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Notability is not trivial

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If it is so trivial to find notability, then why not simply add it to the article? The need to write this essay in response to nominations for deletion shows that the notability is not trivial to find and add to some articles. Also notability is required WP:N, no category should be immune from its requirements. AlbinoFerret (talk) 13:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Through 5 years of deletion discussions, and hundreds upon hundreds of articles having "high school" in the name being nominated for deletion on the basis of notability, only 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 have 1 has none have been deleted by Afd and remain deleted! When this essay was first written, there were ten:
  • Note that an article is now needed has been created for Dysart State High School, a similarly-named school in Australia. (added 9/21/2008.)
  • Note: The above article name is now a disambiguation page for several schools with this or a similar name. Berwick High School
  • Note that an article is now needed has been created for Wyoming Valley West Senior High School, a school redlinked in the original above article. (added 9/22/2008.)
Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 00:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I support this essay. The only reason I've ever seen to actually delete a high school article has been where WP:COPYVIO comes in to play--and then it's the content that is the issue, not the article itself. The high school articles that violate copyvio normally get fixed promptly.--Paul McDonald (talk) 14:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose This essay should not be used to hold up a major decision. No catagory should be immune from finding valid citations, not eeven high schools. If an article is actually notable, then the burden is on the creator/editors involved to provide sources in a timely fashion. WikiManOne (talk) 02:29, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shortcut

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WP:NHS points to a Wikiproject, albeit an inactive one, so I changed this essay's shortcut to WP:HS/N.--~TPW 16:04, 11 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I undid that change. WP:NHS is linked from many AFD discussions, still currently redirects to this essay, and the wikiproject you mentioned only ever had a small handful of editors and was never really active. Prior to changing the shortcut redirect, I attempted to contact all of the wikiproject's members, all of whom were inactive, and none of them replied. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 15:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Revamp

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I have edited WhatamIdoing's revamp. I have kept the new structure and many of the changes except where they have altered the purpose of the essay. However, I have removed two chunks of homily's to editors that add nothing to the essay and come across as patronising. The text that I have removed is:

Don't assume that an absence of hits at Google News is proof that no sources exist, especially outside of major urban areas. To find more sources, look for the local newspaper or other media outlets. They may be listed in the city's Wikipedia article, or you may be able to find them through a web search. These sources may have a web presence that doesn't appear at Google News, but which might allow you to find sources. Watch out for unreliable and non-independent sources. There are dozens of advertising-driven websites, like privateschoolreview.com, that merely repeat information provided by the school's administration.

and I should welcome comments from other editors on this. TerriersFan (talk) 22:58, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that telling editors how to find good sources, and how not to get tripped up by bad sources, is "patronising", especially as these two mistakes have been made repeatedly in recent AfDs.
Additionally, you've restored the idea that articles about high schools are kept because high schools are "important". Subjective importance is actually on the list of bad arguments. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the importance of high schools is subjective but this is an essay and not a policy guideline and some subjectivity can take place. Anyway, lets see what others think. TerriersFan (talk) 23:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't personally have any real problem with this addition to the essay, and while I have seen people make patronising comments on notability issues, I would not say this is one of them. I don't know much about Private School Review, though I don't get the impression that the content there will be of much use to Wikipedia, given it seems to just give statistics or a promotional summary of a school. Camaron · Christopher · talk 18:40, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy Wales view

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This view has been quoted in AFDs from time to time. It seems relevant and I invite comments on its inclusion. TerriersFan (talk) 23:15, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

His recent comments include direct support for the opposite standard (that there must be independent sources, not merely a self-published source, like an organization's own website). Perhaps some mention should be made of this fact, so that people don't think that his views from seven years ago are his current views. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:15, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since you pointed out that the view quoted in the essay seems to no longer be his view, I have moved the paragraphs here so they can be edited by the persons involved in this essay to make that change.WikiManOne (talk) 17:57, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmy Wales' view from the main page to be corrected

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In November 2003 Jimmy Wales engaged in correspondence over the multiple creation of high school articles. Though, obviously, not policy it has subsequently been quoted approvingly in high school AFDs. "...Put another way, if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accommodate them, even if we wish they wouldn't do it. And that's true *even if* we should react differently if someone comes in and starts mass-adding articles on every high school in the world. Let me make this more concrete. Let's say I start writing an article about my high school, Randolph School, of Huntsville, Alabama. I could write a decent 2 page article about it, citing information that can easily be verified by anyone who visits their website. Then I think people should relax and accommodate me. It isn't hurting anything. It'd be a good article, I'm a good contributor, and so cutting me some slack is a very reasonable thing to do..." (Jimmy Wales, Partial solution to rampant deletionism, Wikimedia, November 7, 2003.

College == High School in the UK?

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In the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and other Commonwealth countries, the term 'college' usually refers to a secondary school, rather than being a synonym for a university - this simply isn't true, in my experience growing up in Scotland. There are *some* secondary schools which call themselves "college" but by far the majority of colleges are institutions of further or higher education. Thparkth (talk) 00:15, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In England, because of the spread of specialist schools, an increasing number of secondary schools, possibly now the majority, call themselves colleges. I cannot speak for Scotland, though. However, you make a good point so I have altered 'usually' to 'often'. TerriersFan (talk) 16:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This is not true. In England a college is where you do your A-Levels. You go to secondary school between the ages of 11 and 16 to do your GCSEs. Then, if you choose to, you go to college (a.k.a. sixth form) between the ages of 17 and 18 to do your A-Levels. Then you go to university. — Fly by Night (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"College" is one of those terms whose use is as clear as mud in the UK. There are schools that have the word in the name - usually private schools in my experience (including in Scotland - e.g. Fettes College or Glenalmond College) - but it's also used for sixth form colleges, further education colleges, higher education colleges, parts of universities (particularly the components of the University of London) and all manner of other institutions outside the standard structure. The American use of "college" to mean university is also drifting into the national consciousness to just add to the confusion.
There's also the mess that there are so many variations in the schooling system, both geographic and sectoral, that there's no single standard experience. Some people do A-Levels at a sixth form college, others do them at further education colleges, others at schools, others do a different qualification, others leave education at 16. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changed header

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I just changed the header to

since that seems to more reflect what's going on here.WikiManOne (talk) 00:26, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted your edit. The template was appropriate, as this is a commonly-used essay. Could you clarify what you meant by "what's going on here"? --TorriTorri(talk/contribs) 00:34, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't the specification that this is simply the opinion of a few wikipedia editors be more pertinent than pretty much saying that this is policy that falls short of being policy, and can be consulted in discussions? Also I would note that this article has less than 100 links to it, which to me suggests that it is not even that commonly used.WikiManOne (talk) 18:32, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
{{Notability essay}} just means it is an essay on notability, which this clearly is, hence it is the appropriate template to use. I don't see anything in the template which says it is a policy or anything close to being one, nor do I see how level of usage is relevant. The benefits of this template include that it is more specific to the essay and categories into a more specific category, Category:Wikipedia essays on notability. The template says A potential measure of how the community views this essay may be gained by consulting the history and talk pages, and checking What links here., in which case readers can make up their own minds on what level of support the essay does or does not have. Camaron · Christopher · talk 20:04, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Regional accreditation

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User:WikiManOne added a sentence stating that the presumption of notability applies in the U.S. only to high schools with regional accreditation.[1] Xe then used this change as the basis for xis AfD nomination at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Harbert Hills Academy. I reverted but WikiManOne has added it again.[2] I do not believe this added sentence is an accurate statement of the general practice, and I think it should be deleted. Opinions? --Arxiloxos (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see discussions here as well as this. I've actually seen quite a few unaccredited schools deleted but can't remember them all. WikiManOne (talk) 05:25, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
These discussions weren't about high schools.--Arxiloxos (talk) 05:46, 15 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I removed this. This looks like an improvement idea, not a summary of existing practice. Jerry delusional ¤ kangaroo 10:24, 12 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't actually matter whether it summarizes existing practice, because essays aren't required to reflect actual practice. They are supposed to represent the opinions of some editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Defunct schools?

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Is this supposed to include high schools which have now shut down? Jay Σεβαστόςdiscuss 08:35, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. When they were open the high schools would have attained notability and that notability was not lost when the school closed. TerriersFan (talk) 18:50, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Notability is not temporary.--Paul McDonald (talk) 19:44, 23 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Assuming notability was ever achieved.   Will Beback  talk  23:34, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Streamlined

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I have streamlined the latest additions. I don't understand the concern about family/home schools because I've yet to see a single article on one but I've added a sentence about the school needing accreditation or being a public school to deal with the hypothetical possibility. I have taken out the penultimate para which duplicates the previous para. I have simplified the unreliable sources para. We shouldn't single out a specific website and many reliable sources websites are advertising driven; unless they are subscription sites its the only way they make money. TerriersFan (talk) 01:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In this, you remove two paragraphs, not one. I do not understand why telling people
  1. how to find the local newspapers (the bulk of sources demonstrating notability) and
  2. how to identify sites that merely repeat information provided by the school's administration (including an example that has been repeatedly misused)
constitutes a "duplication". None of the remaining text actually provides information about how to do this. It just says that it can be done, without providing any practical information. Do you believe that 100% of our editors will know how to do this?
Also, you need to define what it means to be accredited; just like anybody can start a school in the US, anybody can start an accreditation agency. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:04, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate your thought-provoking comments, but I don't think that your 'how to' actually adds anything that is particularly useful. For example, researching local media is suggested in the previous para. In addition, anyone who is interested enough to pay attention to this essay will be well aware of the guidance in that para. I note your concern over home schooling but I don't see the point in adding detail to deal with a non-existent problem. As I have said, I have never seen such a article. I think that someone creating an accreditation agency for a single home school is simply too far-fetched. Having said that, I have added the word 'recognised' to strengthen the requirement which I think meets your point. In the event that an article is written on a home school, or similar, just AfD it and I will support its deletion. TerriersFan (talk) 15:11, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Like family/home schools, I do not agree that small private or religious high schools get the blanket notability enjoyed by public high schools. I recall several participating in a few AFDs about such schools. Edison (talk) 18:38, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the relevance in being a religious high school; many highly notable high schools have a religious affiliation. If we are to have a size criterion; what should it be? Remembering that many alternative high schools are, by their nature, small. TerriersFan (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The criteria we ought to have is the criteria that we do have, namely schools are notable because, and only if, the world at large took notice of them, not because they happen to enroll teenagers.
The number and age of the students is not important. Whether independent sources (=not the school's own website) have been published that describe the school (=not just the final score of some game some students played in) is what determines whether Wikipedia should have an article about it.
It happens that nearly all American and Canadian government-run middle schools and high schools, and nearly all of the larger non-governmental schools, meet the criteria. Very small schools and very new schools are the least likely to meet the standard, and, while having a religious association forms no part of our criteria, religious schools are disproportionately likely to be very small and therefore overlooked by independent sources. A 40-student private, religious high school is more common than a 40-student non-religious private high school. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:20, 17 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction with the updated WP:ORG

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I understand that this may quickly become something of a WP:SNOW. If that happens, I would appreciate it if someone archives the discussion with a reasonable closing statement. Thanks.

This passage has recently been added to Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies):

For example, some Wikipedians have argued that the age of the students determines whether a school is notable. This is not the case. Secondary schools which have never been discussed by published independent sources are not notable; elementary schools which have been discussed by published independent sources are notable. It is the existence of published independent sources, not the age of the students that makes school notable.

This directly contradicts the point of this essay, which says that "all high schools can be assumed to be notable".

I believe that this essay contradicts policy, even without that direct rebuttal:

  • "This default acceptance allows editors to turn their attention to more productive tasks" is a rather weak rationale, as it can be said for almost everything except spam. If we can't find independent, reliable coverage that constitutes notability, we shouldn't assume it exists.
  • "Outside the Anglosphere, particularly for countries in Asia and Africa, Internet coverage is very poor" is also an issue not specific to schools, and yet we don't seem to apply this lenience to any other subject.

As a result of the above above and the quoted passage, I think the community needs to re-think whether the advice of this essay should be followed. However, if the result of the discussion disagrees, it would still be better to include this exception explicitly in WP:ORG, instead of retaining the status quo, since it causes problems for people learning to do new pages patrol (such as myself).

If the community feels that I'm wrong in thinking there is a contradiction, please let me know.

P. S. The spirit of this essay seems to be that high schools are assumed to be notable because they're often centres of community, and thus are almost always notable in some way. However, while this may be true in some places, it can't be said for all high schools or secondary schools.1 While almost every high school has won some sort of award or participated in some activity, the awards / activities themselves aren't necessarily notable. Though there may be reason to believe that each high school is notable for something, I don't think the assumption can be taken for granted.

1: An example would be SMK Seremban 2, which I came across while patrolling new pages. It's a relatively new school, so even searching on Google Malaysia doesn't give many independent, reliable sources. wctaiwan (talk) 15:20, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Essays aren't required to match the community's official advice. This represents a minority opinion in the community, mostly held by high school students. Its supporters have tried at least five different times to get it approved as an exception to the usual rules, and they've failed (completely, and sometimes miserably) every time.
What the rest of us can do is to remind them at regular AFDs that this view has actually been rejected by the community—and to help them find reliable sources whenever possible, because even though high schools aren't automatically notable, they are very frequently actually notable according to the sources.
If you're concerned about the mis-use of this essay, we could add a sentence explaining that the views are held by a minority of editors and have been repeatedly rejected by the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:16, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Incorrect on several counts; firstly you have absolutely no evidence that "the views are held by a minority of editors" nor that they are "mostly held by high school students". Secondly "have been repeatedly rejected by the community." is wrong. This essay has never been proposed as a standard. Various attempts at a schools notability standard have failed because they ran into entrenched views but not on this narrow issue. TerriersFan (talk) 17:45, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This essay has never been proposed as a standard, however it has been used in many AfD discussions as the main argument for keeping articles. TerriersFan, could you please tell me why the points I have raised in my initial comment are invalid? I am also considering starting a request for comments, if it would help gauge the community's opinion toward this essay—whether it should be invalidated, adopted as part of a policy or allowed to remain as an exception unnamed in policy. wctaiwan (talk) 00:42, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would not argue that your points are invalid; they are your views and that's fine. The point is that this is an essay and as such has no status except in so far as individual editors wish to give weight to it. This is made clear in the preamble. When it is cited in AfD it is simply used as a shorthand for the views of the particular user. That is the way with essays. The blockquote you exemplified has been removed. Additions to Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) should not be made without consensus and that passgae, added by an editor to try to promote her viewpoint, has no chance of reaching consensus. This essay cannot be invalidated because it is just that, an essay, and has no status that can be removed. Equally, because a small number of determined editors with entrenched views can block guidelines I see no realistic chance of it being promoted to a guideline. All past discussions have simply burned up Community time without achieving anything and a fresh discussion is likely to have the same result. The reason why we cut slack for Asian public high schools is to avoid Systemic bias because experience shows that reliable sources are probably out there but that local sources need to be sought. TerriersFan (talk) 16:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This particular page is not noticeably different from the formally rejected proposals, or from the multiple attempts to get this 'exception' enshrined at ORG (which is officially a guideline, not a policy). The way we know that it is a minority view is that the community has rejected the "except high schools, even if we can't find any sources" repeatedly. If high schools were actually exempt from the standard rule that sources must have been WP:Published (but not WP:CITEd) for every single subject, then the community would have accepted the repeatedly proposed exception at some point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:10, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wrong. Rejection of a guideline means that consensus amongst those taking part was not reached. To extrapolate that this hows it is a minority view shows a lack of understanding of the process. TerriersFan (talk) 16:40, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No: When the same idea is put forward time after time after time, on page after page after page, and it fails to gain consensus every single time, then that really does mean that the idea has been "rejected".
And, just so you know, I'm the person who originally wrote WP:POLICY#Proposals in 2008. It happens that I know more about the actual process of getting a proposal adopted than at least 99% of Wikipedia's editors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:18, 4 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem I see with the use of this essay is that it overrides guidelines (WP:N, WP:ORG) during AfD discussions, but I think I won't pursue the issue further. I still don't agree with the viewpoint of the essay, but TerriersFan is probably right in saying that a fresh discussion wouldn't achieve enough consensus--either to formally refute the essay or to integrate it into the guidelines. Since articles of non-notable high schools (once stripped of promotional and overdetailed information) aren't nearly as harmful as articles promoting companies or individuals, I don't think it's worth the likely drama.

However, I do feel (as WhatamIdoing alluded to on his talk page) that we should at least make it clearer that this essay is not a policy or a guideline, and that editors are free to disagree with it. Right now it carries so much weight that it seems to be a given (apologies for citing an AfD discussion I started). I'm not sure how this can be done--perhaps comments noting this at AfD discussions? If new editors aren't influenced to consider this as consensus, perhaps we could reexamine the status of the essay.

For editors who want to tackle the issue, I think Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments contains some valid points on both sides, as well. wctaiwan (talk) 09:47, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, thank you for further thoughtful views. Currently, the box at the head of the essay, describes the status of the essay with this final sentence: "Essays are not Wikipedia policies or guidelines." It seems to me that, if there is still confusion on the status of essays, it is most probably not confined to this one. A good way forward might be to suggest improvements to the essay template to clarify the role for all essays? TerriersFan (talk) 19:58, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is worth pointing out that the quoted section in the WP:ORG guideline was removed a while back for being a "trivial example not based on any substantive discussion, and phrased in a gratuitously argumentative manner", a reasoning I agree with.
On the status of this page, well its essay status seems clear to me. The issue of misuse of essays is a wider problem and does not just apply to this page. People sometimes misuse WP:ATA and cite it as policy for example; I've even noticed that WP:POTENTIAL an essay I wrote, has been used out of context. CT Cooper · talk 16:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I applaud any attempts to apply our notability guidelines to all genres of articles in the opposition of a few editors who staunchly believe that every high school is notable, even if it doesn't meet our notability guidelines. Hopefully we can overcome the fallacy of "inherent notability"-style arguments in the future. In this sense, this essay will remain a poor guidance for article creation until it specifies a greater barrier to high school notability than mere existence. ThemFromSpace 20:16, 6 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This essay has gaps

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The intent of the essay is to explain why high school articles are generally, actually, always kept in deletion discussions. However the way this essay approaches that idea has created a situation where editors can and have pointed to this essay as a reason for avoiding improving the article with references to reliable sources, which I doubt was the original intent of the essay.

While it rightly uses phrases like "generally" and "almost always", it fails to adequately address situations where sources aren't found. For clarity, this essay should be improved to acknowledge that gap and more clearly explain what is expected to be done to address it. --RadioFan (talk) 12:19, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So let's do it. I have been having discussions on and off over the past 12 months or so with CT Cooper about finally getting essays such as this and the School article recommendations upgraded to Guideline. School articles are generally started by very young SPA editors who do not appreciate the importance of reading instructionsThis would help dispel the ambiguity surrounding notability of schools, which was even used disingenuously by opposers to my RfA. We also need to find a way to stop the newbies who play at policemen on new page patroling from mass AfDing school articles instead of uncontentiously redirecting the obvious nn ones. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:14, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is it even worth it? I was thinking more about just cleaning up this essay. The last time this was taken to a formal discussion, it was a bloodbath. There are enough editors who feel that mentioning the word school in the title is enough to completely excuse the article from any guidelines or policy and enough editors who've cleaned up after vandals long enough to want extra notability requirements on any school articles, that consensus is going to be very difficult.--RadioFan (talk) 11:35, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I support solidifying the status of this essay (either discrediting it entirely or making it a guideline referenced in WP:ORG) to remove ambiguity. However, if this is to be made a guideline, it needs to be tidied up—at least the lead should be rewritten. This is a smaller problem, so ignoring it allows us to focus on bigger ones is weak as a main rationale, and probably wouldn't be able to convince people who disagree with the stance taken (such as myself).
I thought about it further earlier today, and I think a better way to approach it would be to go back to our core purpose of building an encyclopedia: Ultimately, articles of non-notable schools are not harmful in any way, provided they are neutral and contain only verifiable information (unlike say, articles of non-notable companies, which detracts from Wikipedia's quality as an encyclopedia). Furthermore, as editors who create those articles are often students or alumni, the information is usually accurate (again, provided it's neutral).
I would be interested in collaborating on this, if other people don't mind. Thanks. wctaiwan (talk) 12:43, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
When I was talking about making WP:WPSCH/AG a guideline I was more thinking of the style and content sections, rather than the notability section, which could be moved to separate page. The reason I wanted to sidestep notability is that discussions on setting a formal guideline on the subject frequently go no where. The current practice on generally keeping high school articles and more critically examining others does not necessarily need to be made into a formal guideline. The problem is if you put in a formal guideline "High schools are usually considered notable" you will get objections from users on grounds of ideology, as well as fear that it could open the flood gates to too many articles and in some cases result in discrimination against elementary and middle school articles. On the other hand, if you don't include any protection for high schools then you will get objections on grounds that this will open the flood gates to mass AfDs and other problems. Whether these fears are legitimate or not is a matter of debate, though they were noticeable in the discussion about the WP:SCH proposal back in 2009. CT Cooper · talk 13:48, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right, the wouldn't-achieve-consensus thing is why I backed out of the section right above this one (and I'm willing to leave this be, as well). But if you want to solve the issue of "newbies who play at policemen on NPP mass AfDing school articles," I think this is a pretty fundamental issue. wctaiwan (talk) 14:05, 18 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My view is to leave the status of this essay as it is; as an essay that can be given weight or no weight as editors choose. I endorse what RadioFan says above "The last time this was taken to a formal discussion, it was a bloodbath." I would strongly advise against trying to uprate it to guideline status - there is zero chance of success. Indeed there is zero chance of getting any school notability standard through. What happens is the debate polarises around the school inclusionists and the school deletionists. The deletionists will regard any standard as too permissive and the inclusionists any standard as too narrow. It only takes a handful of determined editors to block the guideline and this is what happens each time a guideline has been attempted. In my view, this essay does its job. Without a guideline a de facto community consensus has been reached; except in exceptional circumstances elementary schools are redirected and except in exceptional circumstances high schools are kept. If editors wish to improve this essay, that's fine. I would only say please put up suggestions on this talk page so that we can reach consensus here rather than have a constantly changing project page. TerriersFan (talk) 01:33, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Like it or not, schools articles are special and, unlike other articles, a lack of reliable sources isn't going to hold water in a deletion discussion. That's just the way it is. Fact of the mater is that I could make up a school create an article about the fictional school and there would be editors that would fight to the death to prevent it from being deleted, simply because it's believed to be a school. So let's focus on improving this essay so that it encourages editors to continue to improve an article and continue to locate and make use of reliable sources rather than use schools special status as an excuse to ignore the need for sources. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RadioFan (talk • contribs)

I support the proposed expansion, but I suspect that RadioFan is wrong about his guess of TerriersFan's motivation, since he has previously resisted efforts to provide editors with concrete information about how to identify non-independent sources or ways to find good sources. The motivation seems to be more like "keep all schools that belong to a high school sports conference" than "improve these articles so that nobody would even think about deleting them".
One of the things that irritates me is that typical high schools almost always are notable, and if the (often) newbies were given the tools to find sources, we'd never have these AFDs. Nobody sends a school (no matter what kind) to AFD if the article already lists a dozen feature-length, non-sports-related newspaper articles about the school, and that is a very plausible number of articles for us to list in an article about a typical American high school. We don't need to talk about inherent notability; we almost always have real, WP:N-compliant, source-based notability.
Also, it's all very well to say that editors will give whatever weight they choose to an essay, but inexperienced people often believe that anything with a shortcut is a formal policy. So if TerriersFan wrote "Keep, for the reasons outlined in my frequently disputed, unofficial essay about the notability of high schools", then they might choose to discount it, but when he (and others) write "Keep per WP:NHS, because it's a high school", then many of them unfortunately and wrongly assume that this essay is the "law". This isn't anyone's fault, but it is a fact of life, and one that severely undercuts our ability to rely on claims that inexperienced editors will feel free to discount or disagree with the essay. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:17, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with ascribing motivations is that such ascribed motivations are frequently wrong; as here. My objection was not to providing guidance per se, but that the guidance that you suggested was trivial and wrongly placed. If you wish to write a separate essay on how to find sources for school articles that would be a very welcome development. TerriersFan (talk) 22:35, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I feel that there may even be a reasonable suggestion to possibly either merge this essay to WP:WPSCH/AG or move it to a sub-page of that project, where it would most probably receive more exposure.
I've never quite understood why every sports person who has played one professional game in a very minor league, every street musician, rapper and scratcher DJ, every bit part actor, every kid who went on X Factor and Got Talent - and failed, and every small town hack and painter merit an article on the flimsiest of sources, while schools are expected by some to have to have to jump through whole pages of hoops. Very strong precedent has established some grounds for certain types of articles, such as schools and settlements, for example, to enjoy certain mild exceptions to some of the rules. These exceptions have been applied to tens of thousands of school articles and we're not about to make any ex post facto changes. What we don't want however, is for every non-accredited high street shop-house that's been converted into an evening-class cram school for SATS, GCE, etc, to claim that they are high schools and thus worthy of an article that affords them free advertising.
The problem of deletion vs. inclusion, is more fundamental: So long as we allow new pages to be patrolled by the least mature and inexperienced of all users who refuse, in spite of the most friendly and gentle coaxing, to read up on the:
and their exceptions, we will always have this perennial discussion, which is not helped by occasional users who maintain that new page patrolling is not even necessary at all, but who fail to suggest alternative solutions for the quality control of new articles.
We already spoon-feed new editors with advice to the extent that we now even frighten them off again with our walls of text and instruction creep, and apparently Wales made a point of this at Wikimania. Nevertheless we already have a section on sources for schools, which of course again is only any good if we can lead the horses to water and make them drink. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:12, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This essay is a great one to point to when trying to make the point that history shows us that school articles can be made to meet notability guidelines, the problem is that it is being used to claim that all school articles automatically meet notability guidelines and any responsibility stops there. The continued need for reliable sources needs to be made clear.

I dont think anyone here is suggesting sweeping reform in notability policies concerning school articles. What I originally suggested is that any holes in this essay that might make lead to it's interpretation, whatever the motivation, as a loophole in the requirement for sources, need to be filled in. Perhaps all that is needed here is a section reminding that sources are still required with a link to section on sources for schools as you suggest. --RadioFan (talk) 13:54, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All this essay does is describe the status quo of school articles that come up for AfD. Virtually all articles for secondary schools/high schools get saved because reliable sources are invariably found to establish notability. In an ideal world editors would check for the availability of sources before nominating an article for deletion. It is unfortunate that the motivations of TerriersFan have been unfairly misattributed in such a way. He has been actively involved in school AfDs for a number of years and has worked tirelessly to improve and source numerous school articles. Dahliarose (talk) 17:04, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let's not take this into a personal area. Let's focus on making the essay as informative as possible--RadioFan (talk) 20:44, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But let me say that TerriersFan and I agree that his motives are pure; we only disagree about whether his idea of what's best for Wikipedia is actually what is best for Wikipedia.
I agree with RadioFan that it's the (ab)use of this essay to pretend that all high school articles 'automatically meet ORG—and, on the flip side, that schools for younger children automatically don't unless you have an enormous number of sources—that is the biggest problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:52, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this discussion should not got personal. I would suggest all editors stick to their own views rather than trying to interpret the views of others, especially when they don't even understand those views and misrepresent them. Dahliarose (talk) 09:46, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Undone edits by Jimbo Wales

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I have undone edits by Jimbo Wales (a real bad career move I realise). This is an essay based on consensus from AfDs. It is an essay which promotes one point of view. If Jimbo,or anyone else, wishes to promote another point of view then the way forward is to write another essay. This essay reflects consensus from numerous AfDs over any years and Jumbo should not have made radical alterations without discussion and agreement here. TerriersFan (talk) 22:37, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Eh, I'm going to start a stub essay at Wikipedia:All High Schools can be notable. Ryan Vesey Review me! 22:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fine; I will restablish this one and we will see how your develops. TerriersFan (talk)
Essays can be edited too. They should not suggest ignoring basic guidelines and policies. If schools do not meet the WP:GNG, then their articles should not be kept.   Will Beback  talk  23:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Based on the discussions above, this essay seems quite controversial and its not clear that it represent any consensus.   Will Beback  talk  23:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The essay is based on the consensus on years of AfDs. I have improved the sourcing of hundreds of schools articles and know the subject matter. Yes, essays can be edited but, like all other pages, they should not be significantly changed without talk page consensus. Further, the point of essays is to promote a viewpoint; the way forward if you have a different viewpoint is to write another essay not radically change its thrust. TerriersFan (talk) 23:39, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If this is just your personal view then it should be userfied. I don't see any consensus on this talk page for the changes you made in 2010.[3] The essay has been written using a proscriptive tone, rather than simply describing common behavior. The assertion that "all high schools are notable" is an opinion, not a fact.   Will Beback  talk  23:46, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not just my view, please check how often this essay has been cited approvingly in AfDs. TerriersFan (talk) 23:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Essays get cited frequently by people who haven't read them.   Will Beback  talk  23:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Plus, citing this essay in an AFD is circular logic.   Will Beback  talk  00:04, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the view of participating editors, this is for pragmatic reasons, as there is almost always suitable sourced material available, and it is more sensible to consistently accept them rather than argue about each one to try to eliminate the very occasional school for which coverage is hard to find.

How do we know the views of "participating editors"?   Will Beback  talk  23:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • By them citing the essay in numerous AfDs. Oh, and "Essays get cited frequently by people who haven't read them." is a wholly unsubstantiated pejorative comment. Which editors in Schools AfDs do you consider have not read the essay? TerriersFan (talk) 00:09, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's just an assumption to say that people beside yourself hold this view. Can you point to AFDs where editors have expressed it explicitly? Also, "participating editors" implies that all participating editors hold this view. I'm going to restore "some" until we establish that this is a universally held view.   Will Beback  talk  00:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will let you look back through AFDs; I am trying to help Ryan Vesey save North Gwinnett High School since I find sourcing articles a better use of my time and I can't do both. We can never prove "all" so I will compromise on "many" so we can get on with our lives. TerriersFan (talk) 01:08, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Show me three people who've said this and then we can use something like "many". So far, I've only seen "one" person make this assertion. I've rewritten the sentence to make it clearer that this is a belief, not a proven fact.   Will Beback  talk  01:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kentlake High School alone provides a list of multiple editors citing this essay as well as multiple editors opposing it, but none of them actually say "Per NHS, which I've actually read". However, one of them quotes it, which is proof that he read it. (They're also citing the old version, which wrongly asserts that high schools are "NEVER" deleted; I wonder how many of them realize that it's changed since then.) Here and here you can find two more editors quoting the old version of the essay. That makes three who apparently read it, although none of them are active at the moment. (One's last edit was a few months ago, to disagree with efforts to limit this essay to what you might call "real" high schools.)
On a related point, this one is interesting for showing that even high schools are not always kept as separate articles; it is not unheard of for them to be merged into related articles. We can WP:PRESERVE material without keeping a large number of stand-alone articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:48, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a Montessori School. Montessori schools are normally pre-schools or primary schools not secondary schools/high schools. Dahliarose (talk) 19:43, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are many Montessori schools that are high schools, including the one discussed there. This school expects students to be age 16 at the beginning of their fourth year of high school. That is certainly not preschool age. The students progress from there to university: that's our definition of a high school.
As I understand it, at least within the US, most of Montessori high schools were previously K–8 and have expanded up to grade 12 (the end of high school) during the last 5–10 years. So they are uncommon, but becoming more common. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:45, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realise that. I don't think there are any Montessori schools in the UK that include secondary education. In this case it looks like that article got overlooked as most editors like me probably wouldn't have realised that the school wasn't just a preschool, and they quite possibly didn't even get round to reading the article before it got deleted. 12:50, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Except that the editors did know that it was a high school, as evidenced by their comments: "Keep per WP:NHS. All high schools are notable" — "Keep - significant high school" — "Keep I see no reason to alter the presumption for high schools that sources are findable". One even provided a link to a government website that proved it was classified by the government as a secondary school. Only one of the many participants thought that it might not be a high school, and his analysis was improperly based on the enrollment statistics from the first year that the school started its expansion into a high school, when its high school program only permitted first-year students to enroll (this is the normal method of expanding an elementary school program into a high school).
This is a case of editors deciding not to keep an article about a private high school because they couldn't find enough independent sources to write an unbiased article about it. Multiple editors cited the lack of independent sources when advocating for its deletion; multiple editors said that it was (and is) a proper high school. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"Keep per WP:NHS." - That's what I mean by circular logic. This essay says that school articles are kept at AFD, and someone cites this as if it were a reasons for keeping a particular article. Essays like this do more harm than good by short circuiting AFDs.   Will Beback  talk  04:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Let's do something more useful, for every high school article you source up, I'll produce an AfD in which a participant has cited HNS; deal? TerriersFan (talk) 01:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I realize I am a bit late to the party but I would also agree that most High schools are notable and could have an article with the exception that there are sufficient reliable references. Simply using the schools website or school paper as a reference does not constitute a reliable reference in my opinion. --Kumioko (talk) 00:13, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whether most high schools are notable depends on what you picture when you think of a high school. Is your mental picture of a high school a major government-run institution, with hundreds or thousands of students, and the local newspaper reports every ball game played by the students? Or is your mental picture of a high school a single room in the local church or mosque, with one teacher and maybe a dozen students? These are both "high schools", but only one of them is likely to be notable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As I have said numerous times the latter can be deleted with my blessing. TerriersFan (talk) 01:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To make a new point, if every editor who has commented here spent equivalent time actually sourcing some high school articles we would start to make some real progress. TerriersFan (talk) 01:37, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a possible compromise would be to change the essay's title to better reflect the position it has, particularly with the recent creation of Wikipedia:All high schools can be notable. Wikipedia:Notability (high schools) makes it resemble a notability guideline rather than an essay, so maybe a title along the lines of Wikipedia:All high schools are notable would be better. CT Cooper · talk 10:35, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • All high schools are notable, as demonstrated by 99% of AfDs since 2005. Someone made a page once of all high school afds from 2005-07, anybody remember that? I had a side list I made once (offline) of all AfDs since then, but I can't find it at the moment.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:46, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree. High schools must not be given, and this page must not imply that they have been given, any kind of special exception to policy. Any unsourced article must be either sourced or deleted in due course, and high schools are no exception.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 14:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Its not a special exception, its a general rule based on long experience.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Since I created the essay as a response to the concerns about your changes to this one, care to take a look at Wikipedia:All high schools can be notable? Ryan Vesey Review me! 14:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Milowent, if "all high schools are notable", then why did this high school get merged away?
I'm aware of a "high school" that averages two (2) graduates a year. The range seems to be zero to five. The "high school" consists of two classrooms in a church building. It is unaccredited. There are zero certified teachers. There are (last I heard) zero paid teachers. The students are given a "diploma" that is printed out on someone's home computer, and they have a graduation ceremony in the main church facility. After graduation, some of the students enroll to university. (In their area, it is perfectly legal to operate a school like this.)
Is that a "high school" in your books? Should Wikipedia have a separate article about that school?
Since nobody except the church that runs it has even taken the least notice of it, what exactly do you think you could say about that school that was neutral and unbiased, rather than self-serving and self-promotional? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:59, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some crappy montessori school is not a normal high school. We've had debates about small schools before and dealt with them individually.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:53, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
So when you say "all", you mean something significantly smaller than "all", like "all high schools of the sort I personally attended" as opposed to "all high schools, in their infinite variety around the globe".
Oh, and what you describe as "some crappy montessori school" appears to enroll about 150 students just in the high school, and has achieved the highest scores of any private school in their region on two major government-run standardized tests for several years running. Perhaps you should acquire some facts before dismissing this example of a bona fide high school being merged away. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well then maybe it shouldn't have been deleted, but 150 students is quite small and well below the recommendations of ideal size for high schools in educational research. But I never said 100% of high school AfDs end in keep. But its darn close. If you think its a productive use of your time to pick this as your cause, I can't stop you.--Milowent • talkblp-r 20:11, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:25, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability (high schools) → Wikipedia:All high schools are notable – I am requesting this move due to CT Cooper's comment above. The current title of this articlemakes it appear that the essay is a guideline (similar to something like Wikipedia:Notability (music)). The general purpose of the essay seems to state that all high schools are notable. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:03, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would support a move, but the title I gave was only a suggestion. If someone can think of a better title, they should share it. CT Cooper · talk 21:17, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Similarly, I support a move to anything other than the current title. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:27, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would support a page move to anything that can't mislead by aping the actual guidelines' titles. I suspect that Typical high schools are almost always notable would be a more accurate description of the primary author's current views (but not the original authors' views). WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I support the idea of a move but not to the proposed name which is misleading. The term "high school" has different meanings in different countries and it's an inappropriate name to cover schools providing secondary education worldwide. High school is the American term for a secondary school, but in Europe most such schools are classified as secondary schools not high schools. A high school is a name given to some secondary schools, but secondary schools are not high schools. There is a further complication in that some high schools in England for instance cater for different age groups than American high schools and are more like American middle schools. In Europe secondary schools usually educate children for five or seven years (eg from age 11 to 18) whereas American high schools only seem to cover the last four years of schooling up to age 18. There is also the confusion with communist countries (eg, China) who call their secondary schools middle schools. How about renaming it as "Wikipedia:Which schools are notable? This would avoid the implication that all "high schools" are notable and also avoid the terminology problem. It is also not necessarilyy the case that all schools providing secondary education are automatically notable. For many schools, especially those in non-English-speaking countries, English-speaking editors are not able to find any reliable sources to support an article. Dahliarose (talk) 23:01, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Typical high schools are almost always notable" is accurate whether its the title or not. This debate seems to be fueled by outlier cases.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:54, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would support the move if it would be clear this is an essay clarifying certain beliefs are not stated within our guidelines. I would not support the move if this would continue to be cited as a de-facto guideline in AfDs. ThemFromSpace 16:37, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In regards to this essay? Not always, usually it is more like "Someone nominated a high school again, can we get this thing closed fast. Don't you know all high schools are notable." Until now, I have been under the impression that all high schools are notable because that is what I have been told whenever I have seen one in an AFD. Ryan Vesey Review me! 13:04, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm pretty much baffled by this suggestion. We should change "Notability (high schools)" to "All high schools are notable" to make the article seem less like a guideline?? 86.176.215.110 (talk) 11:03, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, on Wikipedia, notability guidelines are written in the form "Notability (thing they describe)". Essays are given a title that states the goal of the essay. Ryan Vesey Review me! 12:22, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very very strong oppose - the proposed title is flatly false and will be a disastrous move. The page as currently written is an imperfect and biased (but better than it was) presentation of current practice. Not all high schools are notable; a great many are not, and a great many that have traditionally survived AfD will likely be deleted in due course, as it becomes evident that sources are not forthcoming.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:01, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Jimbo, let me ask you straight. I would like to write an essay putting forward the view that formal notability requirements should not be applied to high schools - that they should be automatically exempt from WP:NOTABILITY. I am aware that this contradicts current policy, but of course, being an essay, I can present whatever view I like. Since I know this is a highly-popular viewpoint (perhaps even held by a majority) I think others might want to be involved in writing it, so it shouldn't be in user space. In your opinion, what would a suitable name be for such an essay? Thparkth (talk) 19:38, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that there is a basic contradiction here. On the one hand, "being an essay, I can present whatever view I like" (Thparkth) and "Essays are given a title that states the goal of the essay" (Ryan Vesey), yet "the proposed title is flatly false" (Jimbo Wales). So, can people write whatever view they like in essays and title them accordingly, even if it contradicts policy? At Wikipedia:Wikipedia essays it says that "The Wikipedia community has historically tolerated a wide range of subjects and viewpoints on essay pages" but warns against "Writings that overtly contradict policy (or other pages with established consensus)". 86.161.61.136 (talk) 22:05, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that WP:Wikipedia essays is itself an essay, making the whole thing far too meta :) The actual policy is at WP:ESSAYS which says, in part, "Essays are the opinion or advice of an editor or group of editors, for which widespread consensus has not been established. They do not speak for the entire community and may be created and written without approval." Thparkth (talk) 22:10, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • When the idea of changing the title of this article was first established. This article was written in a way that highly supported all articles about high schools. I was hoping that laying out the bias in the title of the article would help editors understand that the essay was biased. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:38, 28 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Right, I understand, I just don't think it's a good idea to have a new essay laying out a position that almost no one agrees with. I think what we have here now is useful and good and could in fact move in the direction of being elevated to a guideline.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 07:17, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Fully agree - the sooner we have a clear guideline, the better. --Simple Bob a.k.a. The Spaminator (Talk) 07:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There has been a clear guideline available for many, many years, since long before you even started editing Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a compendium of all verifiable knowledge, written from a neutral point of view. What more of a guideline do you need than that? Many editors have frittered away many person-hours of editing time writing pages and pages of rules and regulations just for the sheer, pointless bureaucracy of it, but there is no point to any of it. The statement above is the only one you need. -- Oliver P. (talk) 21:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I wouldn't want to speak for anyone else, but what I need in guidelines is for them to not directly contradict Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, which your bold-face sentence does. Wikipedia is not a compendium of "all verifiable knowledge"; it is an encyclopedia. The final score at the (American) football scrimmage at the local high school last week is part of "all verifiable knowledge", but it is not something that belongs in Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's a very negative requirement that you need from a guideline. If not contradicting Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not is all you need, then the guideline could simply say nothing, and the non-contradiction criterion would be met. If you are a fan of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not, you should read this part: "Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy". "Written rules do not themselves set accepted practice. Rather, they document already existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. When instruction creep is found to have occurred, it should be removed." All of these guidelines are nothing but instruction creep, and therefore should be removed, according to the very source that you are citing as gospel. QED. :) Of course, the very idea of taking any page in the "Wikipedia:" namespace as gospel is ridiculous in the first place, since every one is simply a collection of whatever arbitrary opinions other editors have felt like putting together. If they contradict what Wikipedia is about, they should be freely ignored. And for your information, an encyclopaedia is a compendium of verifiable knowledge; that's the definition. Individual encyclopaedias may need to limit the amount of information that they contain due to constraints of time, space, and numbers of editors. Wikipedia has got to be the first encyclopaedia that lacks any such constraints, and yet the bureaucratic mindset is so strong that editors insist on concocting constraints out of thin air! -- Oliver P. (talk) 18:40, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to know everything that I need from a guideline, then you will have to read WP:Policies and guidelines. Under the "Content" section, you will find a requirement that they "not contradict each other", which I call out as one example of why your comment does not represent an adequate guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:22, 31 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - the request mis-states the current position, I think. It is more accurate to say that there is a presumption that high schools/secondary schools (whatever one chooses to call them) are notable. It is a presumption on the basis that the school has probably received an appropriate level of coverage in reliable sources to meet WP:GNG. That presumption is rebuttable (and hence the article should be deleted) if no such coverage can be found and cited. The key issue here is that nothing gets a free pass on notability. Notability is only established by reference to significant coverage in reliable sources and if such coverage does not exist, the subject of the article is not notable. – ukexpat (talk) 20:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. New title misleading.--Huh direction (talk) 18:34, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

History of high school AfDs

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  • I've started a page at User:Milowent/History of High School AfDs to document the long history of high schools AfDs. I started by listing a slew of AfDs and their results, and though this would take forever and a day to complete, the trends and history are quite clear. (I stopped at "Results 161–180 of 16,119 for "articles for deletion" "high school" ".) Almost all high school articles are kept, and have been since "voting" on deletion was first conceived of. Historical cases of deletion generally have been for very poor stubs or troll-created articles (all of which were later created as proper articles), and hoaxes (of course). Schools of very small size that aren't really a typical high school can run into problems, though I haven't added many of those to the page yet. My own opinion that high schools are de facto notable in most cases is based on this history. There are few cases of such clearcut AfD outcomes on the project. It is a quite inefficient use of editor resources, in my view, to engage in regular AfDs on high schools when the net benefit to the project seems negligible. (Here is where I typically make a pitch for help at Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue, which is a critical task - come join the final push!!!) If we are building an encyclopedia, it makes sense that we develop organizational guidelines beyond just "does this article meet GNG?" when it makes sense, and we have done so outside of schools. AfD is not foolproof and leads to erratic results, especially with AfD participation being so much lower than it was in 2005-06. If we approach the AfD of a typical high school with the understanding that it is most likely notable based on history and past consensus, we avoid having unorganized sporadic coverage that is not really the result of any master plan, and a reduced benefit to readers.--Milowent • talkblp-r 18:57, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for doing this but your list is incomplete as you only seem to have picked out schools with "high school" in the name. A high school is just one type of school providing secondary education and is of course the common name for such schools in North America. Is your implication that only American high schools are notable? Any guideline has to cover the whole world and not just one country. There certainly have been some schools providing secondary education under various names which have been deleted. It is particularly difficult to find sources for schools in countries where English editors don't understand the language. It is of course of concern that we have such a huge imbalance of articles with literally thousands of articles on American schools and little coverage of schools in Africa for instance. Dahliarose (talk) 19:46, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course my list is incomplete, but its not useless. (I tag you to add the next 150? heehee.) The current version does include schools located in Great Britain, Australia, and Turkey, all are welcome to supplement it with additional searches. "Is your implication that only American high schools are notable?" Of course not! As for Africa and other non-English areas, its not a shock that we have few such articles because of language issues and lack of readily available sourcing.--Milowent • talkblp-r 19:53, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I added the first twenty results for "articles for deletion" "secondary school" (1,922 results)(which is much smaller than "articles for deletion" "high school" -- 16,119 results). This added schools primarily from Canada and Singapore. No big difference, surprised to see almost all of these are kept as well.--Milowent • talkblp-r 20:29, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for all your hard work on this. My point is however that it is mostly in North America that schools tend to have the words "high school" in the school name. In Europe, for example many schools are simply named after places, saints or famous people. The word school will therefore appear in the title but not the word "high". Often these institutions are not even called schools but are instead called colleges, lycees, gymnasiums, academies, etc. It would be very a long job indeed to try and locate all these schools that have come up for AfD. The other problem is that many of these schools will not even have made it to AfD and will have been deleted through the PRod process. It is certainly true that virtually all secondary-level schools in English-speaking countries that have come up for AfD have been kept because suitable sources can nearly always be found. I've certainly come across some schools in non-English-speaking countries that have been deleted. The difficulty is that many of these schools probably are very notable in their own countries but English-speaking editors are not able to find sources they can understand. In contrast high schools in North America are ten a penny and invariably survive the AfD process because plentiful sources can always be found even if they often refer to quite trivial matters such as sporting achievements. I'd like to see much better coverage of school articles from other countries, but I'm not sure what the answer is. Dahliarose (talk) 18:08, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I will try to expand the 2009-11 listings. My own experience in that time frame is that very few if any have been deleted. Its been very common in the past two years for editors to cite Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes (which said, at least until about April this year, that high schools were almost always kept, until someone must have fought to get it out, even though it cannot be disputed that the common outcome is keep no matter what our personal opinions are) and the Wikipedia:Notability (high schools) essay (or the failed proposal that preceeded that essay). And with the expansion of online news archives, its probably easier now than it was in 2006 to find sources.--Milowent • talkblp-r 02:06, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

the other side of the compromise

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The practical operative consensus to simply consider all HS as notable was not a move in the direction of inclusionism; it was a balanced move, going along with the general agreement to not routinely consider junior high schools or primary schools notable, but to merge them into the town or school district or diocese or whatever looked most suitable as soon as possible, unless there was something really special (blue ribbon in the US has usually been considered such). This has resulted in many few articles for such schools than otherwise would have been the case, given the 10 or 20% variation in AfD results. I tend to be an inclusionist about educational institutions, but a deletionist about local bodies of all sorts. The overall operation of the compromise has been fewer articles about schools than would have been the case had we discussed them all one at a time.

And there's another reason for the compromise: the net result for high schools is greater, not lesser precision. When they were debated exhaustively, about 5% were found non notable, but there was and remains at least a 10% error rate in determining notability at AfD for all sorts of articles, I'll assume equal in each direction. So of the 95 notable high schools we'd have kept 85 of them, and of the 10 non-notable high schools we'd have kept 1: 89% of the schools correctly classified and 11% errors. By keeping them all as we do now, we have 95% correctly classified and only 5% errors. If you want to try different numbers, it is hard to find realistic ones that will produce a significant worse result for keeping them all than for relying on AfD. The overall meaning of this is generalizable: for a group of things mostly notable, wee might as well keep them all; for a group mostly non-notable, we'd do little harm in not including any of them. Each case would have exceptions: the few that are not verifiable would always have to be deleted, the few famous ones kept. We cannot deliberately ignore WP:V, but we can accept errors in either direction for something as vague as notability. DGG ( talk ) 02:31, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • This is a useful way of looking at it, and its why a general rule makes sense in cases like this. I'd only add that my research shows that almost every high school article which happens to be deleted get recreated and is never subjected to a 2nd AfD. So the AfDs are even more of a waste of time in addition to the error rate.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:44, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is the overall purpose of this essay?

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I'd like to know what purpose people who support this essay, in it's current form, think it serves. To me it serves no useful purpose. On the contrary I think it is quite possibly a detriment to the encyclopedia because it encourages the retention of entries that might not currently meet our sourcing standards without encouraging editors to fix them. If most high schools a notable, then most high schools can have properly sourced entries, which establish notability clearly through that sourcing. But when people fall back on the position that "all high schools are notable" then they are not forced to do the necessary work to bring the article up to snuff because they assume this work can be done, at some point in the future. When a notable, but poorly sourced subject is taken to AfD the normal result is a positive one, since it forces editors to fix the entry in order to establish notability. I fear that this isn't happening, or will not happen if people take the default position promoted by this essay. What we need is a guideline that points out that while most high schools might be notable, all entries need to establish their notability through proper sourcing, and high schools are no exception. This project doesn't need more unsourced stubs, it needs work on improving existing articles. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • WP:GNG applies to everything, but we don't AfD everything to improve its sourcing. Featured actors in at least two movies always have articles and many of those article suck, but won't be deleted through AfD.--Milowent • talkblp-r 12:49, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why the straw man? Did I say everything should be nominated for deletion to improve the sourcing? The point is that people should be encouraged to improve sourcing when an entry isn't up to snuff. If that takes an AfD, great. If it doesn't even better. But this essay encourages the opposite. It encourages people not to source entries, and indeed if or when a high school entry does go to AfD, it might be counteracting the one good thing that comes out of AfD when an article is indeed notable - fixing the article. I would love to discuss the actual points I've made. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 13:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Its not about straw men--my point is that your argument would apply to many many categories of articles. And should AfD be used as a tool to do improve those as well? Its a fair question, not a rhetorical device. Here, the fact is that 7 years of AfD history shows that high school articles almost never get deleted (or stay deleted in rare cases where deletion, usually of a crappy stub, occurs). AfD should not be a tool to force editors who care about having a comprehensive encyclopedia take the time to improve randomly chosen articles nominated by some random editor for AfD who does not take the time to see if WP:BEFORE is met. If everyone participating in this discussion worked on one high school article per week, eventually we'd actually improve the encyclopedia. Seven years of discussion of this issue has not done that, in my view. I am very influenced in my opinions by what happened to unreferenced BLPs back in January 2010 - there was that mass deletion spree that did little except cause drama. But dedicated editors joined projects like Wikipedia:Unreferenced BLP Rescue and Wikipedia:WikiProject Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons to work on that huge problem. As a result, the number of unreferenced BLPs has gone from 42,362 on February 20, 2010 to 852 today. Improving BLPs is a job that will never be done, but it is incrementally improving. High school AfDs are not improving high school articles except in random cases.--Milowent • talkblp-r 14:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • High school AfDs are not improving high school articles exactly because of the attitude expressed in this essay. Other AfDs that result keep usually do improve those entries and especially in terms of sourcing. That's exactly my point. This isn't about AfDs specifically. It's about what this essay encourages people not to do. It happens that during AfDs one sees the effects of that rather clearly. And yes your argument does have a tinge of straw man to it, because it continues to argue against the idea that AfD is intended to be an article improvement tool, which isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that it leads to article improvement in some cases (which is a net positive to the project) but in situations like this it does not lead to article improvement (which can't be seen as anything but a negative). Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:50, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "High school AfDs are not improving high school articles exactly because of the attitude expressed in this essay." Even if this subjective opinion were true, the essay is not the cause. High school AfDs are essentially the same argument being rehashed for 8 years, but with very few deletions.--Milowent • talkblp-r 18:15, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of this essay is, or at least was originally, to make the case that all high schools should be considered notable. It does not claim to be a policy or guideline; it is just an essay presenting a viewpoint. That is a useful purpose. Thparkth (talk) 13:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like Griswaldo's concern, one I share as well, is that this essay could, in its current form, encourage editors, especially new ones, to ignore guidelines and policy. The fact that an article is about a high school is enough to avoid it's deletion but that's not enough to avoid sourcing the article. --RadioFan (talk) 13:21, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
@Thparkth. I don't see expressing a view point as inherently "useful." At times expressing certain view points can be unproductive (e.g. the current essay), and even dangerous (e.g. hate speech). It may indeed be true that most high-schools are notable, but the manner in which we present that claim does make a huge difference. I've heard anecdotally now, several editors complaining that this essay, and the basic claim it makes, has become a sort of mantra at AfDs of high schools that stops article improvement in its tracks since people no longer see the need to prove notability. How can that be a useful effect? Shouldn't we try to rewrite this in a manner that emphasizes something more productive instead, like "please do your darnedest to bring High School articles up to snuff?"Griswaldo (talk) 13:40, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course expressing a viewpoint about policy is useful. This is the main reason we have essays. If the viewpoint in question is highly popular and people frequently want to be able to reference it without reproducing the argument in full, then having it in essay form is even more useful. This is exactly what is happening at AfD. People are saying, "I think high schools are usually notable, and see this essay for why." This is a good and useful thing for them to be able to do. If it "has become a mantra at AfD" then this merely indicates that the argument it puts forward is a popular one among AfD participants, and that counter-arguments to it have been found ineffective. This suggests the viewpoint in this essay may actually be the consensus position.
I have absolutely no idea what point you are trying to make with the rest of your complaint; this is an essay presenting a viewpoint about notability, which is to say, about deletion policy, not about article content. No part of the essay implies or suggests that articles should not be sourced.
Thparkth (talk) 14:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've spelled this out rather clearly several times now, so it's a bit frustrating to hear "I have absolutely no idea what point you are trying to make with the rest of your complaint ..." You seem to be unwilling to discuss cause and effect here. It doesn't matter to me what words are chosen in combination on this essay page as long as the effect is positive (or at least not negative). Do you understand? It's not about what the essay says explicitly or not, it's about the effect that this view, as currently expressed in the essay, seems to be having. Are people capable of actually having a discussion about this effect or not? At least say you don't think the effect is negative, or you don't agree that the effect is really there, or something else that actually shows an engagement with the point I've made several times now. If the effect of this essay, and the view it expresses, has been to inhibit improvement of high school articles how can we seriously think that the essay is useful? Also, is there a way to retain the basic idea expressed in it, but also encourage article improvement? That last question is one I've already posed as well. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)deleto[reply]
I will answer your question as well as I can, for what it's worth. In my opinion this essay has had no impact on the quality of school articles, except that it has allowed poor quality (but probably notable) articles to continue existing. Although it might seem perverse, that is actually a desirable outcome per policy. The deletion process is not intended to compel editors to improve article quality against a deletion deadline. Of course it often has this as a pleasant side effect, but nevertheless, it is not a design goal. By policy and precedent, it is better to have a low quality article about a notable topic than not to have the article at all. Thparkth (talk) 16:11, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen these types of arguments before, and I have to admit they still take me aback every-time I see them. By policy and precedent, it is better to have a low quality article about a notable topic than not to have the article at all. Please back this up, because I've not seen any policies supporting the creation of poor quality articles. Here's what policy does say.
  • WP:V - "To show that it is not original research, all material added to articles must be attributable to a reliable, published source appropriate for the content in question, but in practice you do not need to attribute everything." and "This policy applies to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, sections of articles, and captions—without exception, and in particular to material about living persons."
Please note that WP:GNG is not a policy. GNG has also been soften recently, despite a great deal of protestation from those of us who see it as contradicting the clear mandate set by WP:V to source materials in entries. So I disagree with you wholeheartedly. I'd like see where you claim that policy says its better to have low quality articles than no article at all. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 17:14, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You have characterized my argument as suggesting that policy "supports the creation of poor quality articles." That is not at all what I said. I am arguing that policy does not support the deletion of poor quality articles merely for being poor quality. I am right to argue this, because it is explicit in policy. WP:ATD - If the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion. I would also point you to WP:RUBBISH (though of course that is only an essay, albeit a widely-cited one). Thparkth (talk) 17:33, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Your comment, which I quoted word for word supports both retention and creation. If it is better "to have" a low quality article than no article clearly it is better to create such an article than not to create it. Simply logic. If you didn't mean to imply this you best be more specific in your claims. Now to regarding WP:ATD it actually supports my point, to the letter. Did you even read what you quoted yourself? ATD advises to actively fix the entry, not to keep it to fix another day. As you wrote yourself, "[i]f the page can be improved, this should be solved through regular editing, rather than deletion." You seem to mistake AfD for actual deletion, and you also seem to mistake a suggestion that you "should" solve something through regular editing, with putting it at the bottom of the drawer to fix another day. I'm still waiting for the policy that proves your point.Griswaldo (talk) 17:43, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The policy text WP:ATD specifically says that normal editing, not deletion, is how articles get improved. If you can manage to draw the opposite conclusion from its very clear text, I think you are in error. Of course, it's entirely possible that I am the one who is mistaken. That happens frequently ;). All the same, you asked for opinions and now you have mine, for what it's worth. Thparkth (talk) 17:50, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have not argued for deletion anywhere here. I've argued for active work being done to bring notable subjects up to bare minimum sourcing standards. How did that escape you? I feel like I say one thing and I get responses to another. My initial point was, specifically that the current essay is deterring "regular editing" to fix entries that sorely need to be fixed, because it encourages the attitude that the entries don't need fixing now. I'm not saying we should encourage deletion of notable subjects, such as most high schools. I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that we need to start encouraging people to do the fixing work. It would be nice to see an essay that establishes the fact that most High Schools are notable, but that this is no excuse to write uneferenced text about them. Whether you like it or not, one of the byproducts of AfD is to put fire to the feet of people who want to keep an article to fix it. I've yet to hear that point refuted. That doesn't mean that AfD should be used as a tool to repair articles, but if they aren't otherwise up to snuff it is fair to nominate them. If that is what it takes to get them fixed, so be it. This essay provides a loop hole out of that process. It isn't helping anyone.Griswaldo (talk) 17:59, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion

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Well, let me answer a slightly different question: Usually, when people write a page like this (more usually, a section at a WikiProject page), they have practical goals like these in mind:

  • Telling people what their knowledge of both Wikipedia and the subject matter suggests the outcome of any random AFD on the subject is likely to be;
  • Identifying characteristics that indicate a given case is not likely to be normal;
  • Showing how to reduce the likelihood of an AFD nomination;
  • Providing information on how to find good sources;
  • Naming sources that are bad (e.g., non-independent), but might trip up inexperienced people;
  • Telling people how to WP:PRESERVE good material about a non-notable subject; and
  • Linking to relevant policies, guidelines, and other helpful pages.

So if (for example) WPMED wrote a page on the notability of diseases, it would tell you that every single disease or disease category listed in a major international disease classification like the ICD-10 was notable (because we actually know that sources exist for every single disease listed in such an index; the WHO's rules prohibit inclusion of undescribed/unpublished diseases).

Additionally, for the many diseases not directly listed in the ICD-10, we'd expect a simple search at PubMed to turn up multiple publications by multiple, unrelated authors (=different people and different institutions) that are directly and primarily about that specific disease (not merely a paragraph here or there). It is not unusual to find dozens of sources for even very rare diseases.

It would define what counts as a disease, and how to distinguish an actual disease from somebody trying to make himself wealthy and/or famous by declaring that something is a disease (e.g., calling hunger pangs "hypoglycemia" rather than "normal", or making up a new name for an existing disease), and point users at the relevant guidelines for establishing the notability of pseudo-diseases.

It would likely explain that notability depends on sources, not on the fact that diseases are important to healthcare professionals and patients who are affected by them. It would disclaim both inherent and inherited notability.

It would say that sub-types of diseases are almost never notable. So you can (and should) have an article entirely about Whosiwhatsitis, but probably not one specifically about Whosiwhatsitis, Type 3. It would tell editors to WP:MERGE those, rather than deleting them, and to watch out for POV-motivated content forks, which are prohibited.

It would probably go on to identify non-independent and other lousy sources, e.g., patient support groups and authors hoping to become famous for describing a new disease, are poor indicators of notability, but that descriptions in mainstream media are good indicators.

And so forth. I'm sure you can imagine the rest. What wouldn't happen is a simple "all diseases are notable, so everybody please mindlessly vote KEEP", which is basically what this essay said before TerriersFan cleaned it up two years ago. In short, it would be useful for people who really wanted to know, not just a shortcut for people to invoke. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:22, 30 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Poor school articles are hardly likely to be a health hazard if they are not notable, but it's an interesting analogy. I am rather hoping that this discussion will conclude either in a new set of guidelines for high schools, or a ratification of the ones we have, and have been practicing for years. That way, we would avoid the messy school AfDs, and the occasional bursts of mass AfDs by newbies at New Page Patrol, and admins would be able to close school AfDs without fear of recrimination from the deletionists and inclusinists alike. Thus, what exactly is your standpoint on the notability of high schools? In a nutshell. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:25, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My personal standpoint is that all schools are WP:ORGanizations, and the same notability rules apply to every single organization in the world, regardless of age, purpose, size, funding, or anything else. I do not support special exemptions for any kind of organization, no matter how subjectively important the organization is to the person writing it. I do not support special exemptions for hospitals, schools, life-saving patient support groups, or any other organization: If sources have been published, then it's notable because those sources have been published, not because the organization is "important". If they haven't, then it's not notable, because those sources have not been published (in which case, see WP:ORG#If it's not notable: "doesn't get a separate, stand-alone article" is not the same thing as "can't be mentioned in Wikipedia").
With respect to the typical high school in a developed country (e.g., Smallville Public High School, enrollment 400), I also believe that if you haven't been able to find a long list of sources, then it is extremely likely that the fault lies in your source-finding skills. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds reasonable. And we should rewrite this essay to be in a type of format like what you describe. It would definitely be beneficial, but the thing is also that it wouldn't change the statement of the essay that high schools and universities are notable, it would just be doing so in an explanatory way (which would be good). SilverserenC 16:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Last year I had protested about the guidelines which said "in general, all schools and universities" are notable, and that they get a free pass to notability while everything else has to earn that respect. Why dont we change notability policies about people too "In general, every person on Earth is notable", and see how that works out for us. Nice job, guys, what can I say. Why dont we also say "all businesses, big or small are notable". Are they? No.

Schools, Colleges and High Schools should also earn their notability in their own special way, for example if they have been covered significantly by 3rd party sources. So lists of graduates or an announcement of the graduation ceremony is not a significant mention. Anyway, I would say more but I wont be taking part in this fight. Resolving this would take a long time, and it would involve creating specific policies for notability for educational institutions, that they would have to satisfy before they are considered worthy of having an article on them. As with anything, there are only a few people who are sufficiently intelligent and they know what to do, but they have to fight everyone else and that means, it will take a long time to get done. One day this will be resolved. I estimate about 3-10 years. --Demetrioscz (talk) 14:54, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • "In general, every person on Earth is notable" - this is not very persuasive as an analogy. Every planet in the solar system is notable, but I don't use that to defend schools. In any event, the discussion you cite was about colleges and universities, not secondary schools or other pre-college institutions, which is what this essay addresses. See User:Milowent/History_of_High_School_AfDs for the existing 8 year AfD history of those.--Milowent • talkblp-r 17:42, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:BOLD edits

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Rather than just having a small easy-to-miss message up at the top that this essay is historical, I have edited it to remove sentences that contradict WP:SCHOOLRFC. Since this talk page hasn't seen any activity in over a decade I am doing this as a WP:BOLD edit, but if anyone feels this needs further discussion given the past controversy surrounding this topic, feel free to revert. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:42, 7 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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