Talk:North Arlington High School

Use of NCES templates and changes to citation formats

Most notably in this edit, User:Steven (Editor) has insisted that articles must be edited based on the way that this editor feels that they must be.

Wikipedia has policy that requires some things and policies that prohibit others; everything else muct be settled by consensus. Nothing presented by Steven (Editor) is based on policy. WP:CITEVAR is policy, yet Steven (Editor) has repeatedly changed the citation format in addition to imposing other changes, without consensus. Simply stating in an edit summary "this is how to do it", of on a user talk page saying "ensure you follow what I’ve said in the two edit summaries for North Arlington High School and apply this to any other high school articles you edit" is not how consensus works. Alansohn (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Alansohn, my wording there is not the best so I apologise for that! But what happened to linking the next part I added on your talk? What repeatedly changing the citation format, the NCES templates are the only ones that have its own implemented citation format. If the citation format of the NCES templates is a concern for you, you would need to initiate a discussion on that — those templates were added all the way back in 2011 and you are the only one that has a problem with it? Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:41, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Steven (Editor), you were the one who explicitly changes the citation format for the principal; you have neither explained why WP:CITEVAR does not apply nor shown that you have consensus for the change. The NCES template is a cute alternative, but there is no policy requiring its use; you have not demonstrated any consensus supporting a change.

I cannot emphasize further that you have no authority to dictate, make demands or give orders a la "Please ensure you follow what I’ve said in the two edit summaries... and apply this to any other high school articles you edit". Alansohn (talk) 18:55, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

No I don't have authority to dictate, make demands or give orders... The way I put it like that was not the best, so I apologise again! Moving on, it is to ensure there is consistency among all school articles in line with the school article guidelines and Infobox school documentation. Those templates have been in use since 2011 and only you are objecting to its use?

As per the NCES School ID documentation: "In its most common usage, this will produce text of the School ID as both a direct hyperlink to the NCES webpage for the school and an inline reference." — benefits of this template? Direct link to the page, inline reference that can be used to cite other NCES stats via ref name and displays in the footnotes like the rest of the article references. If the NCES page link changes, this can be changed in an instant for all articles using this template, recently the title of the NCES page had changed, so it was changed in the template to match. Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:02, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

The school guidelines and the Infobox school documentation are, at best, suggestions, and that's at best; They are not in any way policy. There is nothing there that requires their use; if you had a policy that requires it I would be forced to accede. There are thousands of articles that have NCES data that don't use the template and thousands more that don't have any NCES data source. I appreciate that you prefer to use the templates and that you prefer to impose the use of the template where it has not been used before. That personal preference does not constitute consensus nor does it demonstrate that your preference is superior and can therefore be imposed by you. Alansohn (talk) 21:47, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Alansohn, NCES and its template is being added to all US public and private school articles on a gradual basis. It will take time before you see this on them all... If you oppose the use of this template, you need to initiate a discussion on it because think about it, what would be the need for this template? It also provides a standardized format which you can see is mentioned in the creation of this template discussion -no objections were raised after its creation. Steven (Editor) (talk) 23:05, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Edits to article

Please read the edit summary for this edit, which has an edit summary that says "move NCES reference to body of article per WP:INFOBOXREF and restore pre-existing format of ref for principal per WP:CITEVAR. Address excessive precision to hundredths place for student / teacher ratio and faculty". User:Steven (Editor) reverted the previous edit here, with an edit summary stating "Please discuss this change on the talk page, you got rid of then NCES template again".

Please read the article and look for the NCES template, which is still in the article. Please read the edit summary, please look at all of the changes and please follow your own demands and get the same permission for your edits that you insist of others and please see that your edit has been reverted. Alansohn (talk) 04:12, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

In a fit of anger User:Steven (Editor) made this edit with the edit summary "Restore, consensus hasn’t been established yet, I don’t understand why you’re moving parameters around, the current order is how they appear in the Infobox. The NCES template has to be used for infoboxes, it’s not just for being able to use as reference but to link to the school’s NCES dashboard", followed by this edit, which cleaned up some of the mess with the edit summary "Retain your updates, restore Infobox. No consensus was established on talk - I haven’t even replied to it yet and you wrote your proposed changes and then reverted my edits with edit summary “chg per talk page discussion”. NCES template doesn’t just provide the ability to reference data but also provides a link to the school’s NCES dashboard".

Almost three weeks after this section was created in response to the editor's demand for a discussion on the article's talk page, the editor has refused to participate in a discussion and get consensus for changes. The NCES template that is demanded is already in the article, it's just not in the infobox; nothing -- no policy of any kind -- requires its use. The order of the parameters in the infobox is entirely arbitrary and the infobox is rendered exactly the same no matter the order and no matter the number of spaces that precede the equals sign. No editor needs to gain approval to edit this article and the demands from this editor are utter nonsense. As such, and given the editor's refusal to participate in the discussion the editor demands, the edits in question will be reverted, yet again. Alansohn (talk) 02:55, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

"In a fit of anger" — what anger? Actually what you did was start the discussion here and then reverted my edit the next day when I hadn't even replied to this yet. Unfortunately I have been really busy lately so didn't have much time for Wikipedia besides making small edits, so I kept this article out of the way for now and knowing this is going to become a huge useless discussion. I apologise for the delay (if you want to reply to this "almost three weeks after" or longer, no problem).

You are not understanding the purpose of the NCES template, it is not just for referencing NCES data but providing a visible ID number linked to the NCES dashboard in the Infobox next to the US NCES School ID parameter - that is the purpose of this template (this is consensus). If NCES changes its URL or title of the dashboard page, it can be updated in an instant which will reflect on all US school articles (latest change being the title in July 2019). If you do not like this template, you need to propose for the removal of it, because it is being added to the infoboxes on a gradual basis per consensus.

The spacing of the parameters and order of them may seem pointless to you but for me, I prefer a clean structure in line with the documentation and for consistency between the articles (whatever changes to the structure of the Infobox you do, you do - but the problem is that me and you will be changing this back and fourth, so how long will this pointless changes go on for?). There is nothing wrong with the content you added. Steven (Editor) (talk) 03:40, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

As to "pointless changes", I'm pretty sure that your statement that "I prefer a clean structure in line with the documentation and for consistency between the articles" is the best summary of the problem here. In the last 500 edits by User:Steven (Editor), there are about 50 that involve the pointless change the template title from "authority control" (with the first letter in lower case) to "Authority control" (with the first letter capitalized), as in this edit, even though Wikipedia doesn't care at all about the first character of the name of a template. About 100 involve adjusting the number of spaces before the equals sign in the infobox, as in this edit, even though Wikipedia renders the infobox exactly the same way no matter how many spaces there are or even if there are none. This obsessive compulsion to "fix" problems that don't need to be solved finds its most preposterous peak pointlessness at North Arlington High School. I know that you want to adjust the world to match your own idiosyncratic sense of neatness and tidiness, but that's not the point of the encyclopedia. Every edit made to the article, including what you removed in the most recent revert, includes everything that needs to be there; even the NCES template you moan about was already in the article. It provides all of the information you insist must be provided.

There is a place for the anal retentive / obsessive compulsive in this world. Going from door to door checking if the water is running or the gas was left on, will genuinely help reduce the waste of water and risk of explosion in a way that will benefit humanity. However, pushing this OCD agenda by edit warring over "pointless changes", even abusing requests for page protection to advance the edit war, only demonstrates the sheer pointlessness. There is no consensus here that requires anything; I don't need to get permission from you to edit the article.

My sincere hope for the new year is that you can find the inner peace to accept that Wikipedia has nothing to do about capitalization of template names or how many spaces there are in a template. I'll wait until the start of the new year for you to find this acceptance of reality, no matter how hard it is for some of us to deal with the messiness and untidiness of the world we occupy. Alansohn (talk) 15:52, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

It's also in line with MOS:INFOBOX and you are still not understanding the purpose of the NCES template -please re-read above and yes there is consensus for this template and how it is used. "I don't need to get permission from you to edit the article" — I can laugh at this useless statement, nobody owns anything on Wikipedia nor do you need permission to edit an article. Please refrain from making false statements. Regarding the page protection and the reason why I requested it, see the Requests for page protection discussion. Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Authority control has nothing to do with this, you should stick to the discussion here. You remove spacing from the infobox and move parameters around that have no effect on the infobox whatsoever — you do the same thing, hypocrisy! As for "Every edit made to the article, including what you removed in the most recent revert, includes everything that needs to be there; even the NCES template you moan about was already in the article. It provides all of the information you insist must be provided." — nothing was removed in the most recent revert, the content you added prior to this was kept, instead I added cite web template back for principal, the NCES template back to the infobox as per consensus and purpose of this template, the relevant syntax after parameters such as End date, United States typo in county to New Jersey, colours decapitalised, revert to previous high school link and it being part of the district. Steven (Editor) (talk) 01:12, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Again, if there is some consensus that requires the template to be used to fit your demands, let's see it; if this consensus existed, you would be referring to a specific discussion where this policy was established, rather than simply insisting that it exists. You have made the claim elsewhere that the country shouldn't be changed in the infobox (as here, and edit warred over it as here), but the same applies to whether the the template "authority control" is changed to "Authority control", as they all render the same way in articles. I do understand your obsession to ram through your obsessive vision of how an infobox *MUST* appear, but I hope that you can try to devote some time in 2021 to actually improving this encyclopedia rather than edit warring over the number of spaces before the equals sign in infoboxes. You may also want to review WP:CITEVAR -- which is an actual Wikpedia policy -- and refrain from arbitrarily changing the citation format used throughout the article. Alansohn (talk) 01:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)