Talk:Logansport High School

Removal of material

After a length expansion of the article, User:John from Idegon removed entire sections claiming "Superlative claims need independent sources, the history of the conference is not the history of the school,we don't discuss individual games, we don't mention nn students or staff", without a chance to make changes, then claimed Wikipedia:BRD when that clearly states "Reverting is reversing a prior edit, in whole or in part. Revert vandalism upon sight but revert an edit made in good faith only after careful consideration. It is usually preferable to make an edit that retains at least some elements of a prior edit than to revert the prior edit. Furthermore, your bias should be toward keeping the entire edit", even after I had made the changes he suggested and was adding more resources before he reverted again. Original edits were not in violation of Wikipedia rules, though he cites that I violated WP:SCH/AG's guidelines. Material should be added back in with fixes, his behavior completely breaks the Wikipedia:ROWN rule.Pennsy22 (talk) 05:06, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Care to try to discuss the edits? If so, I'll be happy to reply on Monday night. If not......John from Idegon (talk) 05:24, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Pennsy22, I'm afraid I have to endorse John from Idegon's content removals per WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI. Rambling unsourced trivia is for the school magazine, website or blog. I realise you've invested time on it, but it's not encyclopedic. Please don't make personal attacks, John knows what he's doing - he's been a coordinator of WP:WPSCH for a long time. Wikipedia:ROWN is not a rule, it's an essay. School article guidelines have been established by consensus over years. You may wish to compare some of our school GA such as Malvern College or Hanley Castle High School. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:27, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung, thanks for the input. It's not so much the removal, it's the way he did it without explaining himself until the third remark on his talk page. I also conceded that I understood what he was talking about but he continued to attack and stoop to name calling. I do have one question though that you bring up, everything I wrote was sourced, but how do you decide what is "trivia" and what is notable? As I've said, I tried to write it from an unbiased point of view and sourced everything, but it was still removed. Why was Med Flory removed? My source clearly stated that he was a school graduate. Why was the mascot section removed? I was adding other sources when the article was reverted the last time. It has significance outside Logansport. Again, thank you for feedback.Pennsy22 (talk) 08:43, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

John from Idegon, I can't believe you had the audacity to attack my edits when you reverted an edit on Kokomo High School on 1 August 2017, a page that clearly has as many, if not more violations than my edits. I'm beginning to feel a bias against either me or the school.Pennsy22 (talk) 09:28, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Pennsy22, just because something can be sourced, it doesn't mean it has to be included. Removing unwanted content from school articles is what we do, and when radically pruning a lot of it there may well be some minor collateral damage. However, nothing on Wikipedia is irreversible but you won't attract much sympathy or help if you persist with your personal attacks. With our 20,000 school articles to manage, to suggest we have a bias against you or the school is inappropriate. I've now spent an hour going through it all, and I really cannot see anything worth keeping in the Extracurricular activities section except perhaps for one line about the mascot. Besides being the characteristic American focus on sport and athletics, rather than academic topics (which generally is what we go to school for), it's mostly historical anecdotes and the people mentioned are not notable. I've restored the Flory entry, but also pruned it respectively - he already has an article in Wikipedia and there is no need to repeat it here. Please check out the school GAs I linked to - it's the best learning curve. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:40, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung, I had only started writing the article the night before, I made it as far as I could in the time I had. The article had nothing but an infobox when I started. At that point something was better than nothing. Yes, thank you for the restore and after seeing other articles I see it should just be a link, if appropriate, and a short sentence. To say the article was only about sports is jumping the gun a little since I hadn't had the opportunity to add more, now I'm on house arrest until Monday when John has time for me.Pennsy22 (talk) 10:08, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

It's not jumping the gun - it's a fact. All articles about American schools generally only discuss their athletic prowess. Probably something to do with the US school and college sports culture. That said, it's a conundrum John and I both share while coming from opposite sides of the pond, but as the custodians of Wikipedia's 1000s of school articles still assuring the best possible balance. I don't think between the two of us that we do a bad job of it. Neither Rome nor Wikipedia were built in a day and I'm sure we can accord John his weekend with his kids. Perhaps they're going to a ball game - something one never does as a family in the UK. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:21, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

Kudpung, okay, thanks for the laugh. I'll take the day off from it too, cooler heads will prevail. I just felt like I was being singled out, I don't want the article be not conform to the rules, just felt notations or talking first would have made the blow easier than having half my work deleted. I accept that things needed trimmed and I will hold off until Monday night to work it out. Thanks for your words of wisdom Kudpung.Pennsy22 (talk) 10:34, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

I saw this on my watchlist, and decided to insert what I believe to be completely uncontroversial and unoffensive to all parties, which is the school championships including sources. I think some of the other material is encyclopedic as well, particularly the weirdness of the school mascot and nickname...I believe the nickname may have been associated with the location of the state asylum located in the town.Jacona (talk) 11:47, 17 September 2017 (UTC)

John from Idegon, I would like to add the Mascot and team name back into the article in a similar fashion to the GA Auburn High School (Alabama), I used this article as a template for the material I just added.Pennsy22 (talk) 08:39, 19 September 2017 (UTC)

John from Idegon, please refer to the above mentioned article that I am using as a template, they have their clubs listed, using the schools webpage and school paper as references! Why are you fighting me on every edit?Pennsy22 (talk) 03:29, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFF is widely held to not be a valid argument in content discussion. My primary problem with your addition is and has been sources. You've yet to proffer any other sources. Jacona added the clubs not you. No one else has expressed any support for your sources, or your added content for that matter. And please see the section below. John from Idegon (talk) 03:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

I didn't add the clubs, just the athletic championships, which USer:Pennsy22 had mentioned and I went and found reliable sources. As far as some of the other stuff goes, the origin of the nickname and the mascot certainly could be encyclopedic. I'm not saying it is, not saying it isn't at this point. As User:John from Idegon says, we write about what has been written, and there seems to be a lot written about these. Felix the cat is the oldest mascot in Indiana [1],[2],[3] at over 90 years old. It probably deserves a mention, even though the verbose story ([4]) is interesting, but not encyclopedic. Maybe that's the kind of thing for an external link? Perhaps the mascot might even deserve its own article.Jacona (talk) 11:55, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

WP:CITEVAR

Why was the citation style changed on this article? I'm asking that it be restored to standard Wikipedia cite style. The sfn style is appropriate in some articles, primarily those where the vast majority of references are to books. That's not the case here at all, and per the above MOS guideline, the original citation style is to be used. John from Idegon (talk) 03:43, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

What an encyclopedia article is; and isn't

I really don't know why this needs to be here, but it obviously does. I've written similar "sermons" on numerous school articles where the school kids have taken over the article and attempted to use it as social media. That's not the case here, everyone working on this article is an experienced Wikipedia editor. But somehow, the point of an encyclopedia is being missed here.

By definition, an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. That means we do not write about the subject, we write about what has been written about the subject in reliable independent sources. The only independent sources on this article are verification of what is essentially statistical data from NCES and IHSAA. Kudpung can back me up on this - with only this kind of sourcing, if this school were in India or Africa, a serious effort would be made to delete it. It most likely wouldn't succeed, but there is still a significant cadre of editors that would have at it, and sometimes succeed.

Further, as is true of any social geography article, be it a settlement, school, road or building; we do not write them for the locals. I fail to see how a cute tale about a cat on a basketball court has any significance to anyone except those that already know quite a bit about the school, namely the students, parents and alumni. This isn't a folklore compilation site. It reminds me quite a bit of a piece I removed from another Indiana social geography article 5 years ago. Hobart, Indiana had unsourced tale about how it's name came about. That was home and I'd heard it from birth, but it's still bullshit. Supposedly, the founder of Hobart, George Earle, was riding his horse named Bart and came to a very beautiful area at the confluence of Duck Creek and Deep River near what is now downtown. He wanted to stop and enjoy it do he said "Ho, Bart" and the name stuck. Bullshit. George named the place after his brother Hobart, who had gone to Tasmania and started a place he named after himself. The point is, loosely verified facts are not an improvement to the article. Trivia is trivia whether it has a source or not. Until you can show that someone from outside of town has researched and discussed the Felix thing, it had no place here. Oh and by the way, Auburn High School is the Tigers because Auburn University is the Tigers right up til someone unconnected with the school says different. Basing an argument on OTHERSTUFF is weak and I'm not the only one to point that out. Basing an argument on a bit in another article that is sourced to one of the most inaccurate sources imaginable, a yearbook, is especially week. I've noticed, Pennsy, that you've primarily edited articles on ships and railroads. Those are areas that are rich with good solid sources. Social geography is a totally different ballgame. The vast majority of sources for these articles are crap. People have strong sentiments about their hometowns and alma maters and much of the material available about them reflects that. Add to that the fact that here we consider all settlements and schools virtually automatically notable means that in order to provide info that is relevant to the world, we've got to be pretty selective about what we use. John from Idegon (talk) 05:28, 20 September 2017 (UTC)