate infoboxes. Using one table allows for an easier comparison between the schools (all the enrollment figures are in one column, etc.), and makes it less visually confusing—Charlotte Public Schools requires one to scroll sideways and prevents the information from being all (or substantially) viewed together. Postdlf 17:15, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I think these are excellent points. I was just looking at the Clark County School District page mentioned by Vegaswikian it looks like a good start. David D. (Talk) 17:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
While the article needs work, take a look at Clark County School District. The district article was created to encourage the collection of information so that school articles could be created when they had enough material for an article. It also provides a place for having some of the common information like region and magnet schools. Vegaswikian 17:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll have a look. At first glance it looks very good. David D. (Talk) 17:33, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As I have stated before, I (and others) are opposed to merging schools into lists or districts. Please see the myriads of comments on AfDs and elsewhere where I and others have voiced our objections to this "solution".--Nicodemus75 16:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, so to clarify: you say you are open to a compromise, but that compromise:
  • must not include merging
  • must not be a separate namespace
  • must not include deleting any school article
Is that a fair summary? And if so, what other options do you think exist? - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 22:40, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Question: why schools?

How did this all get started anyway? I'm rather new here and I'm astonished to come here and find that not only do cookie-cutter high schools now seem to have a "consensus" to be kept, but the debate seems to be expanding to lower levels of education. It seems very much to me like this entire "school war" is an attempt by school-keepers to make a larger point about how an encyclopedia should be run; the debate could just have easily been over public libraries, post offices, pubs, or any other community institution whose notability is limited to its community. Why schools? Does anyone remember what started this? flowersofnight (talk) 14:44, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

From my perspective, it is the tag line that I have seen a few times in wikipedia, something along the lines of "Imagine an encylopedia that has all of human knowledge, that is what we are doing here". The problem is that the definition of knowledge was not layed down at the start. David D. (Talk) 15:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I have to object to this WP:POINT accusation. The "school war" only exists because people keep trying to delete schools when there is no consensus to do so. Since we believe users would want an unlimited encylopedia to share information about schools we can hardly be accused of "disrupting wikipedia" when we try to protect that information. Kappa 15:35, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Why object, isn't it part of the debate? Information vs knowledge? David D. (Talk) 15:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, I don't mean to accuse school keepers of bad faith. In fact, I believe that all parties in this debate are genuinely trying to do what they think is right for Wikipedia. But I get a strong feeling that the school debate is nothing but a "war by proxy" over deeper issues. I'm sure we can all agree that the constant bickering over schools is disruptive, no matter what your opinion on the matter is. That's what I meant by my invocation of WP:POINT, and really I suppose it applies to both sides of the debate. David D. has already hit on my point, I think. flowersofnight (talk) 16:45, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
    • An alternative interpretation which is equally valid is that the "school war" only exists because those who want to include all schools regardless insist on blocking every attempt to delete a school, however trivial the article (and indeed the school) may be. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 11:26, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think the "war" exists because people on both sides consistently failed to consider the content of the article in front of them to vote based on a principle related to their perception of the subject matter. Ok, maybe that's what the controversy was, not why it happened, but somehow the usual faith in case-by-case determinations leading to the best overall determinations got erroded in favor of gaming the system with en masse template votes that failed to indicate that the voters had even read the article. And, of course, there were en masse deletion listings of schools... I've seen plenty of people vote "Keep, schools are inherently notable" when the article was the equivalent of "Smith High School is a school named after Smith," and plenty of people vote "Delete, schools are not inherently notable" when the article filled three screens with substantive information. The least we should expect is that everyone actually reads the damn article they're considering and judge it on what's in front of them. You can't really do that when you're simply racing down the entire list of VfD candidates to slap on template votes every time you see the word "school." I'm hoping the merge discussion above will return focus to the substance and integrity of the article. Postdlf 17:06, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Right on, Postdlf! This is precisely and exactly my concern. An article on an individual, no matter how noteworthy, which treated its topic as trivially as some of these articles do, would be hooted right out of Wikipedia. Yet for some bizarre reason, some people think it's just fine to keep school articles which I think ought to be both an embarrassment to an author and to an encyclopedia. Denni☯ 01:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
The quality of the early drafts of an article is completely irrelevant in deciding whether it should be kept or not. Many high quality articles were feeble to start with. All stubs on legitimate topics should be valued because 99%+ of visitors never even get so far as producing a tiny stub. If the topic is legitimate and verifiable, the article is a valuable contribution, and should be given time to evolve (and that can mean decades, not the few days that impatient deletions seem to think is enough). CalJW 23:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly with CalJW on this point. I don't like these plans that involve deletion based on content (although the merge-based-on-content ideas sound reasonable). I strongly feel criteria (however inclusive or exclusive) should be based on the subject, not the current content. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 23:23, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
I'll rethink my comment, but at least we can agree on the proper considerations for merging. Postdlf 01:43, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I rethought about it, and here's why I still think actively considering the content would have helped ameliorate the endless deletion discussions: If those voting knee-jerk keep had taken the time to consider how sparse many of the articles were, they may have come to the rational conclusion that merge may have been a better option at the time (or even delete without prejudice to start over), and wouldn't have provoked as much those who were justifiably offended at the poor quality of the article. And if those voting knee-jerk delete had taken the time to consider how voluminous some of the articles were they may have reconsidered just how nonnotable the specific subject was—I know I did. That's all. Postdlf 01:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone see any problem with "Delete if it's an unencyclopedic topic, merge if it's an insufficient article, keep if it passes both tests"?
I don't see why we should have standalone microstubs, but I'm uncomfortable with deleting things based on the content of the article rather than the validity of the subject. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 04:56, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
And I think you're right to be uncomfortable with it; it's not something that should happen frequently. I've only voted to delete an article on a Wiki-appropriate subject when the article was pretty much a bunch of incoherent garbage (though not quite speedy-deletable), and a "cleanup" would in fact require starting from scratch. If an article has existed in such a state for a long time, and no one seems willing or able to improve it... But I'm fine with your objection, as such cases are rare and such deletion decisions should be kept rare. Postdlf 17:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Forward from my mailbox

I saw your post at User talk:Daycd#The mergist view, and was interested in the study that you mentioned that included schools in California, since I am the person who started the California and Southern California WikiProjects. As an experiment, I've put as many SoCal school and school district articles as I can find on my watchlist and have been watching them for any changes, while doing no editing myself except for reverting spam and vandalism. In my sample, I've seen almost no change except for things that needed to be reverted.

Both individually and collectively, school articles are some of the crappiest articles on the Wikipedia. If you compare them to most of the fancruft on the Wikipedia, for example, while I personally have doubts about the encyclopedic value of much of the fancruft, at least most of the articles are very well written. Many of the school articles, on the other hand, if they aren't some minimalist substub, are filled with mangled spelling and grammar, as well as trivia, gossip and rumor. Someone could probably get away with merging a large number of the school articles into larger articles on school districts and cities without any problems, but if the School Inclusionists ever found out about the effor, they would still raise a firestorm even if no information was being deleted. BlankVerse 09:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC) Denni☯ 01:35, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

My first impression for many of the spruced up school articles, after all the trivia, gossip and rumor had been removed, was yellow page entry. I quickly realised that they would never get deleted since they seem very popular with some people. Merging was the obvious compromise since at present many of the schools are no more than two or three liners padding out a few pieces of information. I think it is clear than fancruft is done so well since there are thousands of users who know about and follow such trivia. Conversely the nature of a school means that very few, if any wikipedians take owner ship of an article. This appears to be born out by the observations you posted above. David D. (Talk) 04:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Denni, merged crap is still crap. Crap is welcomed by wikipedia. Anybody is free to make crap. 1500 new articles a day are made, and a lot are crap. Yet, you do nothing to stop the crap *before* its made. Really simple things (as suggested) could be done, to restrict people (restrictions on new users, quality controls on all users). But, you only cirticize those who try to clean it up. All you do is *succesfully* discourage people from improving it, by your endless barage of vile personal insults (calling me "perverse" for instance). I'm sure your very happy with yourself, by your success in your viscous repeated personal attacks. 99% of the people making crap (one-line stubs, as an example) will never read this, or anything you ever say. They'll never be effected by your campaign of insults. You haven't figured out that if 100% of all AFDs of all schools resulted in deletes, 95% of new school articles would still survive, with 800/month new articles, often one-line stubs. Nobody wants to raise quality around here. These are the only successfuly wiki groups:

  • Keep only notable crap
  • Keep all crap
  • Merge crap

But please carry on a pointless conversation. --Thivierr 06:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Just because this seems to be all about me, I'll respond by saying I'm not quite sure what you're driving at. I don't recall having attacked you - as a matter of fact, I thought we were making a real effort to communicate here - and I have =no= idea what this stuff about "crap" is all about. I have several questions I would like to ask you about what you've said here, but by the red link I see, it would appear you have no interest in dialog. Fine. If you come back, I'm still here. And I'm interested in seeing a peaceful resolution to the school issue, not a continuation of the conflict. Denni☯ 05:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

school templates from Rob's talk page

Below is the text of a conversation I had with rob related to this page. Unfortunately he seems to have left wikipedia. I wanted to keep this discussion intact since i thought he made some good points. David D. (Talk) 05:22, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi Rob, good job on organising the name convention straw poll. It will be good to have some kind on consensus that can be applied across the board. Along the same lines have you thought about infobox templates? I notice that I have been using a different version (Whitman Middle School (Seattle, Washington), Template:Infobox_School) to yourself (Alternative High School (Calgary) a non template version), and there are several other flavours out there too. Do you know if there is a standard that should be used? So far i have found relatively little discussion in this area. David D. (Talk) 15:30, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Templates is a really tough question. I just keep finding so many exceptions, that it's really hard to find a pattern. You're right that I've been doing a separate table each time. I realize the problems with this. However, I find it's problematic forcing a standard. Different jurisdictions, use wildly different terms, for the same thing. Canadian schools have unique organizations, like Separate school districts (not public, and not private). Often, what's one item in one school, could be multiple items for another. But, even within Alberta, I find patterns difficult.

Some schools "feed" or are "fed" by certain others schools, while other schools have no such special relationships.

I had hoped that I would see a pattern, and then create/update a template, but so far, the pattern hasn't stabilized. Just recently, I've dealt with what should be a simple field "Primary language" (e.g. English or French). However, there are different cases: French language schools run by French school districts for French families, and French immersion schools run by English language districts for English families. So, I'm not sure how to make a template flexible enough to handle such stuff, but simple enough for simple cases. So, anyhow, I'll have to keep thinking about this one. It ain't simple. --rob 15:48, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I think you could be right that there are too many exceptions. One possability is to have a template, such that the overall look is standardised, but not specify the variables so that users can use what is most appropriate for each scenario. An example of this can be see in the Template:Infobox_School where you will notice there is one "free_label" and "free_text" option. i used this for the mascot option since mascot seem to be pretty big in the US. Consider a template where most of the variables are defined as free_text1, 2, 3 etc. This may allow the flexability that is required but help keep a predictable look to the infoboxes. David D. (Talk) 16:05, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I think, regardless of whether we use templtes in all cases, we can still specify a standard. Perhaps, make a semi-standard template. If people don't use it, they'll still be asked to conform to things like field order, and terminology to the greatest extend possible. Maybe it's best to create a template, that actually lists every conceivable field that you would want. Even if it's not always used, it sets the standard. For instance, not everybody will say "mascot", or "Primary language". But, we can insist that "Primary language" comes before "Mascot" if used. And it might dictate a term like "Primary language" be used instead of "Main language". --rob 16:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
I think that it would be a good idea to standardise the order. In this way it will be easy to scan down any school template to find the required information and it will obviously be absent once readers become aware there is a defined order. David D. (Talk) 16:32, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

I say School Wiki

Im thinking of getting permition to start a School Wikipedia. The ilusionest, deletionist stuff is too tiresome and the main reason of that conflect between those 2. Creating a School Wiki will solve the conflect and everyone is happy. What do u guys say --JAranda | watz sup 01:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Seems like a school-specific Wikicity wouldn't be a bad idea. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:12, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Why would I object? The only issue would be what school articles should be left here. There are likely some small number that should remain here. However I would like to think that if the decision was to move all of them, you could get concensus. Vegaswikian 03:16, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes a select few schools are notable enough for here but for most schools like Nautlius Middle School whould probaly go to the school wiki. --JAranda | watz sup 03:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't see why you want to cut wikipedia up into little pieces. Better to create an everything wiki, but we already have that. Kappa 03:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Do you want more conflicts like this --JAranda | watz sup 03:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • If we're going to shove anything to wikicities, it should be the pointless AFD's, not the useful content. Or, perhaps, a new proposal for WP:CSK, with the first criterion to be "1. The article is about a school"? BTW, I certainly don't oppose creating a school wiki if you want; its contributors may generate content that can be usefully moved onto Wikipedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
        • I would not be averse to that idea at all. A wiki devoted exclusively to schools could reasonably take the microstubs that are popping up here because its mandate would allow it. We are trying to create an encyclopedia, which to me means that articles must have some encyclopedic relevance and some content. Certainly, bringing back the genuinely notable schools would be a worthwhile endeavor. (I also think, btw, that a pokéwiki would also be a good idea) Denni☯ 04:39, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
          • The Pokémon cruft is mostly being consolidated into more-encyclopedic lists and overviews. Many of the nn Pokémon characters have been or will be merged into lists and summaries.
            This isn't strictly relevant, but it bears mentioning. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 06:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Of course "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" support a School Wiki. It will allow them to excise school articles from Wikipedia, which is their goal all along. Nice try.--Nicodemus75 08:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Assume good faith. Actually it will allow for a place where all school articles can be included without contention - it is arguably the ultimate victory for schools inclusionism as no school would be excluded. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • My comment has nothing to do with assuming good faith. School deletionists do not believe that schools which they judge to be "non-notable" have a place in Wikipedia. School inclusionists (generally speaking) believe that schools carry inherent aspects of notability and ought to be included in Wikipedia. A "solution" of moving all school articles out of WP is not a solution to the fundamental debate taking place. We inclusionists will never accept a School Wiki as a solution because it is the opposite of what we believe about schools in the first place. A School Wiki is just deletionism by another name. Frankly, telling those of us that believe that schools are noteworthy and encyclopedic that we can have a nice little place where to play all by ourselves is very magnanimous and all - but I'm afraid we aren't interested in your "seperate but equal" proposal. --Nicodemus75 11:00, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Nicodemus, I see a lot of intransigence on the part of the inclusionists, and a lot of attempts to compromise and suggest a workable solution among the various other parties. Your comments indicate that you absolutely will not accept anything other than your way. Is that correct? - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 11:23, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • For myself, I cannot trust any attempt to compromise while school deletionists are still trying to sneak school deletions under the radar. I suspect that a great many others feel the same way. Why compromise with people that make you keep refreshing AFD all the time? Stop nominating schools and stop voting delete. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • How many straw men need to be erected in order for "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" to have satisfied themselves? Why does my rejection of this School Wiki eequate to "anything other than "my" way"?? It is in the interest of those who oppose the inclusion of school articles on the basis that schools are noteworthy in their own right, to constantly portray inclusionists as "intransigent" or "uncompromising" or "extremist" while all the while offerring "compromises" and "proposals" which don't even reflect the current situation on Wikipedia. I will repeat it again, even though User:CalJW made it very clear back in May: "The only reason to come up with some new policy is to create a means of deleting some school articles. Those of us who think all the articles should be kept will never accept such a policy, and as noted above we haven't lost once in the last 64 votes. The school deletionists have lost. It is time for them to move on to a new hobby horse - or maybe to spend the time they might have otherwise devoted to this matter writing articles." There is a constant and consistent unwillingness to accept this fact, even though that in the 6 months since then, the precedent (and in some instances such as high schools, outright consensus) has been far further strengthened than was even imagined by many at that point. The lie which is peretuated by "those who routinely nominated and/or vote to delete school articles" that this debate is somehow a gridlock of 50/50 or even 60/40 opinion is foisted upon those of us that work to maintain and improve school articles as an excuse for their prosecution of a war against school articles, even though it is demonstrably false. "Lots of attempts to compromise" and "workable solution" and "various other parties" is all a bunch of coded references to some brand of school deletion. These are false compromises, non-workabloe solutions and "various other parties" who all wish to see some school articles that are currently not being deleted via the processes, excised from Wikipedia. Despite the re-envigorated discussion on this page (which for the most part constituted between 3-5 deletionists trying to conduct a "discussion" on their terms with a SOLITARY, well-meaning school enthusiast whom they managed to drive from Wikipedia with their constant personal attacks), I have yet to see any compromise worthy of the name. Bottom line, I will accept something other than my way. What I and others will not accept, is any so-called "compromise" that involves the deletion of school articles from Wikipedia that are not currently being removed via the AfD process.--Nicodemus75 13:05, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Currently, no schools that exist are being removed via AFD. Given that, can you tell us what exactly your "compromise" might involve, given that the entire debate is about which schools belong on Wikipedia? flowersofnight (talk) 14:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Nicodemus75 you keep saying the following "Bottom line, I will accept something other than my way. What I and others will not accept, is any so-called "compromise" that involves the deletion of school articles from Wikipedia". But, if that is your real position then why have you not commented on discussion above at Perspective_of_David_D.. That discussion was initiated by ideas presented by Hipocrite. For reference I noted:
"I think if Nicodemus75 took a good look at this proposal it would be apparent that zero schools would be deleted. However, the low quality school articles would be more organised and consequently more useful. Also it would be more apparent which schools are missing from the project. With the redirect approach every school name and page is defined early in the project, however, the pages are only expanded when there is enough information. I'd be interested to hear comments."
Hipocrite said it. I was asking for clarification, Nicodemus; your every comment thus far has been to reject. There are compromises on the table, but your contribution to them has been unconstructive. I want to know if we're wasting our time even trying to find a compromise you like. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 18:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
My suggestions were taken a step further by Vegaswikian who said:
"While the article needs work, take a look at Clark County School District. The district article was created to encourage the collection of information so that school articles could be created when they had enough material for an article. It also provides a place for having some of the common information like region and magnet schools."
Are you saying that these suggestions are NOT a compromise? It certainly sounds like it when i read your comments above? David D. (Talk) 16:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I do not regard merging schools into municipalities, lists or districts as an acceptable compromise (however well intentioned) to the problem before us.--Nicodemus75 16:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • At least we have that straight. So would you care to expand on your comment "Bottom line, I will accept something other than my way." Until we know what your something is it will be hard to move forward with you as a happy collaborator. David D. (Talk) 17:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Can we merge the substubs untill they become more than substubs? Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:11, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Personally, I dislike substubs being on Wikipedia at all. I change them to redirects on sight (or delete if no redirect can be found). "Piddwell High School is a high school in Pidwell." What of that do you think adds to the encyclopdia? If you know the name of the school, "Pidwell High School", then you know that it is a high school in Pidwell. --Celestianpower háblame 18:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think there may be an emerging consensus to merge "Piddwell High School is a high school in Pidwell." into "Pidwell Regional School District," leaving "Piddwell High School" as a redirect untill the embedded Piddwell High School substub is expanded. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I think a good deal of further discussion and clarification must be fleshed out before we agree to a merge policy on "substubs". I will comment more on this below.--Nicodemus75 03:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Im trying to get Ryan Norton who now only does meta wiki to try to help me in the creation and nomination for a school wiki and when its done u guys could vote on it over there in Meta Wiki. --JAranda | watz sup 00:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Don't bother Aranda, only deletionists are really interested in making a schools wiki and they wouldn't want to build and look after it. Kappa 00:45, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I whould --JAranda | watz sup 01:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

A Different Perspective?

I showed up here after watching the ongoing debate at Odle.

Currently things seem to be at a serious impasse regarding school articles. On one hand, the idea of a School Wiki is appealing to me as it would remove a large amount of the strife and hostility that has been cropping up recently in regard to these AfD requests. On the other hand, however, if Wikipedia is truly a knowledgebase for everything, then it only makes sense that the school articles be kept.

As you may have read, I took the stance on Odle to keep the article in question and gave my reasons. Personally, I'm of the opinion that a city is based on a few important foundations. One of the most important foundations is the education system in that city. I came from a small town in Michigan, and to us our High School and Middle School were very important things that brought the community together. These schools also have histories behind them, particularly in smaller communities. The same goes for libraries, in my opinion. To someone who comes to Wiki to research a town, don't we have an obligation to provide them with as much of a record on that town as possible? (Yes, I know that there are ongoing arguments over whether or not small towns should be removed, etc.)

Here's an idea that I want to bring to the table -- that has probably been brought before. In the case of small towns/small town articles, why not merge the schools into that town? Larger cities could have their school articles separate to keep the clutter down to a minimum in the articles, but small towns/communities would have school articles merged into an Education section within that town's entry.

Is this deletionism? In a sense, perhaps, in that a bunch of articles are being shut down. But it is by no means the deletion of the information in question -- which would be preserved and help to give the small town articles some focus.

Just some food for thought! :) --Martin Osterman 14:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

  • As far as I'm aware, there is a strong consensus that all real towns should be kept - and in fact, articles for them are automatically generated. However, I don't think any proposal to merge schools into town has caught on so far. We've also discussed merging by school district, by state, etc. However, the problem seems to be that there is a certain contingent who think that all schools are so jam-packed with "inherent notability" that nothing less than a full article will suffice. So perhaps any merging plan we come up with will just be an organizational scheme at best. Anyway, here's another bit of food for thought for you: What about towns with no schools? Imagine, say, a retirement community. What takes the place of the school in that community? Should the local bingo hall get an article instead? It might be just as important to them as the school was in your hometown. flowersofnight (talk) 15:19, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The problem is actually that school districts (the right merger target) cut across town lines. If we didn't have to spend all this time yelling at eachother about the either bad-faith or newbie nominations of schools for AFD, we could make headway on the district mergers. But, because the deletionists keep voting delete on schools, we have to keep voting keep, and we have to try to convince people who have no background in the debate not to delete schools. All of that time, effort and server space is wasted. If only the deletionists would stop trying to sneak one under, we could make headway. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Not true. Previous efforts to merge have been resisted, as they are being resited on this page right now. Everyone isn't as reasonable as you. - brenneman(t)(c) 16:52, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Are there any viable alternatives that people would willingly agree to, then? Can we find a middle ground that will satisfy most everyone involved? --Martin Osterman 17:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
A disingenuous argument. First, the deletionists do not "Keep voting to delete on schools," they keep voting to delete "non-notable schools". Even a cursory look over the last few weeks of votes will show that deletionists are prepared to vote "keep" on schools which show even a modicum of notability. I think that on some votes, so-called deletionists have actually gone out of their way to vote keep. On the other hand, even a scrupulous search of votes going far further back than just the past few weeks will not show a single "delete" vote by those who could be perceived as inclusionists, even on school articles which are so bad they almost defy description, or which by their content fail to demonstrate a shred of notability. So who's keeping who voting? Second, this discussion has been going on for several days now, it is only the deletionists who are making any positive suggestions toward ending the conflict. Of all who could be said to represent the inclusionist faction, only Hipocrite (in my estimation) has shown the slightest inkling that a compromise could be in everyone's best interests. The other inclusionists in this group might just as well hang a big sign here that says "NO TO EVERYTHING" and go on about their business, for all the help they are in this discussion. Denni☯ 00:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
With genuine appreciation for your particular willingness to compromise and engage in what is beginning to look like the first reasonable discussion in *ages* on this issue, you do not constitute the bulk of the "deletionists" in question. Because you and Gateman have been willing to accept some consensus and precedent on some schools in the past couple of weeks, does not mean that the others have changed their views or behavior (see today's AfDs as evidence [1]. As far as whether or not some of us have voted to delete school articles in the past, I really think that this a red herring and is at cross-purposes with what you are trying to achieve with participation at this page. It doesn't do any of us any good for me to go on a rant about Gateman's creating preschool or fake school articles. I will comment more on some of this below, but surely you must understand why inclusionists as a group are wary of these types of discussion. There is a lot of bad water and casualties under this bridge, and many of us see our efforts to achieve precedent and consensus as having been a long, hard slog. We are not prepared to give up the gains that we have "fought for" (as it were) when there is a sentiment that we cannot trust the other side because of bad-faith actions and personal attacks hurled about in the past. (I will comment more below).--Nicodemus75 04:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I really appreciate your comments about wariness, Nicodemus. I come to this discussion with precisely that sentiment. Yet I know there are only two options ahead of us: to continue in a conflict which will lock both of us into returning to AfD day after day to ensure "our side" is winning, or to come to terms and accept a compromise. Your comments here have given me some hope the latter is possible. Denni☯ 04:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Surely, you are correct that there are two paths: either continuing to hash it out at AfD, or hash it out somewhere else. However, the difference that it seems you are still unwilling to accept is that "your side" isn't "winning" anything. I am not pointing this out to gloat, but rather to put into perspective the context of these discussions. In order for there to be any progress here, the *real* situation on the ground in WP has to at least be acknowledged by all parties. In over 300+ AfD nominations, no schools are deleted. This means that there is no consensus to delete school articles on the basis that you and others have argued for in the past. I submit that whatever comes of these discussions, that fact MUST be our starting point. In order for any discussions here to have a purpose, the bulk of active inclusionists must endorse the proposals - they will never do so if there isn't a categorical realization that in order to "save school articles", all they have to do is keep doing exactly what they have shown themselves willing to do for the past year (ie. Monitor school AfDs, improve and cleanup school articles which are nominated, and vote to keep them).--Nicodemus75 05:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
This is precisely where überinclusionists are deluding themselves. Just because deletionists are losing does not mean inclusionists are winning. If you were, you could go away and create new articles to your heart's content in all your new spare time. As is, you have to keep checking back in every day to ensure deletionists do not steal a march on you and "win" a school. What kind of victory is that?

At the risk of diluting my argument, I'm going to present you with another point, Nicodemus. I reviewed all the school articles for Texas and California, yes, all of them, with especial interest in articles more than a year old. There were twelve of them. Two had been significantly improved in a year, five had been somewhat improved, and five, nearly half, had not been improved at all. Where does this put your argument that inclusionists are willing to "improve and clean up" school articles? If I could honestly believe that articles (school or otherwise) stood a reasonable chance of showing significant improvement over time, I would be far less likely to vote for their deletion. Call me an eventualist if you will, but call me a pragmatic one. If an article reads "Earache School is a school in Earache Alberta", and I have no expectation that it will ever improve over that, then I hope you can understand my desire to avoid embarrasment to Wikipedia and see it done with.

Finally, I think that to make the assumption that I am somehow more benign than other who vote to delete is false. Many others who vote "delete" as a pattern rarely give a reason for their vote, or keep it simple. I consider these as "soft" votes. Those such as me and Gateman, who provide reasons for our votes, are much tougher nuts to crack, and I think you should be glad you have us here. I believe the others could quickly be persuaded to change their votes with discussion on individual AfD pages by thoughtful deletionists. Denni☯ 05:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I can see my renewed efforts here are wasted. Your comments on today's AfDs make it clear that your supposed good faith in these discussions is a load of horse manure. This is the second time I have been stupidly drawn into actually trying to "discuss" these issues with you. Go waste someone else's time.--Nicodemus75 05:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
What the HELL are you talking about? My contribution to the AfD discussions today was solely to invite others to participate in this discussion. I did not vote and I did not discuss. Please enlighten me as to your issue. Denni☯ 05:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Hmmmm - could it be that I'm still voting on churches? If so, I urge you to get a grip, Nicodemus. This is a one-step-at-a-time thing, and if you can't first accept that I've given some ground on schools, then please excuse me for wasting your time, and feel free to return to the war. Denni☯ 06:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Hipocrite Aaron is correct. In the section above Nicodemus says "I do not regard merging schools into municipalities, lists or districts as an acceptable compromise (however well intentioned) to the problem before us." If we are going to work together as a team, and we have no option if we want to stop wasting time, we need to sort this out. I might add I have not voted on a school for a while, although I have made comments, for the very reasons you mention. I agree that a good place to start is to stop voting delete. In reality you will not stop the Afd since any user new to the school debate will probably nominate the one liner stubs in all ignorance. David D. (Talk) 17:09, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Merging the substubs is different than merging the schools. Schools with serious articles should stay as individual articles, regardless of "notability." No content should be lost.Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:08, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • RE: No content should be lost. I agree and this has been the argument from the beginning. Do you think Nicodemus thinks we are talking about cutting content? From my perspective this has never been on the table. David D. (Talk) 18:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think that, yes, many people are thinking about cutting content. Should we have one article about all the grocery stores in Brooklyn, New York, allowing grocery stores that somehow have a long section to break themselves out? Since the grocery store pareallel is often made, I, and other, inclusionists feel that many people don't even support sub-stub mergers, or only support sub-stub mergers as long as no articles about "non-notable schools" can ever graduate out of sub-stub status? Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Hipocrite is absolutely correct about this. Many "deletionists" DO NOT support sub-stub mergers or that the sub-stub merging is a way to keep "non-notable" schools from ever getting their own articles. The other problem will become the definition of a "sub-stub" for these purposes. Hardline deletionists will invariably claim that "X is a sub-stub, thus there is consensus to delete (merge) it" should this discussion become fruitful in establishing a standard, and this will happen to school articles/stubs which at least some of us will consider outside the scope of whatever compromise might be made on "sub-stubs".--Nicodemus75 04:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I would dare to ask, then, what the definition of "consensus" is if people are going to refuse to discuss a compromise. I may be new and fairly naieve to Wiki, but doesn't the finding of a consensus sometimes involve finding a compromise? --Martin Osterman 17:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Then perhaps we need to begin the discussion with the question of what makes schools noteworthy enough to be mentioned within the encyclopedia. That topic sours my mouth, however, because it then begins the whole argument all over again. For the sake of argument, however, assuming that schools deserve to be mentioned, where and how do they get mentioned? The most logical place, if people are upset over individual pages, is to include them in community pages -- or county pages -- or school district pages. Is this a matter, perhaps, that needs to go to a higher power? --Martin Osterman 17:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • it is the same as asking what makes Koga (Pokémon) noteworthy enough if we are going to advertise that we are the sum of all human knowledge then we should keep to our word Yuckfoo 19:37, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
Please share with me where we are advertising that we are the sum of all human knowledge. Just because Jimbo got excited and allowed his mouth to run away with his brain does not mean we are suddenly going to be creating articles on every rock and twig on this planet. Furthermore, "sum" does not mean "an itemization of each and every one", it means the grand total of several all rolled up into one. The reason we make a sum is so that we don't have to account for every individual number. Earache High School, without individual merit in no matter what department you wish to look, is nonetheless a working part of Earache School District and can reasonably be rolled into an article on that district. Denni☯ 00:15, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
      • How do you define knowledge? David D. (Talk) 20:04, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think we need to be very careful about pursuing either a discussion about "knowledge" vs "information" or "whether schools are noteworthy enough for WP". Whatever progress has been made here will be quickly destroyed by the inevitable series of circular arguments which will follow if we go down that road.--Nicodemus75 04:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • But how are we to decide what to do with schools if we can't even consider how notable they are? You're not giving us many tools to work with here. (I'll agree that "knowledge vs. information" might be a bit much to take on at the moment though, even though it does lie at the heart of this matter) flowersofnight (talk) 04:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Again, I think most of the participants here realize the problem of getting involved in yet another shouting match about school notability. This is something that is replayed daily on AfD, transplanting the gridlock over school "notability" to this page will achieve nothing. This discussion exists in the first place because (in part) there is no agreement on the notability of schools as a criterion.--Nicodemus75 05:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
      • The essence of cooperation is being in agreement on criteria for inclusion. "Noteworthiness" is one of those criteria which has come under fire, partly, I think, because it means different things to different people. Another criterion which is at the heart of this dispute is the verifiability criterion; just because it exists means it is worthy of inclusion. As I said above, this is a disingenuous argument - the extension of this argument means that every rock and twig on this planet is worthy of an article. How then can we accept this criterion as a part of a common ground? I would hope that those who seek to include the maximum amount of information in Wikipedia would be prepared to accept that information itself is not intrinsically valuable, and that some information has more value than other information. That said, can it be accepted that a school which has a significant history, programs which set it apart from other schools, significant community involvement, and notable alumni is different in value from a school which has none of these, and is worthy of inclusion where the latter may not be? Until we can come to commonality on definition of terms, wew cannot come to agreement on the disposition of school articles in general. Denni☯ 05:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Sorry, but this is just a re-formulation of the same, tired, old deletionist argument that is bandied about on virtually every AfD where you say "non-notable" and I say "notable". If you really think the purpose of this discussion is to just rehearse deletionist's claims that "notability" ought to be a factor in school articles where no such policy exists, than this conversation is doomed from the start. I guess it's back to AfD. --Nicodemus75 05:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
          • I find it telling that you are unable to dicuss the parameters for what might constitute notability. Is this the same old tired inclusionist non-sequiteur that everything is notable? Or are you ptrepared to engage in dialog? Denni☯ 05:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
            • The frustrating thing for me is that most of Nicodemus' argument above is nullified by reference to the various compromises put forward. The information will be included, all schools can be found, therewill be reference to them - just not in a myriad tiny articles. The argument for combining tiny articles into larger, more informative articles (e.g. the merging of minor game characters into the game articles, the merging of articles on album tracks into the album). That way there is reduced duplication, and maintenance is easier. What is the fundamental problem with merging articles into something whiah is actually more useful by virtue of covering a subject (schools in X) more comprehensively? It seems to me that having individual articles, many of which are stubs or even sub-stubs, is a sacred cow to Nicodemus, and I'd really like to know why that is. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Comity and lessening the urgency/divisevness

This discussion is difficult to have with the substantial number of ill-meaning individuals who vote on the AFDs out of pure frusteration. Would there be substantial disagreement from the users of this page if all school afds were IAR closed as no-consensus? If that fails, can we reach agreement on this page to not nominate schools and vote keep (even people on the far-deletion side of the debate) on all schools untill such a time that this proccess is declared stalled or successful?

Premature No-Consensus

Members of this discussion, untill it is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, have the support of this project to close all school deletion AFDs as no consensus on sight, and damned be the consequences of this IAR/BOLD action.

Accept:

  1. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. David D. (Talk) 18:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Nicodemus75 04:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose:

  1. Gateman1997 19:31, 10 November 2005 (UTC) That is arguably a position in opposition to Wikipedia policy and could result in RFCs for any admin that takes such action.
    I am willing to take that risk for myself, if there is strong support. I have changed the proposal slightly to not require signatories to close, but rather that they support such closers, and those of us willing to take the hit can take it. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    Honestly though I don't know how constructive that will be to what is being calmly discussed here. If anything you're just going to rile the hard core delete crowd even more and swing some of the moderate deletionist to their side. Also you don't take into account Preschool and Highschool AFDs which have developed into delete and keep consensus respectively per discussions here and elsewhere and preceedent.Gateman1997 19:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Oppose. A trouble-making suggestion only. Proto t c 09:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. Oppose. Schools must still be verifiable, and every so often unverifiable or hoax schools come up on AFD. Plus, those AFDs are a good place to advertise this very discussion. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 09:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Oppose: verifiability must be tested with rigour --redstucco 10:44, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment:

  • I'm not an admin so I can't close AFDs. I'm not opposed to this in principle though. flowersofnight (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This idea is a good on in theory. We must, however, not get ahead of ourselves here. This discussion so far has involved the serious participation of less than half a dozen editors active on the schools debate. Many, many editors (including admins and policy-wonks) will violently oppose this for a number of reasons, including the fact they will not wish to have precedents like this set down that will get used in other debates outside the realm of schools. IAR is *extremely* contentious. My endorsement of this is conditional upon the eventual outcome of these discussions. With respect to Gateman's concerns about hardening the delete crowd, I think that moderate editors who see an early no consenus closure that included citation to this page will come here and understand why there is an early closure. With respect to High Schools and Preschools, I think perhaps we need a separate straw poll of some sort to re-affirm existing consensus, at which point I think we can safely say that these discussions are applicable to elementary/middle/etc.--Nicodemus75 04:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • This idea is not good in theory. This idea is not in the spirit of WP:IAR, it is in the spirit of WP:DICK. Proto t c 09:50, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I will revert any speedy closes of schools, save for no-deletion-asked-for closes or bad faith listings. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 09:59, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Voting Pact

Until this process is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, I will vote keep or abstain on all school AFDs, and abstain from debate on AFD pages regardless of my personal view of the "right" vote for that article.

Join:

  1. Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. Martin Osterman 18:24, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. David D. (Talk) 18:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Yuckfoo 19:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


Reject:

  1. This proposal essentially says, "Only keep votes on schools are acceptable". I fear that if it were widely adopted, it would later be turned around to demonstrate a "consensus" to keep all articles with "School" in the name, where no such consensus exists. Please consider my proposal below, which I consider less likely to distort the "facts on the ground", whatever they may be. flowersofnight (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    That's not what it says. It says that in the interest of comity, we'll stop fighting. No schools will be deleted given current voting patterns, so this is just status-quo ante without any precedent. I cannot sign onto your alternative, because it is not fair to ask the "side" that is "winning" to disarm. Additionally, signing onto the voting pact will not be used to determine that a false consensus exists to keep all schools. This signature sheet is here.Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:39, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    Note I am not signing to keep, specifically. I am signing to abstain until we come to a resolution and I definitely do not consider my signature here as a vote to keep or a vote towards a "keep" consensus. I believe Hipocrite has put this forward as a good faith proposal. I also urge Hipocrite to accept that there will always be new schools going to Afd during this process since most users are not aware of this discussion. I'm not sure how to resolve that problem given the statements below that admin cannot sign the second statement below. Any odeas? David D. (Talk) 19:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    What I meant by the "false consensus" is that if many people were to sign onto this version of the pact, it might increase the proportion of keep votes on school AFDs to the point where outside observers not aware of this discussion will claim a clear consensus has been set. I didn't mean to impugn Hipocrite's good faith in proposing the pact. flowersofnight (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. I too reject this especially for the "keep" notation. This essentially is trying bully the issue rather then reach consensus. Also I'm not sure there is a need for this voting pact in the first place. Isn't it better to just continue the discusssions above? I believe we've made alot of progress on this issue already.Gateman1997 19:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    This is not the end of the issue. I was fairly riled after todays spate of bad-faith school nominations and voting, and was hoping that the deletionists here could make me feel safe by showing it was not an underhanded attempt to sneak stuff by. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:39, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    I don't think anyone was trying to "sneak" anything by. If you'll notice the nominations today came from anons or users not engaged in this debate. No nominations have been brought by deletion favoring people engaged in the debate since we reopened the issue the other day.Gateman1997 19:42, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    Re: the need for pacts - I think it serves a purpose as a symbolic gesture to say we support resolving this issue through discussion and trying to establish a consensus, rather than endless AFD warring. flowersofnight (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    I respect that. I'm all for ending this never ending AFD crap or at the very least cutting down on the ones that go on and on an on and on... However I think rather then covering ourselves for the long term now as these pacts are doing we should continue to hammer out consensus in a timely fashion as we've been doing above. As I said before I think we're making real progress here. I think from watching this page that so far we've hammered the following out A. Preschools are almost certain deletes unless they are a VERY extroidinary case. B. Highschools are almost certainly keeps unless the stub is unverifiable or a fraud. C. That middle/elementary schools are keep if the article is of sufficent quality, otherwise they are merged to a broader topic if possible to be held there until expanded to a sufficent size with verifiable information (What appears to remain is what is "sufficent" quality and size for keeping these articles?) *Anyone feel free to correct what I've just said if you disagree*
    I don't think I've voiced support for deletion of any school article. I have proposed a merge and redirect policy for smaller articles at all school levels, and accept that consensus exists that preschools are deletes. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    I don't think I've noticed you voicing support for delete. But you cannot deny that consensus does exist to "delete" all preschools, playgroups, etc... Just as consensus does exist to keep HSs. Part of both of these consensus come from debate here, some support comes from prior AFDs where 95% of HS articles have been supermajority (aka consensus) keep and Preschools have been supermajority delete.Gateman1997 20:51, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    Which is why I wrote that I accept that such a consensus, even if I do not join it, exists. I do not join the consensus to keep high schools (though I vote to keep them.) The only policy I consent to is keeping all longer articles and merging all substubs into district wide articles. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:54, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    Ah I see what you are saying. You can understand my confusion then as voting Keep on an AFD is voicing support for consensus if that article is outright kept. Unless as I'm starting to see you don't consider an AFD vote for a single article to be consensus for it's category as a whole.Gateman1997 20:57, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  3. I do not support this question because the only ones asked to not vote are the deletionists. It would not hurt the inclusionist cause to also step out of the voting for the interim if the outcome is as predetermined as they would like us to believe, and at the same time would show good faith from their side as well. Denni☯ 01:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  4. Reject. Voting "keep or abstain" will only lead to schools being kept and will not result in the issue being resolved. If anything, I support the alternative pact proposal which encourages fully abstaining from voting so no personal bias can shine through. - Mgm|(talk) 11:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment:

  1. I am only voting yes to this with the intent to abstain from further AfD voting on school articles and/or discussion regarding said AfD articles until such time as either a consensus is hammered out here or I grow old and grey. --Martin Osterman 19:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    I agree with Martin here: see my comments above. David D. (Talk) 19:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    If you intend only to abstain, please support my similar proposal below which I feel is worded more appropriately. flowersofnight (talk) 20:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    My apologies. Your proposal was put up following my vote on this one and I had not looked it over. --Martin Osterman 20:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • While I would like deletionists to agree to this "pact" for the purposes of actually building a consensus, it doesn't surprise me at all that they feel uncomfortable with it. Frankly, some of the arguments opposing this above actually make sense. The agreement by deletionists to abstain from voting on these AfDs is commendable. I would say that the only way we will move forward here on building a consensus, is for existing AfD nominations against schools on the basis of being "non-notable" be acknowledged by deletionists that the AfD will fail. If we can agree to that, I think some of us may well be prepared to compromise towards merging of "sub-stubs". In any case, I am not going to sign this pact simply because it calls for me to do something that I am already doing. Denni is right in that this pact is a call for deletionis not to vote. I leave that decision to the individual editor.--Nicodemus75 04:25, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Alternate Voting Pact

Until this process is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, I will abstain on all school AFDs, and abstain from debate on school AFD pages.

Accept:

  1. flowersofnight (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  2. I will continue, however, to direct all participants of individual Afd discussions to this page. Denni☯ 01:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose:

  1. Gateman1997 19:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC) - not that I reject the idea out of hand, however I believe in continuing to voice my opinion (especially on HS and PreSchool AFDs since consensus has generally been reached on both types of schools for "keep" and "delete" respectively) and encourage people to visit this page on the AFD pages.
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