Wikipedia talk:Schools/Archive 6

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Our differences

(Cross-posted to Wikipedia talk:Schools) Been away a little while, so I'm wondering whether the following summary is accurate. Is the main disagreement between these two proposals that the "inclusionist" side (sorry to use labels like that, but it's hard to come up with anything else) wants routine but useful coverage (e.g. OFSTED reports) and local news coverage to count towards "multiple non-trivial published works", while the "deletionist" side (again, sorry) doesn't? Thanks, JYolkowski // talk 01:38, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

(My own opinion, not presuming to speak for everyone here) I think that's one main issue. If we're going to allow "routine" government coverage to count, we may as well be back to "include all schools". The government reports on just about everything-if we're to open that can of worms, "all restaurants are notable" since they all get health inspection reports. For that matter, "all people are notable" since just about everyone has some type of government record. When we're looking at notability, we should be looking for something above and beyond the trivial stuff that applies to every(one|thing) in the category by rote or requirement. Seraphimblade 01:42, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Its hard to compare, since both are changing continuously and substantially. But the principal "core" difference is WP:SCHOOLS has supported the concept of being comprhensive, and this page has been based on notability. But we should focus less on bringing these two school pages together, and look at bringing them closer to other existing pages, such as WP:N, WP:CORP, WP:BIO, WP:MUSIC, WP:WEB, etc... We have to remove the extra rules imposed against schools, that don't exist in other guideliens. If you want to remove "preferencial" treatment of schools, you must also remove discriminatory treatment against them as well. That means not adding these simple-minded words against "local" and "routine", which are unjustified. --Rob 02:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, mostly. Ultimately, I'd like to see schools judged on essentially the same criteria as we use for corporations or organizations (though some modifications are necessary, since most schools are neither for-profit nor function in the same manner as charitable organizations). The standard should neither be significantly more nor significantly less difficult than the similar notability standards. Focusing on the sources is definitely the way to go; I do feel like we're making some progress, despite the couple of issues that remain. Shimeru 04:58, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Just to show that the criteria you want is actually attainable, can you link to some school articles that you made, that fully meet the criteria you wish. --Rob 08:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Nice qualification with the "that you made," but sure, I can offer you an example: Wyoming Seminary, which I talked about in more detail a few sections up on this page. It could stand improvement (on my to-do list), but it's got its multiple reliable independent sources, so it meets the first criterion of the proposal. (It also verifiably holds a national record -- first nighttime American football game -- and verifiably has national recognition as a registered historic site, so it meets the second criterion of the proposal, twice.) Shimeru 09:53, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

The transformation of this into this, and likely future expansion, shows the dangers of deleting an article because it doesn't *currently* meet all the requirements. Aritcles are improved piecemill, and we shouldn't demand final finished articles during AFD. Instead of making an article to meet your standards, you found an article that didn't, and have improved it, so it could. While that's good, it shows the danger of deleting articles so easily, because it prevents there improvement later on. Remember, AFDs often occur shortly after an article is made. We evaluate the draft version, not the final version. You're improvement of the school article, actually demonstrated the value of keeping articles that fail your standards, and keeping them, so that they can be improved later. We're a wiki. That means good articles come from many people, making many modest contributions. A good article, results from a chain of little contributions. If we delete the first contribution, we break the chain, and never get to the final result. You expect *other* editors to make their first draft good-enough, but can't do that yourself. The time it takes you to make one good article, as an example, would be much less than the time invested by others in articles you removed. --Rob 10:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I can do that myself, actually, and these days, I do. I freely admit that there was a time I was not so worried about providing sources. This was a mistake, and I know better now. Many supporters of broad inclusionism make this argument; the problem with it is that the articles are often not improved. In my current working through Category:Schools needing cleanup, I've frequently come across articles tagged for cleanup and expansion that have not changed in months, even years. Often, there is no significant change from the first draft to the current article -- some wikilinking, maybe, the addition of categories or an infobox, but no content changes. These articles are almost all unsourced, or sourced only by the school or district's website. It's not infrequent to find one copied and pasted directly from a school website. We shouldn't demand a finished article the first moment, no. But we shouldn't let these articles languish for months in the belief that "someone will work on them" when it is obvious that nobody is. It is not unreasonable to demand sources -- the opposite is enshrined in Wikipedia policy, in fact (WP:V). We would not accept an article about a band or a company remaining for months in such a sorry condition, and for the same reasons we should not accept an article about a school doing so. If Wyoming Seminary in its previous form had been nominated for deletion, I would have voted delete -- and then, later, constructed an actual sourced article showing notability. This is what you're missing: deletion is not a permanent decision. It doesn't prevent anyone from writing a new article that meets the standards. For that matter, deletion isn't even a first resort for this policy, as it is with WP:BIO or WP:CORP -- we suggest a merge and redirect as a compromise with the completionists. If there are people who want a school to have an article, they should do what we require of people who want any subject to have its own article: Find the sources, prove its notability, write an article that can stand. You say that many school articles can be improved? I fully agree. {{Sofixit}} and prove your point. That category I linked would be a good place to start: hundreds of articles that have been tagged for months. Shimeru 20:24, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Always merge/redirect?

SCHOOLS3 currently states that school articles not meeting criteria may be merged and should always be redirected. Is this really the policy we want to go with- to always redirect, even when the article's title is poor and the article has little history to speak of? What good would a redirect do in these situations? -- Kicking222 17:20, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it's one of those compromise things. If the title is poor, then it should probably be moved to a better title first, then the redirect deleted. I don't think we need to spell that out, really, just like there's no need to spell out that, if merging is declined, AfD is a possible next step. Shimeru 21:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

a bad redirect is also easily moved to become a good redirect with almost no outcry. And it's also increadibly easy to get redirects, deleted... compared to a school article, anyway.Garrie 05:51, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Talk Page Link

Is there any particular reason why the talk page link on Wikipedia:Schools3 links to the discussion page for Wikipedia:Schools? That's bound to confuse some users. -- Butseriouslyfolks 01:48, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Note 7 - Objective Triviality

Unless I am misunderstanding it, I disagree with Note 7. Isn't it the job of an editor to make the trivial / non-trivial judgment, based on all of the circumstances? Why is it better to bind ourselves to the source's determination whether something is or is not trivial? If a matter is only found in one source, but that source treats it like it is the most important, least trivial matter in the world, does that outweigh the fact that no other source even mentions it? I think an editor has to review and weigh the sources (or lack thereof) to determine whether a matter is trivial in an overall sense. IMHO. -- Butseriouslyfolks 02:02, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Twin proposals

It was kind of confusing that there were two twin proposals here. But the other one was rejected, and this one is ongoing. So I've moved the other one to Wikipedia:Schools/Old proposal, and moved this one here, so now all schools-related links point to the active proposal (or guideline, if consensus is reached on that). >Radiant< 15:08, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

That makes much more sense. The shortcut still points to WP:Schools3 and needs changing but I'm not sure how to do it as it seems to be embedded in the template. Dahliarose 15:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Notablity

Notablity of the Schools and Universities are the same thing??? There is no article named Wikipedia:Notability (universities). NAHID 15:14, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, basically. There seems to be a general agreement that educational institutions at the college and university level are broadly notable, so most of the discussion has focused on schools at a lower level. Shimeru 20:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Objections to the rejected proposal

Radiant's moves (WP:Schools to Wikipedia:Schools/Old proposal; the alternative WP:Schools3 to WP:Schools) obscures the previous discussion. The old proposal was perhaps labelled as rejected with a little too much haste, the thrust of the arguement was that the policy was substantially misdirected, and discussion was still ongoing.

The objections to the "Old proposal" are essential identical to the objections to this alternative proposal, and so I am coping the end of the discussion here for us to continue. SmokeyJoe 21:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Oppose

I oppose this policy proposal as too restrictive and would like to see this tagged as {{rejected}} and forgotten. Stop trying to make rules about what others shouldn't do. Stop trying to limit others. Existing policies suffice. New users and new articles should always be encouraged. Articles should be encouraged to be improved, not deleted.--SmokeyJoe 06:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that one of the few things most Wikipedians agree on is that there ought to be a few rules. I'd say that WP:School is a fairly open and broad-minded approach as to which school articles merit retention. If you think this proposal is "too restrictive", take a gander at WP:SCHOOLS3. I'm still trying to figure out if any school is notable enough to meet the WP:SCHOOLS3 criteria. Alansohn 06:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Hopkins School and Eton College easily meet the current version of that proposal. I suspect that making SCHOOLS3 somewhat more inclusive is more likely to get a consensus than anything else (although at this point I'm getting very sick of stubborn people on both sides of the discussion). JoshuaZ 21:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I support the request to tag this proposal as {{rejected}}. How many people are needed before we can tag it as such? --Stéphane Charette 02:51, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've come down for deletion in a lot of AFDs for schools, but it will be harder without this guideline to refer to. I suppose then it will be easier to keep them. Hope that's what you want. Maybe the best points from this guideline proposal should be added to WP:local rather than insulting those who have worked hard on creating this by just trashing it. I am for accepting it, and frankly I was surprised to see mention of it being slapped (yet again) with a rejected tag. Did anyone see how often it was cited in school deletion debates? I recall seeing it quite a bit. Apparently since people get angry when you do a straw poll, the only way to establish a guideline is to refer to it in AFDs and tag it as approved. Edison 21:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Currently, schools are being expected to meet a particularly high standard, higher than for many other types of articles. Why? Some people seem to “not like”, even “hate” school articles and in response work to have them deleted, or write a guideline to be used as a stick to be used by elitists to overwhelm newbies. This is not a good thing. It is contrary to the principles of wikipedia. Who writes the woeful article about a humble school? A young newbie whose school is the most important influence on their lives so far outside of their family. What happens next? Their article is summarily deleted (all contributions hidden) with coded references to plethora of rules requiring hours of study to understand, and perhaps with threats to “block” if they attempt to recreate deleted material. What a welcome! What does the newbie learn? That wikipedia is patrolled by aggressive elites suppressing the contributions of those who haven’t learnt the elites’ rules.

My position is that any article that is verifiable and not original research should be allowed, subject only to very specific further conditions such as copyright or WP:BIO. Verifiable means that there must be sources. Add "No original research" and it means that at least one source must be third party. This should be applied on a section by section basis. I would support a policy stating that every article must be verifiable by at least one third party (aka secondary) source. Such a policy should be applied to Pokemon and other fantasies long before it is extended and tightened around real things like schools.

I think that this attempted guideline has become substantially misguided. It should be written to help new editors write a good new school article. Instead, it has become a tool of suppression. I would like to see a dramatic change in direction, and a clear statement that “failure to follow a guideline is not, per se, a reason for deletion”.

Where an article has zero worthy content, rather that delete it, I would prefer to see its content blanked (history preserved), and a redirect placed to a much more friendly policy, such as Wikipedia:Editing policy. SmokeyJoe 05:02, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with SJ. WP:N is enough of a guideline for determining whether a school article should be speedy deleted, merged, prodded or whatever. I think that we should work through WP:SCH to do as suggested above and to improve school articles generally. None of the high school articles that I have seen at AfD took as much time to improve to start class (or at least a keepable stub) as the collective time put in to argue pro and con on deletion.

Are we agreed to rewrite the policy, removing anything that can be interpreted as criteria for article deletion, and making it newbie friendly? I don't see any point in leaving a rejected form in place. SmokeyJoe 07:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I very much disagree to removing anything that can be interpreted as criteria for article deletion. The applicable policy here is WP:NOT a directory. If only directory type information can be provided and sourced on a school, such as its location, staff, etc., it should be deleted or redirected to an appropriate parent locality. If it can meet WP:N, with multiple reliable non-trivial source mentions, great! What this proposal and WP:SCHOOLS3 are mainly attempting to get across is what constitutes trivial coverage. If a newspaper publishes basketball scores for every school in its region, such mention is trivial, as are most "human-interest" type pieces. On the other hand, if several newspapers feature in-depth coverage of the school's excellent teaching staff, brilliant debate team, and winning sports teams (or alternatively, its terrible academic record, decaying infrastructure, and substandard teachers), it's probably notable! Also, while it's great to be newbie-friendly, and it's good that WP:BITE is a core policy, that shouldn't be considered our only core policy. Newbies might genuinely think this is a "free-for-all", and that it's fine to post a vanity bio or spamvertisement in article space. Granted, we should correct them gently, but we should correct them, and let them know "No, we don't do that." Of course, some of them only wanted to post their vanity bio or ad, and after finding out they can't do that, get mad and leave. What have we lost? One vanity bio or spamvertisement, from someone who never intended to make another edit anyway. I'm also tired of the "Pokemon" bit. Yes, there's a lot of garbage fiction articles. If you're sick of Pokemon, go write up WP:KILLPOKEMON, get support together for it, and quit telling anyone else we can't can any garbage articles until we get those particular ones. (For reference, I will probably be 100% behind the Pokemon criteria too!) But let's remember what "newbie-friendly" means. It doesn't mean "let the newbies do whatever they like"-this only leads to grief for that person later, as (s)he thinks now that what's being done is alright, and really isn't! Rather, it means to be gentle in correcting. "What were you THINKING when you wrote that turd? Don't ever write anything like that again!" is biting. "Hey, look, while it's great you want to create articles, there are some rules and guidelines for how to do that, and unfortunately the one you created doesn't fit those. You'll especially want to look at..." is not. Seraphimblade 06:36, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

That seems a constructive reply, thanks. I think the problem for me is criteria for deletion that do not derive directly from WP:NOR or WP:V. I have a problem with references to "trivial". I think that these expanded criteria obfuscate the importance of WP:NOR and WP:V, and I do think that these two policies alone are sufficient to cover most problems with school articles. SmokeyJoe 08:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps entirely separately is my problem with deletion of newbie good faith contributions. Deletion of an article, meaning the obliteration of the content, history and discussion is cruel and is not an effective teaching method. It would be better to edit out content, with explanation, and when the page is blank, redirect to somewhere appropriate. When the contributor returns, he can find the deleted material, read the criticism, and try again. A benefit of this method of dealing with substandard contribution is that there is no need for AfD or any administrator action. SmokeyJoe 08:29, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

However, I don't much like the idea of blanking an article and redirecting to a policy or guideline. If there is no suitable redirect to a locality or school district article (or equivalent), I think that it would be better to leave the barest amount of verifiable data, if any, along with a Schools project template. I think that every public school in the U.S, should be included, someplace or another, since so many people are interested in them for so many different reasons. Most primary schools probably belong in locality articles or in school district or other regional groupings, but almost every high school could (and should) support an independent article. I think that equivalent private institutions and schools in other English-speaking countries should be treated the same.

It would be good to have a list of exemplary articles to refer people to--not just FAs, but Good Articles about schools of different ages and sizes, in different states and countires, so people can see what can be expected of both big high schools with lots of history and small middle schools that may never have received national media attention but which can still be locally documented in a way that results in a good article that passes all of the real policy requirements.--Hjal 07:16, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Fixing the mess

It's positively rediculous to move Joshua's personal proposal (aka Wikipedia:Schools3) to this page. Just as it was absurd to for A Man In Black's personal essay to start the prior version at this location (along with messing with WP:SCH in the past). I figure we've had roughly 4 fundamentally different proposals, with each having various critical variations/changes. It makes much of the talk page discussion in various places, seem meaningless. There's a reason why Wikipedia keeps the history of project and discussion pages. We actually do want *useful* history, of discussions. So, lets not have admins force their *personal* preferred proposal onto this page. So, for now, I suggest, simply moving this back to Wikipedia:Schools3, and making this a disambig. Also, there's no evidence Wikipedia:Schools3 ever had more support than what was recently Wikipedia:Schools (both the recent one, and the one before that). Therefore, its equally deserving of being tagged as rejected. Of course, its hard for me to even discuss or explain all this, as I haven't a clue as to how to name/describe each proposal I'm talking about them, as there's a continuous flux of naming/meaning. --Rob 03:13, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Considering the number of editors this proposal has had, and the fact that its current state barely even resembles its initial state, it seems in rather bad faith to call it "Joshua's personal proposal" at this point. Tagging it as rejected without discussion is likewise not in the best of faith; it has never been formally presented. I would ask that you retract the former comment and refrain from the latter action, and instead concentrate on helping to establish a middle ground that could be, at least, reluctantly agreed upon by most involved parties. Shimeru 09:48, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Given the mismash of names, it's pretty much essential to refer to proposals as "Joshua's" or "A Man in Black's", as there's no other standard name. You're also making the conflicting criticism, that Joshua's proposal has had widespread input (hence it's not to be referred to as "Joshua's") but then you're claiming it's never been fully discussed/debated/considered and I'm too blame for rejecting it before its been widely seen. In a month or two, somebody will move their own proposal overtop this one. When that happen's, the only way anybody will know which proposal we were talking about, will be the personal names. Also, you do realize Joshua did promote his proposal in the discussion over "A Man In Black's" version of Wikipedia:Schools. And there was also (for a good amount of time) a merge tag for both. So, it's absurd to say it wasn't presented formerally. In any event, given you've rejected my approach of referring to different proposals, I request you develop your own. Referring to something as "this proposal" is essentially useless, as what "this proposal" is can change any minute. I do find it humorous how you criticize me adding a {{rejected}} tag, but you didn't complain about the prior (AMIB's) version being so-tagged, and worse, actually hidden (moved to another name, with no link to it). --Rob 05:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Please. It isn't the "Joshua's" that makes the phrase "Joshua's personal proposal" suspect. (But then, perhaps it wasn't clear. For the sake of clarity, it also isn't the "proposal.") On the other topic, there is a difference, at least in my mind, between a proposal having the input of several editors and a proposal being formally presented. The current WP:SCHOOLS proposal (and there's the term you requested, incidentally) has never been presented as other than a work in progress, though there was a small amount of discussion about doing so. It's clear that you personally reject this proposal; it's not clear that the community as a whole does. I do not particularly see why I should complain about the previous version being tagged; perhaps you could explain your reasoning further. Shimeru 09:54, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The previous situation was very confusing with two different policies running simultaneously. Now that the changes have been made it makes much more sense to use this present policy as the basis for building a consensus. Then at least all the discussion will be in one place. Dahliarose 11:01, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

Before another survey

Before we get another survey request, can everyone consider the importance of reaching a consensus here. While this proposal does have flaws, it seems to be gaining traction on AfD discussions. So I guess we need to refine the criteria in a way that will gain consensus. The fact that the guideline does not completely satisfy most editors could mean that it has found some sort of middle ground. If that is the case, then we could be close to consensus. It might only be a few tweaks away. So consider rereading the proposal and see if it is one that could merit your supporting it as a consensus guideline. Vegaswikian 06:09, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

When you say "this proposal" is gaining traction on AfD, are you referring literally to this one, which was Wikipedia:Schools3, or are you referring to what was in its place at Wikipedia:Schools before it was moved to Wikipedia:Schools/Old proposal. Also, note, both have undergone radical shifts, based on contradictory principals. So, it's helpful to clarify what you mean by "this proposal". We now have a situation where many comments in AfD have had their meaning retroactively changed to support "this" proposal, when they actually meant something else. Also, in your edit summary you indicated that a poll would be needed to apply the rejected tag. That wasn't used when the last rejected tag of what's now Wikipedia:Schools/Old proposal was added. Also, as of late, anybody attempting ot start a poll, will find that it's quickly terminated by the "voting is evil" crowd. If polls were allowed, I'd happily wait a while, see a poll, and than only set a tag based on consensus. --Rob 06:32, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about the proposal currently on this page. I strongly believe that if there appears to be consensus for this, or any other proposal, then there will be minimal objections to resolving this issue. If there is apparent consensus, then we could probably put on the guideline template and avoid a survey completely. I'm just trying to see if we can reach a consensus behind the current proposal or some variant of it. We need to keep focused on the goal of ending the AfD wars. Vegaswikian 07:23, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

This proposal has failed

The only way to reach a consensus here would be for everybody to just give up. There have been one or two previous thoughtful posts to the effect that the participants in all of these discussions didn't appear to be heading toward a consensus on what does or does not make schools notable, and the only possible resolution was for the deletionists to accept that all schools (more or less, with a few exceptions) belong in the project, while the school inclusionists should agree to work on developing guidance (probably at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools) about what makes an acceptable school stub and what doesn't. I think that this is the only solution.

We should all also accept that a new school article should not go to AfD unless it has first been prodded and ignored for months or tagged for CfD, if appropriate, and subsequently challenged. If every farm boy that made it to the major leagues for a week in the 1930s is automatically notable; if every English football team playing at a level I never heard of is notable; if every company included in a stock index is notable, then every school is notable (or darn close).

All of the school AfDs that I've participated in or looked at have resulted in a keep or in no censensus and keep by default if anybody from WP:SCH participated seriously. The few high schools that have been deleted recently were not only candidates for good articles, some of them were notable by the strictest interpretation. Look at the AfD for Windward High School and then look at its website for five minutes--it looks like one of most innovative and interesting new high schools in the country, but a dozen people who made no effort to research the school and one administrator sent the article to the void.

WP:V is the only test that a high school or other public school article should have to pass, and almost every school could have a good article written about it that meets that policy, just as they could meet WP:N. Good editors will have to revert WP:OR and WP:POV violations frequently, unless posting by anonymous IP are restricted, but that's true of many articles.

• Every school is the subject of numerous publications by reliable sources. Every school. The information may not be available online, but it was published and it's out there. Public schools are planned and built following, in almost every case, multiple public meetings and formal public hearings; for teh past 40 years, most require significant environmental review and documentation; most are the subject of a bond election; many are conroversial, with local disputes by NIMBY neighbors and remote parents, struggles within the district or City for funding, dusputes with state education departments over designs and budgets, and hiring of the first and subsequent principals; followed by bond issues and parcel taxes to replace derelict buildings; sports dynasties and football coaches fired for incompetence; extraordinary teachers and pedophiles; and, however derided because of their universality, the mandatory reports required in the UK, California, and almost everyplace else are, in fact, not just verifiable and, generally, reliable, they are evidence of the "notability" of schools in the eyes of the whole community. These are not just "records," like a utility bill or a traffic ticket; they are complex, expensive, sometimes comprehensive, "reports." That we mandate them, pay for them, and dedicate scarce staff resources to them demonstrate the significance that society places on the differences between schools, their faculties, their facilities, and the success of their students.

• Almost every "notable" person went to school. Their schools get listed in their biographies (almost every serious biography about a modern person discusses their education). A blue link to their schools makes it easier for editors to write good articles about people, without having to do separate lookups about the person's schools themselves. It makes it a better article for subsequent readers, who can decide whether they want to know more about the subject's educational abckground or not.

• Almost every city and many CDPs have schools, and the rest are in one or more school districts or individual school attendance areas. Having school articles to link to allows the settlement's educational system to be discussed in summary or in a few bullets, with detailed information in the appropriate district or school articles. And, yes, localities provide a good place to list useful information about schools that have not attracted an editor willing to start a serious article about them. In either case, coverage of local schools makes for a better locality article, while links to separate school articles keep articles about small towns from being overloaded with school information.

I realize my discussion is specific to the U.S, in some ways, but I'm sure that similar arguments apply in most other countries. I also realize that many school articles are subject to constant vandalism, but it is usually fixed easily and without getting trapped in endless revert wars. I realize that the opponents of school articles are sincere in their belief that Wikipedia should include only "notable" schools (by which they usually seem to mean "extraordinary" schools), but I know that they are wrong. Jimbo has spoken on this issue, and even though it was not ex cathedra, I know that he was right.--Hjal 09:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I very much disagree with your reasoning. First, your "subject to vandalism" argument is a straw man. No article should ever be deleted because it is a vandalism target. At most, that should be an argument to semi-protect it. No one here has asserted that "subject to high vandalism" should be a criterion for inclusion/deletion, and I imagine most who support this proposal would strongly oppose such a standard. For myself, I most certainly would oppose it.

This proposal actually is well on its way to gaining consensus. It's not quite as tight a guideline as I'd like to see, but it's better than the current chaos with no coherent standards. "All schools are notable", by the way, is not a standard. It's a copout. The things you suggest make all schools notable, while true that they occur, do not establish notability. Notability requires sources to be multiple, non-trivial, and secondary. This is not a "pick any two" requirement. Government reports, records of public meetings, and a school's own website (as you cite with Windward High) are all primary sources. While these would be acceptable to help expand an article on a subject which has already established notability, they do not help to establish notability. Certainly, we don't have any drive to "include all garbage dumps"-but they undergo the same extensive procedures of environmental impact statements, planning and public-comment meetings, NIMBYism, and periodic reports to the government on status.

It is not, however, necessary for us to turn Wikipedia into a garbage dump. (I don't think we've filed the correct impact statements anyway!) I would much rather see us have only one decent article on a genuinely notable school then a forest of substubs on all of them. Basically, notability boils down to a very old writer's rule. Pretend to be a reader of your writing, who is totally unaffiliated and unfamiliar with the subject and author. As our hypothetical reader, ask the question "Why should I care?". If the answer is not apparent from the piece, it is poorly done and needs to be reworked or scrapped. Notability ensures that all of our articles can answer that critical question, even for a reader who hits the "random article" button and comes across the subject having never heard of it. For many schools, that answer seems to be "Unless you go to it or have a kid that does, really, you shouldn't." Stubs should only exist because an article has not yet been improved and expanded beyond that level, not because it currently can't be. If insufficient source material exists right now to eventually turn the article into a GA/FA, the article shouldn't be created until there is.

Please examine the Windward High AfD again. "One admin" did not send the article to the bit bucket, everyone who participated in the debate did. Don't I mean "only those who argued to delete"? Absolutely not. Two people who argued to "keep" were reduced to arguing that the article was "harmless". WP:HARMLESS is not an inclusion standard. An article on my dog would be harmless. So is an article on Lassie. What it would not be is something that is an inclusion standard, namely, one of these subjects is notable, and one of them is not. Another person was able to find only a few trivial mentions. These arguments did not take away from the positions of those arguing to delete, rather, it showed them to be quite correct-despite the argument that nontrivial sourcing "probably" existed, no one actually found any, not even the person who looked! (Though, I must give that person credit-at least (s)he bothered to try to look for sourcing, rather than resorting to platitudes about "harmlessness" or "keep all schools".) Finally, it matters not if they're the most innovative school the world has ever seen, until and unless secondary sources report on that.

Some of the rest of your arguments are based on usefulness of having school articles. Utility is not an inclusion criteria. I find telephone directories very useful, and every notable person has a telephone number (just like every notable person went to school), but that doesn't mean we should have those here. Every notable person has a bathroom too, but we don't have an article on George Bush's bathroom. (God help anyone who turns that link blue.) If all we can really have here is what's already on the school's website, that website is serving that useful purpose well and fine, and we don't need to simply act as a mirror site for it.

Already wrote a far longer response then I intended to, but I think you offer some very good insights into the "all schools are notable" mentality-and frankly, those arguments really required a good debunking. Everything should be examined on an individual basis, not "by category", for notability. If it has received multiple reliable non-trivial secondary source mentions, it is notable. If it has not, it is not. This guideline offers some very good tips for finding the line between the two, and I think it's a great addition to our notability guidelines. Seraphimblade 10:11, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Giving up is not a way to reaching consensus. That is a way to cave in to those who have an opposing view. As I said in the opening of this section. We need to work to develop consensus. How have your comments helped move us in that direction? Is my opinion that consensus is possible wrong? If so, why and what can be done to this proposal to fix that roadblock? Vegaswikian 17:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)