Hello, EnyapCo, and Welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions to this free encyclopedia. If you decide that you need help, check out Getting Help below, ask me on my talk page, or place {{Help me}} on your talk page and ask your question there. Please remember to sign your name on talk pages by using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking if shown; this will automatically produce your username and the date. Also, please do your best to always fill in the edit summary field with your edits. Below are some useful links to facilitate your involvement, and you may wish to read our newspaper The Signpost. Binod Basnet BinodBasnet (Talk) 05:47, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Please do not add or change content, as you did at Lindale High School, without citing a reliable source. Please review the guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources and take this opportunity to add references to the article. no one is calling your additions vandalism. However, they are still not constructive. You shouldn't change the layout of an existing article, unless it is to bring in to conformity with guidelines without consensus. The source you proffered for the journalism state championship would verify a state championship achievement for academics, a previous one of which is already discussed elsewhere in the article. If you wish to discuss any clubs, your are going to need to provide a reliable secondary source showing that they mean something to the world outside your community. You can discuss co-curricular activities (classes that also have some sort of out-of school presence) such as band, choir, forensics in appropriate places (academic activities in the academic section, arts activities in a section on arts) and source its existence to a publication of the school such as their website, but anything beyond existence will need secondary sources. Please quit reverting repeatedly. If you have issue with the review of your additions, start a discussion on the article talk page. See WP:BRD. John from Idegon (talk) 15:17, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hello again, John from Idegon. I apologize for not following Wikipedia's guidelines. Though I do research issues I think may come up to try to deal with them before publishing, I have trouble following all of the guidelines, as there are quite a lot of them, and you yourself probably have had trouble at some point in the past. However, to back up my edits, the paragraph on academics has been largely unaltered since it was added in 2010 without a reference, and the information has become outdated. I remembered reading that "Facts always need a reference" (I think it was this page), and I believed the unreferenced information should be removed. Secondly, I did read Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources to clarify that my sources were reliable, but clearly I did not understand and still don't understand why the UIL official results website is not a reliable source. Also on the same page as the reference, I read to "[a]dd a few facts about the school that make it unique," and I thought being 5A state academic champions for two years running was significant and unique. I thought unique facts and reliable sources warranted a good edit. You seem to agree, but you still reverted my edit containing the academic state championship, so it is no longer "discussed elsewhere in the article." Thirdly, I changed the layout of the athletics section to match other high school pages I'd seen which had around the same number of sports listed. I see now that the practice of listing with bullets is not standardized, and I apologize for attempting to imitate other Wikipedians. Fourthly, I added the section on clubs because you, when I asked for advice on your talk page nearly a year ago, told me, "Here's what you can do: provide a listing of all arts activities (band, chorus, theatre) and source it to the school website." The clubs I listed are not all the clubs at the school, they are simply the extracurriculars listed on the school site. If I should have included an in-text citation to back this up, the athletics listed are taken directly from the school site in the references list, but they have no in-text citation. I was simply assuming that previous edits were valid, seeing as you weren't reverting them. Should I have listed them under "co-curriculars" or some other category? I hate not knowing all the rules and guidelines, so I am reading help pages and trying to follow them to avoid clashes like this. I hope we can reach a consensus over this issue. EnyapCo (talk) 18:30, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I am not following your edits. The unreferenced bit was the addition of clubs, which, frankly I do not think was even factually correct. Generally, forensics, theatre and choir are co-curricular activities, not clubs. The addition of the Journalism bit to the state championships is also not properly sourced. I saw in the source (the newspaper article), material that would support two years running of academic championships, which is discussed under academics, but nothing that supports a state journalism championship, or even the existence of same. I saw a bit where a student took first place in journalism, as a part of the academic championship; if that is what you are adding, don't because we do not discuss individual achievement. Championships in athletics should remain in the athletics section, which in US school articles, should be a separate section due to the cultural importance of high school sports in the US. Forensics can be discussed under academics, and choir, along with band and theatre can be discussed in a new section on arts. Please remember that the purpose of an encyclopedia is not to simply list things that are in someone's opinion important about the school; it is to summarize what others have written about the school. We do allow a small amount of self sourced material, as long as there is nothing sourced to the school beyond bare fact. The guidelines do indicate what things about the school should be included. They still have to be sourced. If we still are not at a place where we are understanding each other, please, let's take things one at a time, ok? Also, please ping me when you answer by adding {{re|John from Idegon}} in your message somewhere before you sign it. Also, it's doubtful myself or any other active editor is going to recall a conversation from a year ago. You are what we call a SPA, which is fine, but please realize most editors are not. I keep over 6,000 articles on my watchlist, and this is just one of them. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 19:04, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
{{re|John from Idegon}} I do see what you mean about clubs vs. co-curriculars. In the news article, around halfway down the page, it does say, "The journalism team... won four medals and were the Overall State Journalism Champions for 5A," but journalism winnings were included in the total points for the academic championship, so I suppose it shouldn't be counted. I also get what you're saying about listing different activities under different headings. I know that neutrality is vital in editing Wikipedia, so I'll attempt a more neutral edit listing those activities under the appropriate headings. I guess I'm still confused as to why the sentences adding the academic state championships under "Academics" was removed and the eight-year-old unsourced paragraph still remains. Other than that, thank you for clearing everything up. (Not sure how people do this but here's a cup of coffee) *coffee* EnyapCo (talk) 19:49, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That stuff is under "wikilove" and you would add it on my talk page (the coffee thing). And you took me a bit too literally, when you use a ping template, omit the "nowiki" markup. The "nowiki" attribute allows you to show markup as it should be without it actually doing what it is supposed to do. If UIL has a listing for a journalism competition, and there is a reference to this school winning as a team, I'd have no objection to that being included. John from Idegon (talk) 23:33, 14 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]