User:Herostratus/Email chain
The email chain
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Setting this up for discussion of the schooloutcomes closure. I will add in someguy1221 to this once he replies to my email. I will post a comment addressing the RFC substantively in a few hours, but I wanted to get everything started. -Tazerdadog Tazerdadog (talk) 00:28, 17 February 2017 (MST)
That RFC makes my brain hurt... but let's see if I can't get some thoughts down before the pain goes away. I think there are three main points to consider: 1. The ultimate question is "Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" 2. SCHOOLOUTCOMES (as mentioned by Kudpung) is not specifically mentioned in the RFC itself. 3. NewYorkActuary (about 3/4 to the bottom) makes a very good point, that there has never been a true consensus about either OUTCOMES or the implied/automatic/presumed notability of schools. It's been a contentious issue from the get-go. For brevity, I'm going to shorthand SCHOOLOUTCOMES to SO. As mentioned, the !votes are nearly split. In a rough count of the "types" of support/oppose rationale, I come up with about ten broad categories for each, but as mentioned initially by Tazerdadog many of the support categories are rather weak ("it will be disruptive", "they deserve an exception", "schools are important to their communities") while the oppose categories are mostly policy-based (GNG, NOTINHERITED, MILL, VAND, etc). This tips the overall consensus towards oppose, but I'm not overly convinced that it's enough for an outright rejection of the actual question (especially in light of point #3). I think there's only one consensus to come to, that of "no consensus" (otherwise we'll be drawn and quartered). In other words, the direct answer to the proposed question is "there is no consensus that schools are presumed notable" (basically Tazerdadog's point #2). However, the arguments presented by the oppose camp (in my mind) mean that SO should not be used as a reason for keeping (or deleting, to be fair). I just re-read SO, and it states nothing about policy. It simply says "usually high schools are kept". The catch-22 argument, therefore, becomes a bit stronger as a valid oppose rationale. So, in opposition to Tazerdadog, I think that SO should not be used in AFDs. I think that it has merit, but holds about as much weight as BEFORE (i.e. if someone breaks it, the worst that happens is a trouting). In other words, there is no consensus that schools are automatically presumed notable (i.e. schools still have to follow GNG and ORG), and SO should not be used as a "keep" argument. Primefac (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2017 (MST)
Ok, proposing an actual text for closure. " The question asked in this RFC was whether extant secondary schools should be presumed to be notable. Numerically, the respondents to this RFC were about evenly divided between supporting and opposing that statement. However, this is a discussion, and not a vote, and what truly matters is the strength of each side's argument. The opposers have a strong policy-based argument. Requiring the GNG to be satisfied in all cases is a perfectly sensible position, and one that is consistent with all applicable policies. The arguments of the supporters were more mixed. Some arguments, such as "Schools are important to their communities", "Automatic notability of schools are how Wikipedia has always done it, and this has historically served us well", and "School articles are valuable as a recruitment tool for new editors" do not make much sense and were discounted. Another common argument was that removing the protections secondary schools have historically enjoyed at AfD would lead to a flood of mass AfDing is a concern to be addressed in a hypothetical implementation, but is not germane to the question of whether those protections should exist. These opinions were partially or fully discounted in our evaluation. The supporters did have some very good arguments mixed in with the poor ones. The argument that sources for secondary schools are more difficult to find than they are for typical topics because they are likely to be concentrated in local and/or print media is very valid. Additionally, the argument that removing the presumption of notability from schools would increase systematic bias is very strong. Based on the discussion, we find that the community is leaning towards rejecting the statement posed in the RFC, but this lean stops short of a rough consensus. Whether or not the community has actually formed a consensus to reject the statement posed in the RFC is a distinction without a difference - Either way the proposed change will not be adopted. Over the course of the discussion, the conversation expanded to include the proper role of SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD makes the circular argument "We should keep this school because we always keep schools. This argument has been rejected by the community. Therefore, while SO remains perfectly valid as a statement of what usually happens to extant secondary schools at AFD, SO should be added to arguments to avoid in AFD discussions. (i.e. not prohibited, but discouraged and potentially discounted in them.) Because extant secondary schools often have reliable sources that are concentrated in print and/or local media, a deeper search than normal is needed to attempt to find these sources. At minimum, this search should include some local print media. If a deep search is conducted, and still comes up empty, then the school article should be deleted for not meeting the GNG - Editors are not expected to prove the negative that sources do not exist, but they should make a good-faith effort to find them. If a normal-depth search fails to find any evidence that the school exists, the article on the school should be deleted without the need for a deeper search. It's worth noting that this discussion does imply that schools are special. I would expect an RFC asking "Should artists whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" would be closed quickly and with snowballs. The fact that this was not the case for schools is telling. It's further worth noting that a flood of AfDs following the addition of SO to the arguments to avoid in AfDs list is undesirable. Editors who mass-nominate school articles should be asked to stop." Commentary on this version is welcome. Tazerdadog (talk) 05:19, 22 February 2017 (MST)
An updated closing statement including Primefac's fixes, and attempting to address The Wordsmith's concerns. I tries to dix the final sentence instead of deleting it. I have also fixed a run-on sentence in the first paragraph:
Based on the discussion, we find that the community is leaning towards rejecting the statement posed in the RFC, but this lean stops short of a rough consensus. Whether or not the community has actually formed a consensus to reject the statement posed in the RFC is a distinction without a difference - Either way the proposed change will not be adopted. Over the course of the discussion, the conversation expanded to include the proper role of SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD makes the circular argument "We should keep this school because we always keep schools". This argument has been rejected by the community. Therefore, while SO remains perfectly valid as a statement of what usually happens to extant secondary schools at AFD, SO should be added to arguments to avoid in AFD discussions. Rationales that cite SCHOOLOUTCOMES are discouraged, and may be discounted when the AFD is closed. Because extant secondary schools often have reliable sources that are concentrated in print and/or local media, a deeper search than normal is needed to attempt to find these sources. At minimum, this search should include some local print media. If a deep search is conducted, and still comes up empty, then the school article should be deleted for not meeting the GNG - Editors are not expected to prove the negative that sources do not exist, but they should make a good-faith effort to find them. If a normal-depth search fails to find any evidence that the school exists, the article on the school should be deleted without the need for a deeper search. It's worth noting that this discussion does imply that schools are special. We would expect an RFC asking "Should artists whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" would be closed quickly and with snowballs. The fact that this was not the case for schools is telling. It's further worth noting that a flood of AfDs following the addition of SO to the "arguments to avoid in AfDs" list is undesirable. Editors are asked to refrain from making indiscriminate or excessive nominations." Commentary is once again welcomed. Tazerdadog (talk) 16:02, 22 February 2017 (MST)
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Notes
[edit]Argh, I made some extensive notes on some details, but I lost them. Oh well. OK just making notes on points brought up...
- "Of course, this is not a vote, so let's quickly move on". I mean, it's not vote in the first-past-the-post sense, where 21-20 means anything different than 20-20. Other than that, in a case like this show of hands means something. How much is a matter of opinion. (There's a lot of advice at WP:CONSENSUS and the essay Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion regarding being careful with polling -- tends to divide people into camps, quashes compromise, is not necessarily conducive to a state where most everyone agrees (which is what the dictionary word "consensus" means; its used differently here, but there's some relationship), and editors are encouraged to offer arguments rather than plain votes, and so forth. How much that applies to a situation like this is debatable I guess.) More or less discounting headcount in a case like this where there're 100 respondents is not commonly done, I don't think.
- "Supporting because that's how wikipedia has always done it and it has historically served us well is a poor argument" Not its not. It's not a giant-killer but its a fair point. It's something I'd bring up in a business meeting -- "we've done it like this for 15 years and we're successful". It's refutable ("We need to change with the times to stay viable" or "we've been successful in spite of doing it that way" and others) but it's not nonsense. Wikipedia is in the business of publishing an encyclopedia and so these discussion are business meetings, on one level.
- "NewYorkActuary (about 3/4 to the bottom) makes a very good point". He doesn't, actually. NewYorkActuary said "I also looked at the evolution of the Outcomes page itself... [some data, and some diffs]... concluding with "These two observations show that there has never been a consensus on the treatment of secondary schools". But that's not true, and how he came up with that I can't imagine. It's not true because (according to all research I've done or seen) secondary schools articles are generally kept and always have been. And WP:OUTCOMES has always said this. (I went through the page history carefully. I lost my notes but I could do it again if pressed.)
On 4 July 2005, the creator of WP:OUTCOMES (and to that point only editor of the page) made the fourth edit to the page, changing "High schools are the subject of much debate, there currently exists no consensus of them" to
High schools remain the subject of much debate, but are highly unlikely to be deleted on VFD. See WP:SCH".
(VFD is the old name for AfD. WP:SCH is a rejected policy. It says various things (can't find what it said in 2005) but at any rate is rejected, so no longer germane I guess; this is OUTCOMES, so the first sentence is the main point.)
And from that day to this, WP:OUTCOMES has said this, or something very much like it. It currently says
"Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are usually kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists."
which is essentially the same thing. (The one exception was 2005-2007. In 2005 there was an edit war and one editor by dogged persistence and other means managed to get "High Schools" changed to "Schools" (even though that makes the statement not true). This was fixed in 2007. There have been other wording tweaks since then.
What NewYorkActuary called the big change was changing
"Schools are frequently nominated for deletion, but consensus is frequently not reached. Most of the approximately 270 school articles nominated for deletion in the eight months January to August 2005, resulted in no consensus, while fewer than 15% have actually been deleted. Most elementary and middle schools that don't claim notability are now getting deleted in AfD, with high schools in most cases being kept."
to
"Schools are frequently nominated for deletion. Most elementary and middle schools that don't source a clear claim to notability are now getting merged or redirected in AfD, with high schools being kept except where they fail verifiability."
which is essentially the same thing. The survey data about 270 schools January to August 2005 was dropped (it was getting stale by then anyway I'd say). "Most" was dropped ("high schools in most cases being kept" swapped for "high schools being kept except where they fail verifiability") which excited NewYorkActuary, but it's kind of a semantic detail. "Most" has been restored since, not sure when (no later than the end of 2011).
And I mean, of course. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES has to say some close variation of "most secondary schools proved to exist are kept" because it is true. The text of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is just a data report (how it is wielded is another matter). So of course it has remained unchanged in essence since the beginning. It would be a lying if it said ""many secondary schools proved to exist are not kept", which is probably why it doesn't and never has.
OK moving on...
- ...as mentioned initially by Tazerdadog many of the support categories are rather weak ("it will be disruptive", "they deserve an exception", "schools are important to their communities") while the oppose categories are mostly policy-based (GNG, NOTINHERITED, MILL, VAND, etc). This tips the overall consensus towards oppose." [emphasis added] But:
- GNG is not a policy. It's a guideline, although an important one.
- NOTINHERITED is not a policy. It's an essay. It's not even one of the key or often-cited essays, I don't think.
- MILL is not a policy. It's an essay. It's not even one of the key or often-cited essays, I don't think.
- VAND is a policy. Its nutshell is "Intentionally making abusive edits to Wikipedia will result in a block." What that has to do with anything is questionable, we'll look more at that later.
Terms matter, here. It's not helpful to confuse the issue by calling essays policies.
Not only that, but no editors mentioned WP:NOTINHERITED. Nor did any editor use the string "inherit" (except one editor used the word "inherit" but meant "inherent"), or any close synonym as far we can tell. This is probably because inherited notability has nothing to do with the issue at hand.
One "Oppose" editor mentioned WP:MILL ("such schools are WP:MILL organizations; there are thousands of them... generally [only of interest to] those educated there"). A "support" editor used the term "run of the mill" ("article on Amador Valley High School (which is a featured article about a rather run of the mill American high school)." No use of "ordinary", or of "typical" or "normal" in the sense of "ordinary" occurred. There was some use of the term "routine" in various contexts, sometimes with "routinely" in the sense of "usually", but with four uses that peripherally touch on "routine" in the sense of "ordinary ( 1) "there is little reason to believe that secondary schools are normally covered in depth in reliable sources that go beyond routine reporting in local media"; 2) Unlike some other items that we presume to be notable, such as senior politicians, there is little reason to believe that secondary schools are normally covered in depth in reliable sources that go beyond routine reporting in local media; 3) In my hometown the Houston Chronicle covers high school info regularly (and I'm not including routine coverage); 4) "The articles about the vast majority of such schools depend on a combination of...routine coverage. Three of those could probably be assumed to be able to use WP:MILL if the editors had been aware of it. It's an essay referencing it just expressing an opinion. Opinions are welcome, if we were counting heads, which supposedly we're not.
All this is making me pretty nervous TBH... discounting show-of-hand in favor of analyzing arguments, but then mistaking essays for policies, and introducing arguments like WP:NOTINHERITED which actually weren't made and don't actually apply...
Moving to WP:VAND, this is a policy. No one referenced WP:VAND directly (of course) but six editors did use the term "vandal" -- three "Oppose" editors and three "Support" editors.
"These articles are magnets for vandalism", "Such articles are also often a magnet for WP:BLP problems and vandalism", and "There will be few page watchers and since they're prone to vandalism" ("Oppose" editors) and "Deleting huge tranches of them as non-notable will only encourage vandalism and conflict in dealing with this future editors", "It is also a useful show-of-force deterrence for young vandals, who find their predictable nonsense knocked down surprisingly quickly", and just the general admonition "watch out for those vandals" ("Support" editors).
"Delete, vandal magnet, not worth the headache" is heard sometimes (although not "Vandal magnet, required to be deleted per policy WP:VAND"). It's a reasonable point in my view (although a lot of editors ignore it), but has never been applied to a class of articles AFAIK. Deciding to not host a class of articles -- Scientology apostates, neo-Nazi figures, Turkish dissidents, or whatever -- on grounds that we can't handle the vandalism could be viewed as prudent and reasonable, or as pusillanimous, and it's a matter of opinion. AFAIK It hasn't been seriously suggested, until now.
My experience is that high schools do get somewhat more vandalism than other articles. I'm not sure if its a huge difference. Maybe. On the other hand it was avowed that "It is a very useful training ground for young editors", "school articles are often a first vehicle from young wikipedians", "It is also one of the first articles often edited by students" and reference to "a teenager writing on Wikipedia for the first time just adding info about a hometown he cares about deeply". How true that it is we don't know, nor (if it is true) whether any significant numbers of longer-term productive editors come from that mileu. Whether its a wash, or the vandalism outweighs the young-editor-attraction angle (if any) or vice versa... this is hard to know. Whether any of this matters is probably a matter of opinion.
OK moving on... If it was me, I would be lot more careful using the term "do not make much sense". I don't recall ever doing it. It's not something that would normally occur to me, because it's not usually true in my experience (it's not true here), but also because one reason I would use that term is that "do not make much sense" is that it can be restated as "I could not understand", which doesn't inspire confidence. "I could not understand the point that school articles are valuable as a recruitment tool for new editors" is different from "The point that school articles are valuable as a recruitment tool for new editors is probably not true, or anyway unproven" or ""The point that school articles are valuable as a recruitment tool for new editors may be true, but is unimportant in my opinion", which may be what what was intended. Not sure.
My guess is that you are correct that removing the protections secondary schools have historically enjoyed at AfD would probably not lead to a flood of mass AfDing, so overly worrying that it would is not a strong argument. At any rate it hasn't, and if it did there'd likely be a corrective backlash.
"Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD makes the circular argument 'We should keep this school because we always keep schools. This argument has been rejected by the community". I addressed this at WP:USO. It's not accurate. Herostratus (talk) 06:13, 30 May 2017 (UTC)