Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Archive 17

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 10

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Archive 15

St. Simon Stock School

I feel that there is great scope for improvement on the artice (I have done some) But as one person I cannot do it alone, any help welcome and if you do decide to help please leave a msg on my talk page mczack26 speaktome 18:56, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

College acceptances

I added a "not to include" at WP:WPSCH/AG that requests that long lists of college acceptances be left off school pages. They don't seem encyclopedic or notable. -- Lucas20 (talk) 00:54, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Importance rating at Hotchkiss School

There is a dispute going on at Talk:Hotchkiss School over the importance rating of the article. I tried to change the rating from Top to High (my rationale being that it is just one example of a school, and the Top-importance rating should be reserved for broad articles), and an IP editor is now edit warring and impersonating other editors. I would appreciate if someone could come do a quick outside assessment of what the importance rating should be. Thank you, rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 15:51, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

I've left a comment on the talk page. The school was previously upgraded to top importance by consensus. There seems to be no reason to change the rating. We have a few select schools from each country which are rated as top importance and they are all listed on the project page. Dahliarose (talk) 16:28, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

If you are already subscribed to Article Alerts, it is now easier to report bugs and request new features. We are also in the process of implementing a "news system", which would let projects know about ongoing discussions on a wikipedia-wide level, and other things of interest. The developers also note that some subscribing WikiProjects and Taskforces use the display=none parameter, but forget to give a link to their alert page. Your alert page should be located at "Wikipedia:PROJECT-OR-TASKFORCE-HOMEPAGE/Article alerts". Questions and feedback should be left at Wikipedia talk:Article alerts.

Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

achievements / awards

Does the project have a guideline regarding achievements / awards received by the school - specifically high schools in the USA? The only mention that I could find stated "Mention significant championships for the sports teams." However, I'm frequently finding mention in articles about contests / awards won by bands, choirs, media awards, and even some non-school sanctioned events where students won contests between multiple schools. Where is the line drawn on how inclusive these sections become? I also notice that most of these types of entries are in list formats, which I'm guessing also should be tagged for rewriting the sections as prose. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 16:11, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I think generally this has been left to editor consensus. Personally, I think any award that has a credible reference outside of the school's website (say a local newspaper) should be included. In terms of lists, see my tangential note above, we should probably set some sort of stylistic guidelines. -- Lucas20 (talk) 18:07, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

I've been cleaning these up by not including local awards or championships- for instance, winning a state championship is good, but winning a county/district isn't notable. tedder (talk) 19:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

The Bewdley School and Sixth Form Centre

Unfortunately since I assessed this article a while a back it has further drifted in terms of neutrality. The reason for this is that Worcsinfo (talk · contribs) (and a dynamic IP which is almost certainly the same person) have been dominantly editing the article, of which claims for the Local Education Authority (from User:Worcsinfo) for the school, which becomes pretty obvious when you read the article. Beyond some talk page edits (and a single e-mail too me) a while back the user is not communicating and is ignoring and not recognising concerns, and also removes all tags from articles on sight, including the coordinates! Other pages are also affected but this one in particular, as it appears this LEA considers this one of their flagship schools and the article is dominated by this influence. I have made several attempts to mediate with this user including article talk page comments, user talk pages, e-mails, and it all has not worked. This users edits are in a violation of multiple policies including WP:NPOV and WP:COI, and given the scale and persistence of these edits I have left a clear warning on potential consequences at User talk:Worcsinfo yesterday. No activity has been on this account since then, though an IP has made some edits to The Bewdley School and Sixth Form Centre. I have stopped editing the article for the moment to see what happens. Some suggestions on possible further courses of actions and thoughts would be appreciated, particularly as I probably class as involved now. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:31, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've had a look at the article. None of the claims were backed up by reliable secondary sources, and were worded in such a way that they were completely meaningless. I've now tidied up the article and removed all the POV claims. If anyone has time it would be useful to do a search and see what references can be found to help improve the article. Dahliarose (talk) 14:09, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately an IP (Worcsinfo I think) restored a lot of the content removed pretty quickly, I have since re-removed it again but I suspect he may return and re-add it again. I have created an edit notice at Template:Editnotices/The Bewdley School and Sixth Form Centre to prepare for this, which makes clear Wikipedia policy on issues, and what he does in response will help determine his intentions. The big source available of course is the Ofsted inspection which is here, despite previous claims in the article, when inspected in November 2008 it got a satisfactory rating, though Worcsinfo claims there was a more recent inspection giving the school outstanding, though I have not found any evidence of this either on the school's website (a bit surprising?) or on Ofsted's website. There are a few other sources I could find: [1], [2], [3], [4]. I have not found anything on a claimed Prime Minister's attendance, which would trigger re-consideration of the school's importance rating. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:47, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Since the disruption has continued I have done the following: blocked 81.159.59.24 (talk · contribs) for 1 week, and blocked Worcsinfo (talk · contribs) (very likely the person behind the IP) indefinitely, both for continued use of Wikipedia for promotion per Wikipedia:Blocking policy#Disruption-only, since that has been the primary activity of both the IP and the account. It is sad it has got to this but I feel I have exhausted all other options and this was getting very disruptive. I would be happy to unblock Worcsinfo if he agrees to overcome his clear conflict of interest and generally follow policies and guidelines. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:46, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:UtahSchoolDistrict

Template:UtahSchoolDistrict has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for Deletion page. Thank you. Gr0ff (talk) 14:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Mergers of Non-Notable British Columbia Elementary Schools

Hello, I just thought I would give your project a heads up on two current merger proposals of non-notable elementary schools. They can be found at School District 38 Richmond and also School District 35 Langley obviously your expertise is very welcome. -Marcusmax(speak) 19:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Wayzata west middle school

When I pull a school out of the speedy deletion queue, I generally don't have time to work on it myself, but it would be nice for someone to look at it while the creator is presumably still around. Do you guys want me to add a message and link here, or is there some template or cat I should add? - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 01:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

For middle and elementary schools you probably should consider adding a merge tag (into the locality page usually) if nothing other than directory information is there. Most are not notable enough for inclusion and only secondary schools fall under the 'inherently' notable category of most schools editors. That said, if you feel like the article has some legs in terms of standard WP:N guidelines, you can post here. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 02:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I added the merge tags. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 03:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

It's probably noncontroversial, if you want to just go ahead and merge it. tedder (talk) 03:30, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

new pages for schools in Northamptonshire, England

Today, added Old Stratford Primary School and John Hellins Primary School as stubs to be included. Noted Kingsbrook School is missing from the list Carollong (talk) 03:31, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

There is a tendency on Wikipedia to delete articles on primary schools, as many people don't consider them sufficiently notable. However a district level article like Primary schools in South Northamptonshire might work, e.g. Primary schools in Dacorum or Primary schools in Banbury. Of course it helps to have lots of distinctive detail and secondary sources. Kanguole 14:20, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Charis School

Needs rescuing please. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

I have left some advice following a request from the author. Camaron | Chris (talk) 11:09, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Catholic Memorial High School (Waukesha, Wisconsin)

Could someone please take a look at this article? It was written like a recruiting brochure, so I edited it to make it sound more neutral. The president of the school reverted the edits, with the comment, "Returing text(s) to materials published by the school." An anon then reverted that version, and put a COI comment on the president's talk page. The school president reverted again. I don't want to get into an edit war, so I'd appreciate it if someone else could take a look at the article. --Sift&Winnow 15:59, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I reverted the information back and left messages on the school's talk page and on the user's talk page as well. ForgottenManC (talk) 16:38, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your efforts. --Sift&Winnow 17:05, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Articles needing infoboxes

I thought you might find this list interesting. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 17:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

List of middle schools in England

I have done some considerable work on updating this page over the last few days. I have now put it forward for peer review, also, as I wonder if it might be a suitable candidate for Featured status. Any improvements welcomed. Tafkam (talk) 02:45, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

WP:WPSCH#Articles in need of emergency, short term attention

Two more pulled from the db-spam speedy deletion queue. - Dan Dank55 (push to talk) 03:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

third opinion needed

Can someone look at this revert and see if there is any merit? I don't see it, but I don't want to 3RR myself, either. tedder (talk) 17:06, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

It is all unsourced so does not seem appropriate to me, and has already been removed by another editor. I have warned the user about edit summaries/WP:3RR. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:20, 15 April 2009 (UTC)

Still happening. tedder (talk) 06:06, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

He has now violated WP:3RR despite being warned about it, standard 24 hour block issued. He was reverting multiple users so nobody else came close to violating the rule. Camaron | Chris (talk) 09:00, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

So can I/should I revert to remove the OR? Or what's the best course of action for dealing with the content itself? tedder (talk) 13:18, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, feel free to remove it again, but I would suggest leaving a message on his/her talk page to discuss the issue on the article talk page before re-adding it again once the block expires. Camaron | Chris (talk) 13:33, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Assessment/Archive

I have just archived some old assessments, however the {{hide}} template is not working correctly again, this time for October 2008. The template is sensitive to some formatting code, can anybody work out what is causing it? Camaron | Chris (talk) 15:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Schools' own websites

The guidelines say "Provide verifiable reliable sources of information about the school, that are independent of the school itself. An article should not rely solely on what its subject has to say about itself (as with any article in Wikipedia). A school's own website is not an independent source."

Is there not a partial exception to this, where the school's own website is the only citeable source of certain facts about which it is hardly likely to be telling downright lies, e.g. what courses or sports are offered, or when the new building opened? Obviously not including POV or "Peacock" claims or manifest advertising, but just hard facts that are not otherwise verifiable. I find quite often it is difficult to verify certain things by any other means, especially for schools outside North America or UK. If people agree with me, could the guideline be modified accordingly? Alarics (talk) 10:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The key phrase here is "An article should not rely solely", and it also says, "third-party sources are particularly important for school awards and contentious statements". The paragraph also links to Wikipedia:Verifiability which contains the relevant WP:SELFPUB. Perhaps it could be made a bit clearer, and possibly linked directly, but at the same time I think it is probably not wise to encourage too much use of self-published sources. As the guideline is talking about the requirements for the references section, it is probably right to focus on the requirement for independent sources. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Censorship or a reasonable approach

I offered to bring this to your attention. It appears that a school may have been teaching things that are now illegal. It is said that an anonymous edit by a freind of the school removed this as too contentious. After some investigation it has been found that this might be true. As Jimbo said "better no information than wrong information" and in this case the wrong information could cause the school ... difficulties. Another editor has made records at a nuetral place in wikipedia. Seems reasonable to me that if we want to make a stand about free speech then we should only use nuetral places to do it. Victuallers (talk) 15:47, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean "correct and well-sourced information that may nonetheless be harmful to some or all of a group of individuals, who are not named, but are identifiable." this an interested question, and should betaken to the BLP noticeboard. I need to think about this. I have always been a supporter of relatively narrow but strict interpretations of BLP, but I do not know how I think about this one. DGG (talk) 21:12, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Alumni

At present the essay Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines reads "As well as satisfying Notability criteria, editors on any particular list of alumni can institute their own policies for deciding who is notable enough for inclusion." This way leads to chaos, self-promotion, and violation of WP:LIST. There have been articles where the one or two people editing it considered all alumni notable. The proper standard is notable enough for a Wikipedia article, or clearly eligible for one. Borderline cases are best dealt with by trying to write a Wikipedia article on the person. I have changed this essay to reflect policy. DGG (talk) 21:12, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Much better- thanks. tedder (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

I undid that because it is such a major change and would affect a significant portion of existing schools pages. Further discussion should ensue here. ForgottenManC (talk) 23:18, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

ForgottenManC, can you list your objections? I understand that schools (theoretically) may have their own notability guidelines, but I've never seen one. Do they exist? Are there legitimate guidelines that would be invalidated with such a change? tedder (talk) 15:21, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe I objected, I just stated that this would be a major change and I'd like to hear a discussion on it. At the moment I tend to think that this is better solved (and helps to preserve info) by simply removing those without citations or explanations. Those people who make good faith efforts to cite from reliable sources usually are posting legitimately notable alumni. If these are posted and redlinked, then yes maybe someone will write an article on them, perhaps even the person who added them. I think that having to go through the article process first, while probably a good weed out system, is excessively prohibitive. Think of all of those alumni who get added and removed because the editor could not make/did not want to make/doesn't have the expertise to make a stand alone article at that exact moment. At least if it is up there, someone may come along and write the article. This change basically assumes bad faith and am not sure that's the right approach. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 22:45, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for jumping on you- you are right, you didn't say you have objections. I don't see the "bluelinks only" consensus as assuming bad faith- more that it puts the burden of proof on the adder, not the remover. tedder (talk) 22:48, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Including people in a school or city list is a way of putting encyclopedic content in the project without creating endless stub articles or articles about people who either fail the notability standard or for whom insufficient information is available. Many school articles, especially for older English schools, include lists of former headmasters. Most of them would not be good subjects for individual articles, since the only source might be 100-year-old school yearbooks, but putting them in a list or paragraph in the school article allows us to note what they did of importance to the subject of the article and to provide the one or two references available. Names of prior principals and such also help other editors search for meaningful news articles in the sea of football and basketball scores in newspaper archives. If we are going to solve NN problems by merging people and minor institutions to articles of larger scope, it does not make sense to have other people stripping them from school and community articles. They do need an RS, and, if they are not a finite list, such as headmasters or members of the first graduating class or sports record holders, they need some bit of notability with an RS as well.--Hjal (talk) 15:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Tons of primary school AFDs

I put in a ton of AFDs for primary schools today. They weren't eligible for speedy, and I didn't want to prod, be reverted, and go AFD so I just went AFD instead. Feel free to review and/or join the discussions: Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Schools#Schools. tedder (talk) 15:20, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Ruben dario middle school

Unlike the poster just above, I prefer to go to prod first rather than AfD when I'm declining a speedy on a non-upper-secondary school with no significant hits at Google archive/books/scholar; that gives a lot more time to find sources if they exist. I'm glad to see you guys transclude your article alerts right on your project page, so adding your project tag to a prodded article's talk page is an easy way to let you know what's up. - Dank (push to talk) 03:30, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge/redirect to List of middle schools in Miami-Dade County#Ruben Dario Middle School per precedent. I have completed the merge. Cunard (talk) 03:41, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, I wouldn't add so many AFDs again. I should have just merged most of them. tedder (talk) 04:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Recent primary schools

I'm trying to figure out what you guys want me to do with William Durrant Secondary School. This school was (so the creator says) combined with one of the elementary schools listed in the Chesham article in 2001 (with a slightly different name ... Spring vs. Springs) and hasn't existed since that time. - Dank (push to talk) 03:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Despite what it says, it's a primary school. I'd prod or delete because it doesn't meet WP:GNG and especially WP:SCH. tedder (talk) 03:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

School articles are never deleted under A7. They are either kept or merged. Cunard (talk) 06:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say to delete as speedy, FWIW. I should have said "prod or AFD", not "prod or delete", I suppose. tedder (talk) 12:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Verifiable school articles should never be deleted at prod or AfD. They should always be merged to the article of their district/geographical location. Cunard (talk) 18:42, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Merge/redirect to Pond Park per precedent. I have completed the merge. Cunard (talk) 06:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I've done several searches for sources on Google and have been unable to find much information about this combo school. Since there is very little information available, a separate article for William Durrant Secondary School is unneeded. I had trouble even verifying its existence. Before this secondary school was combined with the nursery school, it didn't have any notable characteristics, so the best option in this case is a merge. Cunard (talk) 06:22, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

recent infobox updates

I have noted some changes made recently by User:EagleFan to infoboxes for several schools. The recent changes specifically include the addition of county information, as well as miniflags for the state and US. Some examples can be found at:

This user is doing a great deal of work, and while I have communicated with the user, I have not attempted to undo any changes. The user offered for me to undo the changes, but I have declined out of respect to the user, and rather, am taking this here.

Because of the formatting of the infobox, I really think the updates make the infobox look cluttered. I think it makes the boxes look bad. However, I recognize that is a personal opinion. So, I would like to open a discussion on this, and see if the more learned (than me) members of the community, with an interest on schools have any insights or opinions on the matter. Thanks for any input. LonelyBeacon (talk) 02:01, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

The flags are unnecessary, and should be removed, per WP:MOSFLAG. They don't add any value to the infobox, and images like File:Flag of Illinois.svg are unrecognisable at icon-size. — mholland (talk) 02:17, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

I've been adding the county to tons of high schools too, but I format it like this: [[Multnomah County, Oregon|Multnomah]]. It does make for slightly weird addresses- but I'm unwilling to do it with surrounding parenthesis, like this: ([[Multnomah County, Oregon|Multnomah]]). I do agree that adding the county information makes it more cluttered and less readable, unfortunately. tedder (talk) 02:27, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Adding a county name without "County" following it is a terrible format, IMHO. In the U.S., you generally do not hear/see people refer to a county without using the word County. In other words, they probably won't say City of Chicago, but they will say Cook County, rarely just Cook. If I see the "County" missing from a county name I will probably add it as a minor edit.EagleFan (talk) 15:11, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Good point, EF, I'll modify my style. Still, should county be pulled out of the address and used as a generic field rather than being concatenated into the address? tedder (talk) 20:45, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

For some of us outside the USA, this is all rather mysterious. What does "county" signify in a US context? Is it the local education authority? If not, what does it have to do with schools? As far as I know, US towns and cities are usually called e.g. "Peoria, Illinois", with no county mentioned. Is it not the State that is the significant power as far as education is concerned? Alarics (talk) 21:19, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Alarics,

In some cases, the local educational governing body is at the county level (though it is usually separate from the county government), and the school district is called the X County School District (or some such), in others it is organized on smaller levels (city, town, township, or other). The school district is usually responsible for hiring teachers, building schools, managing finaces, etc. The state is responsible for determining requirements for teacher licensing, setting standards for schools, some funding. It is not wholly consistent.

Even if it is organized at the county level, that would appear in the name of the school district in that slot in the infobox. By extension, those districts organized at the township level have no place for that to be mentioned, except in the "school district" slot (which, IMO, is fine).

In my personal opinion, if county information is to appear (and I'm not against it), I would like to see it listed in the infobox, and not in the address line at the top (as you noted, county names generally do not appear in addresses). I was concerned because I have to admit my ignorance in how other nations do this, and I did not want to push a strictly American viewpoint. LonelyBeacon (talk) 00:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

I think COunty could be moved down in the InfoBox rather than in the address section. Perhaps if it was placed before the School Distric in the InfoBox it would look better.EagleFan (talk) 12:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to say too, EagleFan. Are there any places this would BREAK the layout? Should I just be BOLD and make the change? tedder (talk) 16:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I think InfoBoxes look fine with the flags and county, but will refrain from using state flags. EagleFan (talk) 14:39, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

I think all flags should be removed. They are obtrusive and not really pertinent. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 14:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

The inclusion of flags, as such, is continuing to proceed, despite the general consensus being against it. Should there be a guideline under the "What not to include" advising against including national flags, unless the school is in fact a school operated by the national government of a particular nation? LonelyBeacon (talk) 21:58, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure that is necessary, seems only to be one user adding them. I agree its extraneous information, but I am not sure it warrants that change. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 22:43, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I stopped using state flags as per the policy brought to our attention above. I could easily remove the USA flag from my entries too, but have not done so per my interpretation of policy.EagleFan (talk) 00:17, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I add the national flag in my edits, too, as there hasn't been consensus otherwise. tedder (talk) 00:34, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Well in that case I would support you Lonely in a move for consensus on removing the national flag and the addition to guidelines. It appears like there is a ways to go before that though. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 00:55, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I will not remove any flags until a more clear consensus is reached. I worry that this could somewhere down the line lead to problems as people remove the flags, only to see them readded. I personally don't like them, but will abide by policy and consensus. I just think it would be easier if policy was set one way or the other. My question here was to see if there was support for a guideline, either way.LonelyBeacon (talk) 01:09, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I would vote for keeping country flags. This is not the USA Wikipedia. it is the English Wikipedia. I think they look good. Also, I just noticed the comments above about Counties.EagleFan (talk) 12:58, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree, certainly keep country flags. All the school articles for Singapore and Malaysia appear to automatically include them in their infoboxes. Removing all of those would be wearisome and pointless, IMHO, and certainly would not be popular in the countries concerned. Alarics (talk) 08:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Alarics, I have a different concern (and I could be wrong here). In many countries, aren't the schools run by the national government (or at least heavily subsidised, or have mandated curricula). In the United States, the opposite is true. Public schools get very little funding (as a percent of their total funding) from the federal government. The federal government for the most part does not mandate curriculum. Aside from aesthetics, I am concerned because the presence of a national flag seems to imply that there is greater connection to American schools and the federal government than actual exists. In the case of private schools, the differentiation is even greater. I just think it sends the wrong message about schools: some interpret it as jingoism (I am not claiming that is EagleFan's reason), others as the nonexistant connection that exists to the federal government.

I could be wrong about what happens in Singapore and Malaysia (I am not an expert on their system of education). I could more readily accept the notion of these flags being there if they were run or guided by the national government. LonelyBeacon (talk) 14:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting point. It is true that in Singapore things are mostly run by the government, though some schools have more autonomy than others, and a handful (catering mainly to an affluent elite) are genuinely independent. Somewhat less so in Malaysia where the many Chinese-medium schools are pretty much a law unto themselves. But I think a Malaysian would see the flag question in terms of national or territorial identity, not political control. I'm sure the ethnic Chinese in Malaysia (30%) would be offended by the notion that they are any less Malaysian than the Malay-speaking Muslims (60%) who mostly go to schools run by the government. It would not have occurred to me to think that a US flag implied any involvement by the federal government, but then I am not American. One problem from the point of view of the rest of the world might be that, if we decide that the USA is special in this respect, and must not have flags, we risk reinforcing the notion that Wikipedia is an essentially American entity, whose own schools don't need flags while everybody else's do. Alarics (talk) 16:20, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I see your point, and certainly do not want to see "American only" rules instituted. However, I know that wikipedia does permit for local usage on certain articles. One example, off the top of my head, would be using the term "soccer", which is (I think) fairly American, when the rest of the word calls the sport "football". In articles about American entities, it is usually called soccer, and there is no insistence that it be called otherwise ... essentially a "local usage". In that sense, it needn't be an "American only" rule ... more of an extension of a local use .... localities whose schools are not run by the national government needn't use a national flag. Are there other nations' schools also being identified with flags as such? LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Just looking at the UK, quite a few do and quite a few don't. (To complicate matters further, in many cases it is the England or Scotland or Wales flag, as the case may be, rather than the British flag, which I would have preferred, but that's another issue.) Whether there is a flag or not seems NOT to be related, even in the smallest degree, to whether the school is state-run or private, and as I said before in relation to Malaysia, I don't think anyone in Britain would think the presence of a flag implied anything about government involvement. The flag is about national identity, not politics. So this seems to be an American problem. Are you quite sure you have got this right? My impression, though I admit I have never been there in person, is that many Americans tend to (if anything, rather exaggeratedly) worship the US flag as a highly emotional symbol of culture and identity, rather than as a symbol of the federal government, which I know many of them hate. At all events, it doesn't look as if we are going to arrive at a uniform worldwide policy on this. Alarics (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I did a survey of the higher rated articles, and most did not have a flag. As I expanded my search down to "B" articles, more articles had them, but still not most. I noted the one Malaysian school I saw didn't have one, but there was at least one Australian, one Vietnamese, and a few from the U.K. (and as you noted, none had the Union Jack ... I know a little of the history, but cannot claim knowledge of any of the subtleties around that).

As for Yanks worshipping the flag .... I think it would depend who you talked to. Overall, yes, Americans take pride in their national symbols, I would suppose as many other nations, there are those who take it overboard, and those who don't. However, just as there are people who "wave the flag" for the right reasons, there are those who don't, and there are Americans who know it when someone is wrapping themselves in the flag for all the wrong reasons (not sure if you are familiar with McCarthyism, but a lot of people have learned to be very careful about being too jingoistic (unfortunately, not many of them make the evening news). On top of that, there is a long history of balancing states rights vs. federal rights. While the flag is undeniably a piece of national identity, there are those who see it at times as a sign of federalism. I suppose that is not wholly unique to the United States, though perhaps I am oversuspecting the role of national governments in education over the world. LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:43, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid you haven't persuaded me that the role of national governments is really a significant factor here. Perhaps we had better abandon the idea of trying to standardise what is after all a relatively trivial point. I am inclined to leave flags where they are already there, but leave it to somebody else to put them in where they aren't, if anybody feels so inclined. Alarics (talk) 10:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Hurtwood House

This one was about to be speedied as promotional, and the tone is definitely off, but it claims to be a secondary school. - Dank (push to talk) 00:29, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

I did a quick cleanup, but I only know about researching public schools in the US. Can someone help out further? tedder (talk) 01:24, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

It's not an ordinary secondary school but a private residential sixth-form college, which is rather unusual. You go there after doing GCSE at ordinary sec. school (age c.16) to take A-levels in preparation for university. It seems rather distinctive and, though small, I think that alone makes it "notable" for WP purposes. It should be easy enough to find some neutral information about it (e.g. OFSTED report) but I haven't time at the moment. I have added one or two sentences to the article. Alarics (talk) 07:09, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks much, it sounds like it doesn't belong in a deletion process, I'll leave it alone. - Dank (push to talk) 14:15, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

User:Dank/Darsgah

Someone please tell me if you think this article is salvageable. I speedy-deleted per db-spam because I would have gotten hit with a hundred clue-bats if I didn't, but I think there's a chance that if the article creator knew that their school was welcome in Wikipedia, but that tone was completely unacceptable for us, that there's a chance this could work ... thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 15:05, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, if we clear out the peacock it would make a serviceable stub. Alarics (talk) 15:49, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The article was a copyvio of the school's website, so I've rewritten and stubbified it. Cunard (talk) 21:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Lubbock High School

Lubbock High School has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Nikki♥311 21:15, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Cedarburg, Wisconsin elementary schools

Are elementary schools notable? Could someone take a look at these: Parkview Elementary School, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, Thorson Elementary School, Webster Transitional School, Westlawn Elementary School. Thanks --Sift&Winnow 23:39, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Webster yes, the rest should be merged into the locality or some other page. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 01:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought middle schools were borderline, but there seem to be several article on them in the state. There also seems to be a fair bit of common material between the elementary schools articles. How about combining them in an article on Cedarburg School District? There seem to be several in Category:School districts in Wisconsin. Kanguole 10:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Franklin County Career and Technology Center

Some copyright infringement, but the article creator is working with us. - Dank (push to talk) 19:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Article Guidelines and Norte Vista High School heads up

I changed Norte Vista High School to match WP:WPSCH/AG, and it's been reverted (twice!) by an IP editor. I asked the user to discuss it, which he did in his revert editsummary. I don't want to get into a edit war, I'd like to engage the user in a productive conversation. Any suggestions on how to do that? tedder (talk) 06:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Why not try rewriting the clubs section as a prose paragraph, including only those that seem distinctive, e.g. as far as I know practically every US high school has a National Honor Society and a French Club and a Future Farmers of America, so don't mention those, but perhaps not many (I am only guessing here) have a "Human Rights Club", so that might be worth including. If he then reverts it back to his complete bulleted list again, maybe you would then be on stronger ground in challenging it. Alarics (talk) 08:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, since he mentions that students at the school itself find it useful, maybe it needs pointing out to him that a WP article about a school is not supposed to be a substitute for the school's own student handbook. Otherwise, we might just as well copy out the student handbook of every school in the world and call it an article. Alarics (talk) 08:35, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Alarics. I changed it to prose and made some other (very productive) changes to it too. It's outside my specialty (I mainly work on Oregon schools), but we'll see how they respond, eh? Do you think I should hit up the user talk page again, or wait for the next phase of the WP:BRD process? tedder (talk) 02:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Gosh, that is a radical edit! I don't suppose they will like that, but wait and see. I just wonder if putting the "needs expansion" box at the top of the organizations section will be seen as an invitation to put all that clubs stuff back in again. Alarics (talk) 10:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain why you feel it's a "radical" edit? tedder (talk) 12:19, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I just meant it looks rather drastic -- from 5908 bytes down to 2863! I don't think I would have deleted ALL the information about their drama and band, myself. Alarics (talk) 13:31, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Rogue Assessments?

User:EagleFan has been making a number of changes to the importance ratings on school articles. When I inquired on his talk page as to what the criteria on rating schools was, the editor claimed that most high schools would be rated low, and that higher ratings were reserved for colleges. I have reverted some of these changes which were made by other editors, and in some cases were clearly inappropriate based on your project's guidelines (especially when there are lengthy, referenced lists of notable alumni). I am concerned that these actions may lead to a backlog of requests for reassessment. Certainly, not all of the choices were wrong, but a number of them seem to be really out of line, and are not based on anything more than an opinion of how things should be. LonelyBeacon (talk) 16:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Can you give some examples where the ratings are incorrect? (diffs or simple links to the talk page are fine). Also please confirm you don't have a conflict of interest with the schools. For the most part, a gut assessment will be correct- or simply marking all schools as 'low' will be correct 90% of the time. tedder (talk) 16:45, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Here are some:

These are the changes that popped up on my watched pages. I did a quick check of this editor's contributions, and there are certainly a lot more. As a whole, I have no doubt that many of these articles are Low importance articles (aren't most of them?), but there are also some articles that are of higher importance that are not being graded as such, with no explanation given ... and in at least 1-2 cases that I have seen, the change overrode a more experienced editor's assessment. In the long run, its not the biggest deal on Earth, but I know if there were articles I were working on that suddenly got mass downgraded, I would ask for a reassessment, which could lead to a larger number of articles getting unnecessarily being requested for reassessment. I know when I am in doubt as to how to assess an article, I either bring it here, or note it on the talk page as a provisional assessment, and request a more experienced editor to come in and check the work. That is not being done here.LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:12, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

WP:SCH/A#Assessment team gives information on the assessment team, if EagleFan (talk · contribs) wishes to mass assess school articles he is welcome too but I would suggest he adds himself to the list. The current requirements are that apprentice editors note all their assessments in the log in that page, though I recognise that does not happen and is not strictly enforced. However, all assessments involving ratings higher than C-class and higher than mid importance should certainly be logged somewhere as they are more important and potentially controversial. The importance system used for this project is shown at WP:SCH/A#Importance scale. The type of school being assessed has never played a distinctive role in their importance, other factors such as alumni and history are considered much more, and while high schools are more likely to be given a higher importance rating than elementary schools, the majority of both are given low importance. EagleFan's assessment model will not work as this project does not cover colleges and universities (with the exception of Sixth Form Colleges and equivalents as they are at high school level), that is done by Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. Importance ratings are the article's importance to this project and single article's can and sometimes should have different importance ratings between projects. I do agree that some of the changes made, particularly to my own assessments, should have been given more detailed reasoning and even better discussion should have been initiated here first. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

FYI, my assessments were primarily on schools that previously had NO assessment. Any user prior to or after my initial assessment can update it. I encourage more active participation by everybody to improve school articles. I felt that getting the initial assessment in there is a start, then as work is done maybe some schools would be candidates for Mid and High ratings. Happy editing. EagleFan (talk) 18:29, 19 June 2009 (UTC) I can go along with any changes to the articles linked above, though I probably only agree with upgrading Loyola and Gonzaga. I would note that the importance is not assessed based on how well-written and long the article is or how many "notable" alum are listed. Also, if you live near a city (Chicago, for example) it may be easier to over-assess the impotance of an article within WPSchools. "Rogue Assessments". Don't be silly. EagleFan (talk) 18:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

With due respect Eagle, this does not entirely address the issue. True, most of the articles you assessed had not been previously assessed, and as tedder brought up, most articles are of low importance, so by default, many of your assessments will turn out to be accurate. My concern is that you seem to have invented your own criteria, and without telling anyone else what your criteria are, you go off and start assessing articles, and in some cases, you are overriding the work of more experienced editors. I hope you can see that these Bull-in-a-china-shop can raise some attention, and hope that you don't think ill of me for it.

That is not to say that a more experienced editor is always right, or that you were always wrong, but in a very limited number of articles that overlap our work (compared to the much larger group that you work with), I found quite a few (IMO) errors. True, it is my opinion, but I think I am aligning my opinion with the project criteria. I have found myself already taking time to go back over most of the articles that you and I work with to see if the assessment appears correct. That takes time. I am left wondering what percent of the other articles you assessed were assessed incorrectly; time I do not have to go back and check.

Further, I note that you tend to work on Catholic school articles more than others. This is great (you and I have a common connection having gone to Catholic high schools)! But, can you see how it might be interpreted if an editor were to suddenly go through and start changing a lot of Catholic School articles to "Low priority". Someone could see an ill intent where one doesn't exist. On top of that, someone showing up and looking for information would start to wonder why Catholic school articles tend to not be a priority around here. I know that is certainly not your intention, but I am trying to look at other angles.

I applaud your willingness to be bold with your edits, but I think there are times, especially when you are making edits to project assessments to a project you have not joined, that you should give people a heads up on what your intentions are. I myself am not a member of this project, and the only times you will ever catch me performing assessments under normal situations are when I feel pretty darn confident, and leave a note on the talk page, declaring it provisional, and even at that, I will usually ask for someone more experienced to come along and confirm or change what I have done. I'll conclude by emphasizing: This is my opinion, and from my perspective .... I acknowledge that I could very well be seeing things from a skewed perspective, and will apologize in advance if this is a waste of time. LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No articles are not just assessed based on current content, but nor are they assessed based just on the school type. I don't think it is unreasonable to request editors to assess articles based on how consensus on the project wants them to be assessed, which is to use multiple factors. Unless it was done by a drive-by IP e.t.c. it is never appropriate to slash assessments with just a brief edit summary from something like top / high importance, that always should be noted somewhere on these project pages. Assessments are subjective but there needs to be at least some consistency for this project for them to work. Assessments are also logged by the way at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/WikiProject Schools articles by quality log, a convenient way to show all assessment changes. Camaron | Chris (talk) 20:13, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Deleted articles with possible potential

An article (West Moreton Anglican College) I noticed in the assessment logs which was deleted a while back out of deletion process, though WP:BLP concerns were cited so I am not going to complain. I knew nothing about the school (it is a school, despite the name) before hand but it could be potentially salvageable with a re-write, I have learnt that the school is part of The Associated Schools. I will give it a look at. Camaron | Chris (talk) 20:30, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I have found more at Elgin Park Secondary School, Kankakee Valley High School, Amity High School (disambig page, high school is red link which was originally on that page as seen in the history), and The Prairie School. I will look further later. Camaron | Chris (talk) 21:02, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

One more for now: Rocky Mountain High School (Colorado). Camaron | Chris (talk) 21:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact I am finding so many I will create a separate requested article page to log them - something this project is missing that others have. Camaron | Chris (talk) 21:48, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Website question

I had an interesting "crisis" come up in regards to the listed website on a few associated articles. This comes from the articles Kent City School District and Theodore Roosevelt High School (Kent, Ohio), both articles I originally started and have edited extensively. The question came up because I had listed the website using the domain promoted by the district as their site http://www.kentschools.net and http://www.kentschools.net/rhs/ and had two editors change it recently to what they referred to as the "official" website, http://kent.k12.oh.us. As you can see they both go to the same website and both are used interchangeably on that website, even in the internal links. I even got a talk posting from someone in the district explaining how the state issued domain (kent.k12.oh.us) is "official" and owned by the district while the "kentschools.net" domain was more or less leased by the district "to provide an easier to remember address and to provide our staff with an email domain." Another editor had previously changed it to the "official" address, but I reverted it back arguing the easier name to remember should be used in the article for that reason and it's promoted by the district as their website in published materials. I reverted it back an additional two times first by the district employee and a second time by the first editor who had changed it. I wanted to see what other opinions there were here. What would you have done? Is there a preference on what address to use if there is more than one? Honestly, I was surprised this even became an issue at all. It didn't seem that important. And yes, both of these editors are brand new at least according to their contributions page. --JonRidinger (talk) 22:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This is absurd, and just shows that some people have too much time on their hands. The "official" webpage of a school is the webpage put up by the official authorities of the school in question. It has nothing to do with which URL is used. Just use whichever URL seems most reliable and stable. Alarics (talk) 05:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Alma mater

I discovered that Theodore Roosevelt High School (Kent, Ohio) included its unreferenced alma mater, and I removed it, saying "this isn't Wikisource, and the alma mater is probably copyrighted anyway". Another editor restored it with a reference, citing the "School songs, school hymns and fight songs" section of your article guidelines. Since he's going by a standard layout, I agree with this restoration, but I find the very idea of the alma mater problematic. Why do we need the alma mater of a school in an encyclopedia article about it? I can understand including an external link to a page with data such as the alma mater, or giving a referenced statement such as "_____ School's alma mater is '_____'", but I don't see why it's a good idea to give the actual text. I don't mean notable songs such as Carmen Ohio (I believe that it would be quite reasonable to give its full first stanza at The Ohio State University), but an average high school song definitely isn't notable and thus deserves no coverage of its own. Nyttend (talk) 05:07, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools/Article_guidelines#School_songs.2C_school_hymns_and_fight_songs only notes that school songs must be in the public domain or under a free license. I don't believe the project has a definite stand on their inclusion, and I agree that in general songs should fulfill a standard of notability. If the song has a significant history or has been written about in the media, inclusion is fine. But as for general inclusion, I would place songs along with mission statements in encyclopedic value. I think there can flexibility when dealing with editors insistent on keeping such material, though, mostly because Wikipedia:Notability is a guideline and not a policy. There are prior discussions at [5], [6], and [7] --Jh12 (talk) 18:30, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

If I understand you rightly, you're addressing the idea of articles about songs. If not — sorry for misunderstanding you. If so — sorry for confusing you, because that's not what I was talking about. I was trying to say "it would be a good idea to change the guidelines to prohibit inclusion of an alma mater within its school article in most cases", and I used Carmen Ohio as an example of an alma mater that I think should be exempted from such a prohibition. Did I misunderstand your words, or did I confuse you initially? Nyttend (talk) 00:50, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

No, I meant school songs, alma maters, and mission statements found on the school articles. I don't have a problem with an editor removing alma maters from school articles if only because of copyright issues, but I'm not going to revert an editor that restores them either. As a guideline, I think Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools/Article_guidelines should recommend that alma maters not be included unless they are notable. But again, these are Wikipedia guidelines and not policies; prohibition seems too strong of a word. --Jh12 (talk) 05:54, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The words of the song are often easily accessible on the school's own website. In such a case, why not just have an external link to the page in question? (This seems to me to be one case where the website of the subject of the article IS actually the best source.) If on the other hand the school itself doesn't think it worth reproducing the song, is there any reason why WP should do so? Especially since so many school songs are embarrassingly vacuous. Alarics (talk) 07:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Ugh please no more external links within articles. If the song is notable write about why it is notable and give the secondary source reference and the school site with lyrics as a double reference. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 02:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I didn't mean external link within the article, I meant as a footnote. Alarics (talk) 07:24, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article requests

Following the above research I have now got this new department for the project up and running. I have added some school articles I found deleted that should probably be re-written then re-created to the list. I have included some information on the page about notability and scope to help focus things a little, I have tried to keep them fair but you are free to edit them around a bit if you like. There is also external website generated lists of missing school articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/High schools, though I thought it would be good to have a more project specific requests page to compliment this, clearly not all missing school articles are there, and the length of the list is rather daunting. I will look through more logs to see any others I can find. Everyone is of course free to add to the request list or remove any that are created, I intend to create some if I can myself. I will add a small section on this to the main project page. Camaron | Chris (talk) 18:34, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Auto archive

Any objections to having a bot auto archive the material here. This is generally set up for so many days after a discussion ends. Since this is not a really busy talk page, 30 days should be fine. Vegaswikian (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, please do! Though I'd prefer 60 or 90 days, since it's a little quiet- or just set the minimum number of threads to leave behind. tedder (talk) 22:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually you can have the number of days and a minimum number of threads. How about 30 days and 6 threads? That's about what the category was archived to for the number of threads and well longer in time. In any case, once it is set up, you can always adjust it if needed. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Those numbers sound good. tedder (talk) 23:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes I would be happy to try out use of an archive bot here, and 6 threads and 30 days sounds fine, though it can be adjusted later if needed. Thank you for asking first by the way as is supposed to happen, that is appreciated. Camaron · Christopher · talk 09:52, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, done. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:52, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Fairfield Area School District

Could someone from this project take a look at Fairfield Area School District and help give the primary author some guidance / help? I've done some dabbling in school related articles; but this one needs some major rework and someone more familiar with the project would likely be better suited to help. I know that guidelines exist for school articles; but what about school district articles? Or should the High School be broken out into its own article, and most of the remainder purged from the district article? I wasn't sure the best advice to provide the author on those points - among others. Thanks in advance for taking a look, and any help that can be provided. --- Barek (talk • contribs) - 15:29, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Schools template

I wonder if people could have a look at Template:Schools and see what they think of it. An editor has started to add it to a number of generic school articles. As far as I can see the template serves no useful purpose. There are so many different types of school around the world that it would be very difficult to include them all in one template. Dahliarose (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree: there are already about 160 entries in Category:School types, and there could easily be a lot more. It might work to have some country-specific navboxes, except for dictionary articles like High school.

I see this navbox has also been added to a few articles for individual schools, where it clearly doesn't belong. Kanguole 09:50, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Oakwood Park Grammar School

Recent edits have added text regarding an old tabloid story [8], which now comprises most of the article. I don't think it belongs, but I don't want to censor legitimate content. Thoughts would be appreciated. JNW (talk) 12:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be quite OK if it were one of many things to be said about the school. As practically the only thing in the article, it would appear to contravene WP:UNDUE. Rather than deleting it, I should prefer that somebody add more of other stuff. Alarics (talk) 15:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, this article needs to be expanded or deleted. Even the scandal doesn't appear to confer notability. RossPatterson (talk) 22:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

What not to include: school uniform

I have tweaked WP:WPSCH/AG a bit to provide for what I think is a transatlantic difference in meaning. It seems that "school uniform" in North America is a phrase that can be used of what I would call only a loose "dress code", e.g. a common one seems to be "khaki or blue pants". Anything as vague as that isn't what we over here would call a uniform. Traditionally in Britain and in its former outposts, a school that has a uniform would specify something much more distinctive and detailed, especially with designs of blazers and badges and ties etc. Perhaps the most extreme case is Singapore, where school uniforms are compulsory at all schools, and are completely different from anything that kids would wear otherwise, and each school is fiercely proud of its distinctive uniform. So I think in American terms, probably ALL school uniforms in Singapore, and many in UK/Australia/New Zealand etc., are "particularly notable and distinctive" and can (or indeed should) be described in a school's article. Alarics (talk) 08:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I've changed this back again but also added the term "dress code". I'm sure this subject has been discussed before. Schools uniforms are compulsory in most UK schools and presumably in many other countries too but there is nothing more boring than reading a whole section describing in minute detail every item of the school uniform. There are some schools, mostly private ones such as Eton, which have particularly distinctive uniforms which would be of more general interest and should be described. However, I really don't think a worldwide readership really needs to know about the grey socks, white shirts, coloured blazers, PE kits, etc for schools in general. Perhaps others have different views. 10:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC) Dahliarose.

It may be boring to many, but at that rate there would hardly be any school articles at all. I should think 98% of the average school article is boring to anyone not involved with the school in question. Anyway, I didn't say it should be described "in minute detail". And I think you are ignoring my general point that school uniforms are a much bigger deal in some cultures than in North America, where, even if there is what is called a "uniform", it usually seems to consist of ordinary clothes that people might wear anyway. I think what I wrote is better. What does anyone else think? Alarics (talk) 10:24, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

We did have some awful school articles and I think some of the Asian schools were some of the worst offenders where people went into inordinate detail about school uniform describing different coloured socks worn in winter and summer right down to every item in the PE kit. The idea was to discourage this sort of trivia. Certainly from my experience of reading and assessing large numbers of school articles, it was the uniform sections which always sent me to sleep. Uniforms vary very little from school to school in any case. Dahliarose (talk) 23:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

"Uniforms vary very little from school to school in any case" -- Have you actually read what I wrote above? I was talking about precisely those places (I cited Singapore as an example) where they vary a lot. Also, when you say that some Asian school articles devoted arguably too much space to describing uniform, that just reinforces my point that school uniform is a much bigger deal altogether in some cultures. The cases you cite, where there is an inordinate amount of trivial detail, should be dealt with by telescoping the trivia, not by deleting the section altogether: I already pointed out above that I never said uniform should be described in minute detail. And by the way, what does or doesn't "send you to sleep" is not necessarily true of others and may not necessarily be an appropriate criterion to use. Anyway, we know what you think. I was hoping for input from others. Alarics (talk) 05:34, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

If you want third opinion, in a nutshell it is your both right on some points. Many things on Wikipedia can be boring but that does not make them inappropriate for inclusion, but articles should be aimed at a general audience and hence trivial details should be avoided. WP:WPSCH/AG is helpful but it should be mentioned it is only advisory at present, so it only goes so far in any case. It is no secret that there is a minority on Wikipedia that think any coverage of schools beyond the highly important and the basic details is 'cruft'. I do take note that the current wording says Details of the school uniform or dress code (unless of course the uniform is particularly notable or distinctive). I think the key word here is details, it can be mentioned in a summary but lots of detail should be avoided unless of course the uniform is particularly notable or distinctive which it may well be for some schools in some cultures. In any case material on Wikipedia details should generally be sourced. Should the page be re-worded? Possibly, I would avoid the word 'notable' as on Wikipedia that is generally about whether something should have an article or not (WP:NNC), and have it more clear that the page is advising against trivia, not any mention of school uniforms. Camaron | Chris (talk) 17:51, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely the sensible solution is not to make subjective judgements but to look at the sources available. Wikipedia articles are primarily based on secondary sources. If the secondary sources choose to write about the uniform of a particular school then we should too. If the only source for the uniform is the school website then the subject is probably best avoided. I've not seen any of the Singapore schools with the distinctive school uniforms. Perhaps Alarics could provide some examples so that we can see what he means. Perhaps distinctive is a better word than notable for the school guidelines. Dahliarose (talk) 20:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed reliable secondary sources should be present or remove. -- ForgottenManC (talk) 02:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no requirement that every section of an article use secondary sources, only that the entire article as a whole is based on them. Primary sources can and are frequently used to help beef up the content of an article. I would agree that for significant detail multiple sources, including secondary, would be needed for school uniform. Though I would not say that would be necessary for brief mentions. Camaron · Chris · talk 08:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

So how about this for a suggested new wording: "... should specifically not include ... excessive amounts of detailed information about school uniform or dress code, but they may be mentioned briefly, especially if they are unusual". Alarics (talk) 18:42, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, something like that. Perhaps "should specifically not include... excessive amounts of detail about the school uniform or dress code, unless it has seen coverage in multiple secondary sources." Camaron · Christopher · talk 18:51, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I like saying it "may include" but discouraging it in most cases. tedder (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If we require "multiple secondary sources" we are setting the bar too high. I prefer "... should specifically not include ... excessive amounts of detailed information about school uniform or dress code, but the uniform may be mentioned briefly if it is unusual". (I can't quite tell from the above whether Tedder is agreeing with me or not.) Alarics (talk) 06:59, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Only for lots of detail would it require multiple secondary sources, and I think it should be made clear that if there is the coverage it can be detailed. It should perhaps also be made clear that brief mentions without multiple secondary sources is fine, it is detail without non-primary sources which is usually the problem. You could add the word 'unusual' in there as well I suppose, but there will be many different interpretations on what is unusual. Camaron · Christopher · talk 13:11, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. Could you please suggest a revised wording in light of that? Alarics (talk) 15:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Well fusing the proposals together would produce something like: "should specifically not include... excessive amounts of detail about the school uniform or dress code, unless it has seen significant coverage in multiple secondary sources. However, the uniform may still be mentioned briefly without this level of coverage, particularly if it is unusual." Camaron · Christopher · talk 16:46, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, I've changed it accordingly. Alarics (talk) 10:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

House systems

Hi. Does the Project think that UK (and similarly minded) school articles need describe the school's particular house system? I see a tendency to do this; I am myself undecided; I was hoping to find a guideline. Any help please? Thanks and best wishes, DBaK (talk) 19:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

here are some wildly differing examples:

Hmmm? DBaK (talk) 19:07, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Those would seem to have it about right - i.e. some detail at Harrow and QEH where the house system is clearly seen as being of some significance, just a list of the house names at other more "ordinary" schools (presumably the majority) where it probably isn't very important. I don't think one can lay down a hard-and-fast rule. Alarics (talk) 19:18, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. I think the house system is always likely to be a lot more important at a boarding school than at a day school. Alarics (talk) 19:20, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Well I put in The Petersfield School article as it was mentioned in the local press and seemed appropriate. Camaron · Christopher · talk 19:32, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

It may be important to an individual school but no one really cares about that house tutors are appointed by the teaching staff. This along with the school uniform issue are simply means of filling school pages with content. If this is the direction of this project, it will likely lead to these school pages becoming even more like prospective student viewbooks than they already are. Is the system notable enough to be mentioned by a neutral, secondary source? If so, then it is likely notable enough for inclusion. There are a lot of things that are 'important' to a school, but not necessarily material for wp. - ForgottenManC (talk) 19:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Surely if something is 'important' to the school, that is in itself part of what defines the school's distinctiveness. If that doesn't make it material for WP, what exactly is the point of having any articles about any schools? Alarics (talk) 20:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia pages are not made for the people associated with the subject of the page. They are made for the greater community. Moreover, who knows what important is? I am sure that not all students or people in this school consider housing systems important. Referring to secondary sources add the important layer of notability, verifiability and objectivity that simply summarizing banal information from a school website does not. - ForgottenManC (talk) 21:00, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we know all that. Nobody is suggesting "simply summarizing banal information from a school website". I'm sure the people at Harrow consider their house system important. As at Eton College, it is a fundamental part of the whole way the institution is organised and it would be bizarre to leave it out. The same would go for many UK boarding schools, whatever about the availability or otherwise of secondary sources. It is a house system, by the way, not a "housing system". Your use of the latter phrase suggests that perhaps you have not understood what we are talking about here. See house system.

DBaK wanted to know whether there is any general rule about house systems, and quoted four widely varying examples. I tried to suggest that there were reasons why they are widely varying, and that it is a much more significant factor at some schools (especially boarding schools) than at others (especially ordinary state day schools). By "significant factor" here I do not mean of interest only to those attending the school. Of course, none of this will satisfy those whose main aim in life seems to be to delete as much information from Wikipedia as possible. Alarics (talk) 10:20, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter what people at a given school think is important. Obviously, they are not objective observers. That is my point. Housing systems, house systems, widget systems, XYZ systems should have some reference to them outside of the school's own website to be notable enough for inclusion. If a particular system is mentioned nowhere else then why should it even be mentioned? Also, please work toward a constructive debate and avoid ad hominem arguments like "none of this will satisfy..." - it's condescending, not pertinent, and does not assume good faith. - ForgottenManC (talk) 15:46, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

You are the one who wrote "I am sure that not all students or people in this school consider housing systems important". If by "this school" you meant Harrow, and by "housing systems" you meant the house system, I'm afraid you are quite mistaken. Alarics (talk) 16:18, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Your project banner

Hi. I have recently converted your project banner to use {{WPBannerMeta}}. This was a team effort from several editors in the template sandbox and brings numerous advantages. We were wondering if there were any other features you would like the banner to have. Any comments would be welcome at Template talk:WPSchools. Thanks — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 06:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Including lists of alumni (& need for citations)

Is there a guideline (or has consensus been reached) about the inclusion of lists of alumni in school articles? I've come across several school articles in Somerset with lists which I'm trying to clean up. Some individuals which may not meet WP:notability and others lacking citations (some of which have been challenged have been challenged with "citation needed" tags and others which haven't). Should these be left in or removed? The particular example I noticed was Ralph Allen School but others locally with similar problems include: Prior Park College, Wellington School, Somerset, Bruton School for Girls, King's College, Taunton, Queen's College, Taunton, Millfield Preparatory School Wells Cathedral School and Millfield but I'm sure there are lots of others. Any help or guidance appreciated.— Rod ^talk 10:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

High School of Peking University

I'm new to wikipedia and the article High School of Peking University is the first one I'm working on. I have re-organized the article of previous version and added a completely new 'History' section. I think I need an experienced wikipedia user to check if my writing is okay and I can proceed to other parts of writings, so could anyone please help me out? History Section at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_School_of_Peking_University Davidw017 (talk) 06:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I cannot be sure what is really neutral. For instance, can I write something like 'Great progress has been made', or 'fine academic atmosphere', 'unique characteristics'? Davidw017 (talk) 06:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

You should only say "unique" if there is genuinely (and verifiably) nothing like it. "Great progress" and "fine atmosphere" sound to me too much like POV and/or WP:PEACOCK, and I should be inclined to tone such phrases down. I have done some copyediting on the article as it stands so far. Alarics (talk) 07:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay It seems that I need to make a lot of changes to my new writings... I have removed those un-neutral adjectives so it may look better. New section's done so could you please look at it again? Davidw017 (talk) 08:13, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

It is better if you finish all your rewriting first, then let me know and I will copyedit the whole article. By the way, it is best if footnote references pointing to external websites have the title as a clickable link; there is no need for the URL itself to be apparent. I changed some of these but you seem to have changed them back! Alarics (talk) 08:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Another point is that blogs and Wikipedia itself (in this case the Chinese one) do not count as reliable sources. Kanguole 09:20, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I will find reliable sources. Davidw017 (talk) 09:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be a nuisance, but Baidu Baike is no more reliable than Wikipedia in this respect. Indeed some of their article on the school appears copied from the Chinese Wikipedia article. Kanguole 11:33, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes the situation is more complicated than I think. I'd assume that the Chinese Wikipedia article and the Baidu Baike article are all coming from the same source (though I cannot tell one specifically). I have searched enormous websites but most of them are simply copies and copies, which has made me very hard to do the job. All I can think of now (in an attempt to comfort myself), is that Baidu Baike (and other sources) is unlikely to provide wrong information concerning the history of the school. So what I am doing right now, is to find as many sources as I can, and then to choose more indepentent and reliable sources. But when it comes to certain section I just cannot find anything other than the Baidu Baike article (and its duplicates) - plus the information is unlikely to be challenged - I can do nothing but put Baidu Baike as references. Meanwhile this sort of information, like the date of foundation of this school, should be included in a standard wikipedia school article. Let me put it straight: All the sources are either not reliable or not independent if we consider every aspect. I know it may violate a tons of wikipedia guidelines but sorry I'm in real difficulty right here. If you could offer some advice - much obliged, I'm waiting. Thanks and sorry. Davidw017 (talk) 17:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at the version you're working on in your sandbox, I think you have a number of good sources, like news reports and the education authority. (Actually, now that the article is started, you might like to work directly on the live article. Having other people edit your work can be annoying, but it can also be very productive.) It doesn't matter if a source is only available in Chinese, or only on paper. As Alarics said, the important thing is that it's reliably published and someone could in principle verify it (even if they had to be in Beijing to do it). Surely a school like this is mentioned quite a bit in news reports. The school's publications are obviously not independent, but I think it is fine to cite them in support of things that are unlikely to be disputed. It would be problematic to cite the school saying it was better than other schools in some way, for example. But as you pointed out, the origin of uncited information in Wikipedia or Baidu Baike is most unclear. They cannot be trusted, and citing them is no better than not citing anything. Kanguole 22:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll visit the school next week to verfiy some facts I'm going to write about. As so the article is likely to be finished by the end of June. I'll notify you when it's done. By the way, How should I cite the sources if I myself verify the facts without any actual written material or websites? Davidw017 (talk) 09:23, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

If you do that it counts as "original research", which is not allowed, I'm afraid. The information in the article has to have been published in a reliable source. It is not enough to know yourself that something that you write is true. Alarics (talk) 11:58, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that providing facts like 'There are two classrooms in one building' without proper source cited violates the policies of wikipedia?

I found a book published by the school where those facts aforementioned are listed, so theoritically can I use these facts? I'm afraid there's no other materials covering the information. Davidw017 (talk) 15:22, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I would have no problem with that, myself, but I have no authority around here. I think some Wikipedia administrators might object that we cannot use a self-published source. My own feeling is that schools are hardly going to tell barefaced lies about purely factual things like how many buildings they have, and that in many cases the school itself is the only available source of that kind of information. Alarics (talk) 16:47, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay I take that point. In that case fewer facts are to be provided. Davidw017 (talk) 18:05, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Another question: when referring to statements in self-published materials(e.g.:the school's), is it necessary/appropriate to say

The school claimed that it has an enrollment of 2 students. Davidw017 (talk) 15:16, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that makes the article more neutral and is better, I think. Alarics (talk) 16:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I would say that for objective statements like that it would be enough to place a citation at the end of the sentence. For more subjective statements you might well say the school "says" (or similar), but one should be careful with "claimed": it often implies that you don't believe the statement. See WP:CLAIM for a discussion. Kanguole 22:39, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay I will carefully choose appropriate words. Thanks for the tips on WP:CLAIM. Davidw017 (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Please have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Davidw017/Sandbox#Campus. Are these facts too detailed? Are they necessary to be included in the article? Thanks. Davidw017 (talk) 17:42, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say they are "necessary" but on the other hand I don't think they are too detailed, or only slightly so (which we can edit down a bit later maybe). The main thing is to be sure that all these facts are in principle verifiable, albeit presumably only in Chinese. Alarics (talk) 18:37, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I am currently working on the Clubs section. I do not see any wikipedia guidelines stating that an one-by-one introduction of the clubs should be avoided, but I am also unable to find an article that contains such information (i.e. introduction of all clubs). I am hesitating. Sources point out that this school does stand out for its miscellaneous clubs and it is verifiably unique. I am trying to write an one-by-one introduction of all the clubs, but could anyone tell me if I really should include/expand/shrink this section? Thanks. Davidw017 (talk) 11:03, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Normally it is better to avoid lists, especially lists that are more or less the same at every other school. But perhaps this is rather a special case, since English wikipedia readers are unlikely to have much of an idea what might be normal in a Chinese school. I think what you have there is probably OK, except there is no need to explain "Film Club" or "Radio station" or "Science club" etc. because their titles alone make it clear what they do. Just give the club names, and only add explanation if it is not self-explanatory. Alarics (talk) 12:10, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

English wikipedia readers do not really know much about this - exactly my point. So I'll basically provide the titles right there, and explanations are given as notes (<ref/ref>) when needed, will that do? Davidw017 (talk) 12:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

That sounds OK to me. Alarics (talk) 12:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I am almost exhausted writing this article. A WikiBreak is needed and I'll collect more information in the meantime. I have moved my sandbox version to the "live article" as Kanguole advised and a copyedit tag has been added. Davidw017 (talk) 11:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the copyedit but one question remains: do these images have to be that small? Davidw017 (talk) 05:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Forcing explicit sizes for images is generally discouraged (see MOS:IMAGES), so that the reader can control the size by setting their options, e.g. someone might need them a lot larger. But I've put the size back on the magazine image, as it's quite detailed. Kanguole 07:36, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Fine I just came to know about the MoS. Much obliged for the copyedit anyway. Davidw017 (talk) 07:45, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

City of London School

Hi. I have some time during the summer and I would like to help in significantly improving the article, City of London School. And so I would be grateful if someone in the project could point out what this article would need in order to achieve at least Good Article status. Thanks. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) 16:10, 6 July 2009 (UTC) I have added a peer review request at Wikipedia:Peer review/City of London School/archive1. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) 14:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

I just thought I'd point out to any interested users that the article has now been reviewed and I have started an article improvement drive at Talk:City of London School#Article improvement drive. Thanks. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) 14:10, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

BoxCrawler Run

All, I'm beginning the next run of BoxCrawler, let me know if he misbehaves at all thanks. Adam McCormick (talk) 04:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Besides articles on individual schools and schools districts, this project includes articles on types of school, e.g. School, or members of Category:School types. Could BoxCrawler not change the needs-infobox field of such articles from "no" to "yes"? Kanguole 07:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

That worries me, because if I've mistakenly marked a school as needs-infobox=no, now BC won't change it to =yes. How about allowing BC to do those changes, and then (a) fix them by hand afterwards, and (b) insert the  afterwards? An alternate would be to use either the bot exclusion template or to make an explicit list of non-school entries in this project. tedder (talk) 11:14, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Request for comments: Notability of high schools [closed]

At the moment, there is no guideline or policy about the notability of high schools, other than those for non-profit making organisations at WP:CLUB.

Quite often, the article for a high school will consist of a statement such as "abc is a high school in xyz.", with no mention of notability and no references.

This means that often, this would be put up for an AfD, resulting in two types of comments:

Delete as non-notable

or

Keep, long-established precedent is that all high schools are notable.

As there are no guidelines or policy for high schools, I feel that this needs to be discussed so that a final, definitive policy can be made on this.

Your comments are welcomed. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you seen the failed attempt to develop a notability guideline for schools at Wikipedia:Notability (schools)? There were repeated attempts to get various versions of it adopted (the current version shown there was one of the less popular options), but it couldn't ever muster majority support, much less a consensus. Nick-D (talk) 08:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I see no point in this at the moment. At present there is a de facto consensus that has developed at AfD which most editors can live with. This is enabling AfDs on both primary and secondary schools to be discharged reasonably efficiently and avoids the fraught concept of 'inherent notability' which polarises opinion. Let things lie. TerriersFan (talk) 15:18, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

My reason for starting this is that we keep getting (basically) the above two arguments used when a high school is AFD'd. Having a de facto consensus is not, obviously, enough - either high schools are all notable, or they are not. If the former, then if enough of the admins are in agreement, they can modify the notability policy to say this - however this rfc will give editors in general a say. I will certainly (tomorrow) publicise this rfc in various wikiprojects and the like, so that it will give as many people a chance to comment on this. I will give a detailed comment on my thoughts tomorrow (the kids are sleeping in the room with my computer in, so I have a few mins before they go to bed!) - but I fail to understand why schools should have a lower standard of notability than a company or a person, for whom similar local news may be available. What is the difference between a story about school kids winning a national competition for writing, and a company who had landed a big contract which brings jobs to the area? The arguments for school notability would contend that the kind of local news available about a school would be a valid source, but a similar story about a company would not make that company notable. Yes, this has been discussed before, and no result has come of it - but I certainly would contend that a school is only notable if there are reliable sources of information about it that are independent of the school and/or at least a couple of the school's alumni are notable (i.e. with referenced articles on Wikipedia). However, time is short (the kids are out of the bath and having their milk!) so I will put my thoughts on here tomorrow. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with your views but I see no point in recycling discussions on school notability which will not result in any consensus. Plenty of types of articles are deemed to be notable - see WP:DEFACTO which is an essentially pragmatic approach. TerriersFan (talk) 17:59, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Phantom, I, very respectfully, disagree with the "all or none" approach. Even I would have a hard time adopting a policy of "everything in category X is automatically notable", if category X is a very broad category. I also edit baseball articles, and am not a fan of the 4 gazillion two sentence articles on baseball players who played for 6 games in 1950. WP:N says they stay, but if I had absolute power, I would find a way to limit it.

I am of the feeling that the overall consensus (and policy for that matter) is that if the entity can be supported reasonably well with reliable sources, reasonably referenced, then the subject meets notability based on the general guidelines, and the article can stay. It is, I suppose (don't ask me to name any, I can't), possible that there are high schools out there who for one reason or another fail to meet the notability guidelines because the media in their community fails to cover the school. If such an instance actually exists (again, I can't think of any), then the school fails notability, and sadly should be excluded until it meets the minimum requirements. In general, I would find it difficult in this day and age that a high school has not been covered in its local media to fail notability. Since there is no guideline which actively excludes high schools (say, as one would find in WP:ATHLETE, which more or less excludes athletes who have not reached the highest level of competition), the only thing to cling to in an AFD argument would be "school fails WP:V, which should be easy enough to solve in most (all?) cases. It becomes a pain in the butt to go fight an AFD, but more times than not, the school is either saved, or the article recreated later with proper referencing. I think it is more a waste of the nominator's time, and while it is valiant to fight for a policy on notability like this, I think it will ultimately lead to a lot of fighting over something that is already de jure accepted. Just my 2 bits. LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I get the point! So, based on the evidence of a couple of essays, high schools are to be counted as notable no matter what. I haven't gone out of my way to AfD high schools, only a couple that I have come across that have been tagged as unreferenced (without a date). I still feel that there should be some level of notability required, but obviously enough editors feel otherwise! I'm not saying that any high school would not have coverage locally, I'm only saying that before a high school is kept on wikipedia, some of these should be cited, as is expected for all other articles! Anyway, that's my 0.02. I have removed the RFC tag for this conversation and marked it as closed. Thanks for your input. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 20:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

The 'policy' has effectively been decided by experience at AfD. For virtually any secondary school/high school which has been in existence for several years reliable sources can be found to satisfy WP:N. Dahliarose (talk) 11:40, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes the issue is more often than not potential rather than non-notability with secondary/high schools, and even with elementary/middle/primary schools merging and re-directing is usually more favourable than deletion. In any case it is part of the bread and butter of this project to fix such articles and I will continue to do so as long as good things continue to be churned out from it. There is no guideline on school articles, both for notability and naming conventions, simply because the community is very divided on the issues involved and no position will get enough support. I personally think the high school issue is the sticking point, with a guideline favouring high school article inclusion leaving many concerned of an unstoppable wave of new school articles, and a guideline less favourable of high school inclusion leaving others concerned of an unstoppable wave of school article deletions. Camaron · Christopher · talk 13:56, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Notability of High Schools (re-opened)

Please consider what Jimbo has to say on the subject... The founder of wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is an inclusionist.

School articles "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." (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-November/008266.html Partial solution to rampant deletionism] WikiEN-l, Jimmy Wales)...--Buster7 (talk) 05:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

We have never had any issue with "good article[s]" on high schools from "good contributor[s]," From all I know we've always taken the stance that High Schools can usually find justification of notability. We also have no issue with most well-written and cited articles on schools in general. Are you trying to make some other point with this? Adam McCormick (talk) 05:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It appears that Jimbo is saying that high schools are, almost inevitably, notable, and are, by their nature, encyclopedic; that high school articles shouldn't be deleted if they do not start out with references that meet the general notability guideline; and that we should "accommodate them," which I think the typical editor could do by coming up with one or two refs other than the school's own website, rather than initiating the delete process which ends up taking the time of dozens of editors at AfD. In fact, I think that adding every high school and school district in the United States and in any other English-speaking countries with a readily available official database full of information, would be as useful and encyclopedic as Rambot's work to add all of the CDPs from the 2000 census.--Hjal (talk) 07:58, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

@Editor:Alanby. Just responding to ---->As there are no guidelines or policy for high schools, I feel that this needs to be discussed so that a final, definitive policy can be made on this. Your comments are welcomed. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 07:56, 5 August 2009 (UTC) from the above thread. Just providing info to a fellow editor. That seems obvious. Are you *getting* some other point and if so what might that be? (Just for my information)--Buster7 (talk) 12:14, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Buster, I am speaking for myself, but I was under the impression that this discussion (when it had been closed) had arrived at a general consensus that:

1. Per policy, any entity achieving WP:N can have an article.

2. High schools, by their nature, will in virtually every case be the subject of enough reliably sourced works that they will meet notability.

3. Therefore, high schools are covered under the already extant policies for inclusion, and no special policy is needed.

When I first read your comments, I saw them as not really dealing with high schools, per se, but with the inclusionist/deletionist debate. In addition, (please, this is not an accusation) when people say "this is right because expert X says it is right", that sends up a red flag in some people that there is an appeal to authority going on. As we all know, there is no policy stating we all have to do as Mr. Wales says, just because of who he is. I know that was not your intent ... but bringing that up can be taken differently by different people. I think Hjal said it best in that the statement you quoted was simply using an example of a subject that some editors might think could not be notable, but because reliable sourcing exists, is definitively notable under the policies here. Just my two bits. LonelyBeacon (talk) 18:12, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Yea User:Beacon, 3 things came together....1) Jimbo and I share the same birthday so I made a rare visit to his page and wandered around and found the quote which had relevance to my... 2) keep for the Birrong Girls High School...and then (3)followed Editor:Phantom over here. Certainly didn't mean to step on any toes and forgive me if I did. I also did not mean to set forth Jimbo as the be-all-end-all authority (on anything). As to the open/close status. I saw no harm in re-opening and saying..."Hey. Have you guys seen (and considered) this?"...even tho I had missed the "open window" (which was not open very long). I saw that you had achieved consensus but thought this might be an obvious place to share the Jimbo quote. If not for general use now, maybe later. I understand that this is the WikiProject/Schools. I thought a quote by the founder mentioning the editing of high school articles might have some relevance here. And I'm sure it does. If not for the "WE" that Editor:Alanbly means, surely the larger "WE" (all Wikipedia Editors). Anyway, nice to meet you and thanks for reaching out.--Buster7 (talk) 21:15, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

At the risk of disagreeing with the founder, WP:N is still WP:N and it says nothing about excepting secondary schools. The way I read Jimmy Wales's words is that everyone needs to recognize the likelyhood that even a poorly written article about a high school is likely on a notable topic and a reminder about biting newcomers. What needs to be clear here is that simply by being a secondary school (let's stop using the term "High School" as it covers only a portion of the English speaking world) is no guarantee that the subject is notable and does not excuse the article or the editor from properly citing their sources. Generally speaking, sufficient reliable 3rd party sources can be found to demonstrate notability of a secondary school, but that's not always the case. Especially for small private schools or schools in developing countries where news coverage is scant if at all. No special consideration should be given to schools just because they are schools. This is necessary to deal with articles that are essentially spam particularly for private schools, yes that's another issue but a "secondary schools are inherently notable" just gives the editor something to hide behind. The only thing that being a secondary school tells us is that, based on experience, sources are likely available and need to be searched for. This should immediately save an article from speedy or proposed deletion, but isn't a good argument to make in an AFD. The focus of the AFD should be whether the article meets WP:GNG or not. At that point it's status as a secondary school is immaterial. In short, being a secondary school tells us that it might be notable and we need to look harder for sources but if those sources cant be found in a reasonable amount of time, the article needs to go.--RadioFan (talk) 17:52, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I've not commented any further, for two reasons - firstly, I've been busy in the real world; secondly, I hadn't really got anyone saying much other than We always have done this, we always should. Here is my feeling on the matter - no organisation, person, etc is inherantly notable. Yes, almost every secondary school in the world could be notable, but the same could be said about most companies and most people who are scientists, musicians, etc - but we expect that articles about them would show proof of notability. If in an AfD about a company, I was to say "I'm sure if you look at local news sources, etc, you will ffind proof of notability", the response would be "Well, find them..." - I'm merely saying that schools should have the same standards - nowhere in the policies or guides does it say that schools are inherantly notable - yes, it suggests it should be the case in various essays and comments, but nowhere in the official word, as it were.

A couple of comments about Mr Wales' comment - firstly, like RadioFan seems to be saying (apologies if I misunderstood, I'm sure RadioFan will correct me!), the impression I have is that he is saying that sources should be available, and need to be provided within a reasonable time; secondly, Mr Wales' comment was more about the fact that someone putting up an article about their secondary school without sources is likely to be a newcomer - and so we should make allowances for this.

I keep seeing the comment on secondary school AfDs along the lines of "sources of information will be available about this school" - again, if I used that on any AfD apart from a school, I'd be told "find them then!" - and this is my attitude about school articles being discussed under AfD. If someone then says "ah, but not all local sources are available via (for example) Google News..." then my response would be "I could say the same about a local company".

If a school article has sources of information (even if that is only the local authority's school listing), I for one would not nominate (or agree with) an AfD. Personally, I think the bare minimum standard of notability for schools should be:

* There should be a reliable indication of the existence of the school (for which I would include the local government, education authority or the like) - I would also include an official school website with a recognised TLD or like (for example in the uk, this would be a .sch.uk website, which are only granted to schools which are recognised by the English Department for Education).

* If possible, there should be reliable references from independent sources (e.g. newspaper reports) (I say if possible, as I recognise that especially in non-European/non-US locales, these may not be readily available online)

* If any alumni are notable, they should be listed - but for the purposes of a school, notable means an article on Wikipedia, which had passed the notability tests itself (i.e. not created at the same time as, or just before, the school's article; with reliable citations, etc)

I do not think that these (especially the 1st and 3rd) are unreasonable expectations - they are at the minimum level of notability that we'd expect of any article.

I don't know about anyone else, but if I nominate any article (not just a school article) for SD, PROD or AfD, I always check for references - I am not seeking to exclude any article, but only those that do not meet the notability criteria established for wikipedia. If I find any reliable references (including an official website that is obviously an official school website, or references at a local authority), I would not support a deletion.

Anyway, that's my 0.02. I've got to go back to the real world, but this page is on my watchlist, so I'll keep an eye on further discussion. -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 19:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I would certainly agree to a requirement to show that the school exists in every case, and even the most inclusionist proposals for a school guideline have included this requirement, otherwise we are wide open for hoaxes. Camaron · Christopher · talk 21:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I am currently starting to write an essay on guideline, policy, and school articles which will also look at this issue and will include some research and history as well as my opinion, I will leave a note on this page when it is finished. I don't think I have ever said that all high/secondary schools are notable, as there are almost certainly a few out there which call themselves high school or secondary school which aren't notable enough for their own article. Most of them are notable with a bit of internet research however, and the overwhelming majority are if you can do the full research e.g. offline sources as well as online. Unfortunately only a select few Wikipedians if any, will be local to a school, and you can be waiting a long time for a decent article to appear in some cases, which is understandable given the voluntary nature of the project. The debate will continue on when articles should be deleted, and WP:N is rather open on the issue at WP:FAILN. I, and others, will continue to argue for stubs with potential to stay, and in the case with schools re-direction and retention of the page history being preferred over deletion if the individual school articles do have to go.

As for Jimbo Wales, well his comments are obviously important and worth mentioning though I would not dwell on them to much as they are often over read into and there is a large amount of controversy surrounding how much authority he actually has on things like guidelines and policies nowadays. Camaron · Christopher · talk 21:58, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Just remember--->Jimbo watcheth over you, and he remembereth whatst thou do and whenst thou doest it. He shall reign forever (or at least until next Tuesday)...--Buster7 (talk) 22:45, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Buffalo,_New_York#RFC:_What_schools_should_be_listed.3F

FYI, this is an RFC on whether schools close to but not in the city limits of Buffalo should be included in this article. How is this question usually decided? - Dank (push to talk) 21:26, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Activities

Is there any kind of consensus on what to do with non-athletic activities? Should the whole list be given, or should there be something briefer.

In general, I have found athletics to be a short manageable list, and presents few problems. Full lists of activities can go on ad nauseum. On top of that, at some schools, those list get out of date very quickly.

I have started experimenting with including an in-article link to the "whole list", and mentioning those that are chapters/affiliates of organizations which have articles on the site. If the group has done something notable that can be referenced (win a national title, set records, etc), I try an note that too. This in and of itself becomes problematic, but that's for a different discussion.

Thoughts? LonelyBeacon (talk) 19:26, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Alumni, notability, and article creation

I was recently chastised for including an alum (Olympic athlete) on a school's list of notable alumni, when no article about said alum yet exists. I defended inclusion by pointing out that an Olympic participant meets WP:N, and that the Schools project's guidelines for inclusion don't require the article be previously created ... just that the alum has met the notability requirement and be properly referenced with a reliable source. Am I correct in this interpretation of your project's guidelines, or is there a mandate to create the article before the alum is included? Is there a deadline for creating such an article once the alum is included? LonelyBeacon (talk) 05:56, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

The way I describe it is this. The person needs to be notable, which can be done two ways:

Create the article, defend it, link in the person to the school.
Add the person to the school alum list with refs to show (a) they attended the school and (b) meet notability guidelines.

The first option is easier, as an AFD can be used as the ultimate arbiter. To me, it's almost worth saying "no redlinked or unlinked names". tedder (talk) 06:15, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, red links point out needed articles. There is nothing wrong with creating a red link when it is clear that the link target will meet WP:N. The red link on a school article in a case like this makes sense if the readers have an interest in the alumni. One those readers is more likely to create the article rather then someone just passing by. We even allow links on dab pages with the restriction that it is not the only page that links to the missing article. Details are at Wikipedia:Red link. Vegaswikian (talk) 06:25, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

No, no, no. Our notability guidelines explicitly "only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article. They do not directly limit the content of articles." So it's inappropriate to tell editors that subjects must be "notable" to warrant inclusion in an article. Topics can certainly be (verifiably) important and interesting enough to warrant inclusion in an article without rising to the level of deserving a dedicated article. --ElKevbo (talk) 15:44, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm with Vegaswikian on this one. Embedded lists of "notable alumni" (and "notable residents") rapidly fill with cruft unless there are some clear-cut criteria for inclusion, and WP:BIO is an excellent criterion to use. If the person's name is going to appear in an alumni list, either the person should be the subject of an article or there should be one or more citations indicating the person's notability and alumni connection. Among other things, this means that an Olympic athlete deserves to be on a list of alumni even if that person lacks an article, but alumni lists should not include local Rotary Club presidents, amateur musicians, high school football coaches, and other nonnotables.

However, as ElKevbo notes, a person need not be notable to be named and discussed in an article. Good articles about schools and universities often tell about school principals, faculty, coaches, and others who may not be notable by wikipedia standards but have contributed in significant ways to the school's story. --Orlady (talk) 00:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that Orlady makes a good distinction. Many people can be included in the narrative of pages who wouldn't justify a distinct bullet point in a list of Notable alumni, for example. It certainly goes without saying that alumni must be reliably sourced that they attended the school. With red-linked alumni who may meet notability requirements, surely the best way forward is to create a stub for them? It is easier and more sensible to write a stub than argue why they should be regarded as notable despite not having a page! TerriersFan (talk) 00:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Assessment/Archive

I have been bold and re-organised this archive a bit. First I have removed the {{Hide}} tags as these have been less necessary since an assessment archive was created and often did not display correctly as they are very sensitive to what you put in them. Since the one page was getting huge I have also split up the assessments by year, which seemed the most logical way of doing it for now. Camaron · Christopher · talk 10:08, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Rural schools in Kansas?

Is anyone interested in writing articles on particular rural schools, such as Peach Grove or Four-Mile? There are a lot of great resources on these schools--schools such as these have been researched in depth by Doug Tippin of the Riley County Historical Museum. He has written two books on these, and I am aware of at least one (and probably several more) newspaper article(s) that are written on these institutions. Are these notable enough? I think they constitute an important part of Kansas history. Are they worthy of individual articles? County-wide articles? State-wide articles? --Jp07 (talk) 02:45, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Status of current collaboration

At WP:WPSCH#C this was previously called collaboration of the week but was later changed to collaboration of the month. I still have reason to question its viability however taking note that it has not been updated since January 2009. Suggestions of future schools seem to be rather short as well given that despite the long period since the collaboration has been updated only one new suggestion has appeared. The obvious conclusion is that current collaboration is not achieving very much any more and is not viable in its current form. The next logical stage could be to make it collaboration of the quarter or even collaboration of the year. I however question the need for it and will personally support closing it completely, on the grounds that this project simply is not active enough for a collaboration programme. We also have WP:WPSCH#E which is a bit more active and is rather similar. Camaron · Christopher · talk 20:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it might be best to get rid of this feature altogether. When we did have a collaboration of the month I did try and watch some of the articles but there was very little in the way of editing done. The only time people do start to become active is when a school article is threatened with AfD. Dahliarose (talk) 22:44, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, given your support I will close the process down in a few days unless any objections are raised here. Editors can instead use WP:WPSCH#E and WP:WPSCH/AR, and it can always be re-started if there is interest and consensus later on. Camaron · Christopher · talk 10:10, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I have shut down the department. Camaron · Christopher · talk 11:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School advertising trimming?

I just boldly gutted the Raphael House Rudolf Steiner School article of what appeared to me to be nothing more than promotional material from the school itself or for the most part general advertising for Waldorf education. However, I know nothing of either this school or that curriculum other than by what I read from their articles, so made the judgement purely based on writing tone alone. I welcome editors attention there to make sure I wasn't overzealous, especially from those who know something about the topics. Thanks, Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I read about half of what you removed... It was definitely biased, but I think some of it did not necessarily merit removal, i.e. the section discussing Piaget and child development (provided citations are added and it is NPOV).--Jp07 (talk) 22:16, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. I'll leave that up to yourself or other editors. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 04:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Lists of Former headteachers/principals.

Hi, I'm doing a GA Review of City of London School, and made a comment that "The list of past headmasters is of little value to the general reader as none of them appear to be notable - it is simply a list of the names of unknown people." The nominator then, quite rightly, pointed out that such a list is encouraged by this project's guidelines - "Im not sure about the list of headmasters as Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines suggests putting this in and many UK school articles have this." I took a look and noted that the advice was added in June 2007, so has been around for over two years. As embedded lists in general are frowned upon unless appropriate, and that consensus is that some consideration needs to be given to the importance of material being included in an article, I wondered if people wanted to have a discussion about the advice given in the guideline, and perhaps reword it. There are some schools so notable, that a list of the headteachers could well be accepted as worthwhile - the example in the guideline of Eton is one such school. However, I am unsure of the value of a list of the names of unknown people in every school article. Also, there is greater value in such a section being written up in prose so that the importance and relevance of the people can be discussed and explained. Wording such as: "There have been 17 different headteachers since the first, John Smith, in 1745. Matthew Arnold made a particular inpression during his term from 1834 to 1888, introducing naked physical education lessions, and laptop dancing in the senior lounge. The current headteacher, Bill Bailey, combines his school responsibilties with his separate career as a stand-up comedian." might be more interesting and informative than a dry list of names and dates. Comments? SilkTork *^YES! 12:53, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggested wording:

Former headteachers/principals - If there have been a number of notable headteachers, provide a prose section giving an overview of their contribution to the school. Lists are generally discouraged per WP:Embedded lists and WP:Listcruft. If there has been one particular outstanding headteacher, that person might warrant a section to themselves. If there is not enough material for a section, then include mention of past headteachers in the History section. In exceptional cases if there is enough material, a headteacher section should be split out as a standalone article (or list), leaving a summary section, as per WP:Summary style.

SilkTork *^YES! 13:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I would go with the small change that even one notable headmaster/principal/superintendent could be mentioned. The problem I have seen is an inability for many editors (and I even catch myself in this sometimes) being unable to divorce themselves from having done something truly notable vs. making a controversial decision that throws the student body into an uproar for two weeks. If I may suggest, notability should be restricted to something like: meeting WP:BIO (of course) or the recipient of a national/international(?) award related to their profession. I would also go as far as to say that a principal/headmaster if it could be documented that they had a significant impact on the school's development. I think this becomes important because many school principals will, by the nature of their job, be the subject of extensive longterm coverage in the local newspapers, even though they are not notale, and have not really impacted their school. LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:20, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

The names of current and former executive leadership of notable institutions seem encyclopedic to me. The former principals of an American high school are no more "unknown" to the general reader than most pre-WWII mayors and Congressmen. I'm sure the same is true of English headmasters. Unlike many entries in school articles, the number of principals or heads is fairly short and a complete list can probably be created and referenced. I find that the names of former principals of my high school are very helpful search terms on Google, since using them weeds out most of the hits for the school that only turn up a very short reference to a sports result or a calendar entry. The names of varsity coaches, OTOH, are more likely to turn up substantive stories about sports programs and truly notable or encyclopedic sports events, although there will also be a bunch of "they wanted it more that we did" twaddle.--Hjal (talk) 01:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Hjal that the names of former headmasters are encyclopaedic. It's the sort of information that people want to be able to check in an encyclopaedia article. Headmasters usually leave their mark on a school, especially if they have served the school for many years. It is essential that the names are referenced as it is otherwise very easy for people to include fake names or for children to vandalise the article. I agree that a prose style is preferable to a list, perhaps with a brief description of each head's achievements. There will usually be plenty of references. The difficulty usually arises with earlier years where the references are in books in libraries rather than on the internet. Dahliarose (talk) 09:27, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)I think Hjal is making an assumption about the role of headteachers. Most headteachers are administrators rather than executive leaders - though they can be that as well, and the ones that do provide excellent leadership qualities, such as Matthew Arnold, do deserve mention. But much of the executive decision making in UK schools is done by the school governors. There is, however, a sense that knowledge of the headteachers of certain very notable institutions, such as Eton, may be encyclopedic. To add another dimension to this discussion - criteria 6 in Wikipedia:Notability (academics) says: "The person has held a major highest-level elected or appointed academic post at an academic institution or major academic society." That may suggest that any primary headteacher is notable. I suppose it is how "academic post" and "academic institution" is defined! SilkTork *^YES! 09:38, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, headteachers of notable secondary schools, particularly old public schools, are generally notable enough for them to be included in a list. Such information is often given in books and encyclopedias. The role of the headteacher in the independent schools system is significantly different from that in the state sector. This is particularly the case with old public schools. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) 10:41, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

An amendment based on Bulleted lists discussion:

Former headteachers/principals - If there have been a number of notable headteachers, provide a section giving an overview of their contribution to the school. If there is not enough material for a section, then include mention of past headteachers in the History section. In exceptional cases if there is enough material, a headteacher section could be split out as a standalone article (or list), leaving a summary section, as per WP:Summary style. Attention should be paid to guidance provided at WP:NLIST, WP:Embedded lists and WP:Listcruft, and a decision made as to the most appropriate way of presenting the information (either prose or list). If there has been a particular outstanding headteacher, that person might warrant a section to themselves.

This is to avoid directing people to write in either list or prose style, but leave it to their discretion. SilkTork *^YES! 09:58, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I think you mean Thomas Arnold rather than his son Matthew. But anyway I don't really agree with what you say about UK schools. Even in the case of ordinary local state schools, it has often been commented that the headmaster is (or at least can be) an all-powerful figure whose charisma, personality and leadership (or lack of it) can make or break the school's reputation, whereas the members of governing bodies are often just party-political time-servers. The "headteacher as inspirational leader" concept is also found in other countries with a British tradition, such as Singapore. Alarics (talk) 10:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right - I did mean Thomas! The situation regarding governors is that they do hold executive power. The governors can assist or frustrate a headteacher. The governors can sack and appoint the headteacher. Governors can approve, deny or create financial, executive, academic, strategic, etc decisions. Governors can impose various rules and traditions on a school. A headteacher cannot make a decision about school uniforms for example, without getting agreement from the governors, but the governors can make a decision and ask the headteacher to carry it out. It is the governors who are legally responsible for the running of the school. See [9], [10]. And while there is a different emphasis and tone with some independent schools, they do also have governing bodies with varying degrees of power and influence. It is as well to be aware where the drive comes from in any particular school, and you cannot assume it is always the figurehead. I was a teacher governor, and it was sometimes frustrating that members of a governing body could be more concerned about the way teachers dressed than the way they taught, but it was heartening to see people put in so many hours, and so much effort, unpaid, for the greater benefit of the community. Rather like us volunteer editors here on Wikipedia!

However, that being said, I totally accept that certain headteachers can and do have an impact that should be mentioned. However, not all headteachers have an impact, and it would be inappropriate to list every plodder, no matter how inept, merely because they once had their name on the door. We have to be selective about the material we include in a general interest encyclopedia - especially when producing a short article on the major points of interest of a topic. If a reader wishes to go into specific detail about the finances (for example) of a school, that information will be available in the school records - as will details of the caretaker, the head boy and head girl, which house won the sports for the last x years, etc, etc.

If a school has had twelve headteachers, two of whom were notable, which is more useful:

"Since opening in 1936 the school has had twelve headteachers, including Bert Weedon in 1963 who introduced the sport of extreme ironing to the school, a tradition that the school is proud of. The school's most notable headteacher is Tony Blair, who, after a short spell as headteacher in 1988, went on to become prime minister of the UK."

Or:

Bill King 1936 - 1946

Jo King 1946 - 1956

Bob King 1956 - 1962

Bert Weedon 1962 - 1972

John King 1972 - 1982

Jane King 1982 - 1988

Tony Blair 1988

Harry King 1988 - 1989

Sally King 1989 - 1999

Raymond King 1999 - 2001

Chris King 2001 - 2005

Jeremy King 2005 - present

That list of past and present Kings tells us little, but takes up space. If a reader wishes to make a close study of those dates and names, they would be advised to go the sources, because that reader is now asking too much of a general encyclopedia. We are not a specialist resource - we provide a useful overview. If somebody wishes to write a history of the school, they need to go the specialist sources. Getting the balance right is always going to be tricky, but as WP:NLIST indicates, we would generally require that a person is notable before including them on a list. SilkTork *^YES! 08:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Many senior members of large or notable companies have wikipedia pages. They also cannot single handedly make executive decisions. In some schools, the headmaster plays an important role within the business community. The City of London School is one of them being at the heart of London's financial area. Tbo ¹⁵⁷(talk) 10:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

All school articles currently have an infobox which gives the name of the current headteacher who might well be just a "plodder". You either have to include all heads or none at all, but preferably in a more interesting format rather than just a list of names and dates. Dahliarose (talk) 23:45, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Suggested additions to the guidelines

A section on the building, if interesting or notable, as in Oriel_College,_Oxford#Buildings_and_environs and Christ's_College,_Cambridge#Buildings.
Achievements.

I'm actually surprised that there is no section on the achievements of a school - sporting, academic, musical, etc. If a school has a reputation for producing scholars, for introducing new ideas in teaching, for having a good choir, good netball team, swimming team, etc, then it seems appropriate to have a section on this. And most schools will make some kind of claim for achievements, will have displays somewhere of the cups they have won, etc. SilkTork *^YES! 14:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think, actually, there is some awareness of this in the current Curriculum and Extracurricular activities sections, as in "Mention significant championships for the sports teams" and "Focus specifically on aspects of the curriculum which are unique to the school." Though, I feel it would help to have a separate achievement section. SilkTork *^YES! 14:46, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

As SilkTork noted, I think it is common to include specific honors in specific sections (Athletic, Academic, Clubs, etc). One of the issues I repeatedly see is that there is no absence of claims of greatness about the school's swim team, amazing teachers, phenomenal alumni, etc, but many of these claims are either not backed up, or are so peacocky that no amount of referencing would ever back it up, or are simply not notable (the cheerleading team finished first in one of the 13,548 "national" championship meets, or a student one the town spelling bee). What I am not sure of: would adding a separate section encourage adding more non-notable accomplishments? I'm not sure. I can see that a separate section would have some up sides ... could there be a down side? Another point: would putting all of the accomplishments in one place make it easier to actually find things. That is: if I wanted to know the school's academic reputation, I would go to the academic section. If I looked in an accomplishments section, it might be buried in the football championships, ultimate frisbee championships, and chess titles.

As for the section on the building/architecture; I thought that was already a recommended part of the school articles? LonelyBeacon (talk) 16:56, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that's a good point about an achievements section encouraging trivial claims. If there is to be such a section, perhaps the guideline could be worded to make people aware of that possibility; suggestion: "All achievement claims should be supported by reliable sources and be non-trivial." SilkTork *^YES! 08:57, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the Campus/school site did mention architecture, with the option of splitting it into a separate section. A general recommendation for a separate section is inappropriate for many of these articles. Kanguole 22:40, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I've made an adjustment in line with your comment. SilkTork *^YES! 09:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Bulleted lists of alumni

As the guidelines discourage embedded lists, the standing instruction in the guideline to "Provide a bulleted list of notable alumni" is worth discussing. Baltimore_City_College#Notable_alumni, Duke_University#Alumni, Florida_Atlantic_University#Alumni and Dartmouth_College#Alumni are all featured articles which follow the wider Wikipedia practice of using prose rather than lists.

Suggested wording:

Alumni — Provide a section on the alumni of the school, with an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details were available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, and any alumni society. Notable alumni should be mentioned with an appropriate amount of detail on each person. Attention should be paid to guidance provided: Notability: Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and Style: WP:Embedded lists.

There may be cases where a simple list is appropriate, or all that an editor has time to do. And that is fine; however, I don't feel this guideline should direct editors to always create a list - or even to create a list at all. SilkTork *^YES! 14:42, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In the examples you cite, there are comprehensive lists of alumni in separate articles, which are summarized in the indicated sections. And indeed many schools with enough notable alumni to justify a separate list do have a prose summary in the main article, and I'd agree that's to be recommended. But alumni are typically so diverse that it is difficult (or extremely clumsy) to record them comprehensively in any format other than a list, whether in the article or outside it. Kanguole 15:15, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

When I read school articles (forget editing for the moment), and I look at the alumni, I want to see a list vs. a prosaic description (especially when the number of alumni is long). It is simply easier to access. I can't see a reason not to do it that way, aside from an aesthetic one. Even print encyclopedias have contained lists, when it is the best way to present data to the reader. I am all for keeping lists to a minimum for purposes of appearance, but if it comes down to appearance vs. ease of access to the reader, then I think as editors we need to err towards the side of ease of access. That doesn't mean that there can't be a little creativity in making things more prosaic. From an editing perspective, IMO, I find lists easier to edit, especially when you have to do the citing (much easier to add a citation at the end of a line than to open up the paragraph and insert the citation). I checked out the examples presented above as prosaic lists. They do look nice, but I found them to be difficult in terms of finding quick information (as Kanguole noted, it is clumsy and impedes quick fact finding). LonelyBeacon (talk) 16:45, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

There is a place for prose, in giving an overview of a long list, provided the list is also present. Besides the above, a good example is Harrow School#Notable alumni (summarizing List of Old Harrovians). Kanguole 17:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

As an alternative suggestion, how about adding the following to the end of the section WP:WPSCHOOLS/AG#Separate_alumni_pages:

If the alumni are listed in a separate article, the Alumni section should link to the list article and provide a brief prose overview of the alumni in summary style, perhaps focussing on the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, or on particularly famous individuals. See Harrow School#Notable alumni for an example.

That would, for example, address this issue at the City of London School GAR. Kanguole 23:59, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that sometimes a list can be easier to look at, so there needs to be an assessment of the situation by the editor(s) of the article. Which is why my suggested wording above doesn't encourage or discourage lists, but points people to the standard advice. I do agree, however, that my suggested wording may be daunting, and that it could be adjusted.

Alumni — Provide a section on the alumni of the school where possible. This may include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details were available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society. Notable alumni should be mentioned with an appropriate amount of detail on each person. Attention should be paid to guidance provided: Notability: Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and Style: WP:Embedded lists. If the number of alumni is too much for a short section, consider creating a split out article in WP:Summary style, linking the alumni section to the alumni article; see Harrow School#Notable alumni for an example.

I would be wary of using the word "list" or "prose" as these could direct people to either of these methods. The WP:Embedded lists guidance doesn't forbid lists - it does say that lists can be appropriate (as indeed they can be!), but it does discuss the issue and makes people aware that lists can sometimes provide information without a context. The final decision should be up to the editor(s) and the circumstances, and we shouldn't be directing one way or the other. SilkTork *^YES! 09:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

In schools articles, we have a large class of articles with a great deal in common, so it seems appropriate to give some direction in situations that recur in so many of these articles. I would agree with LonelyBeacon and the authors of the current guidance that lists are the best way to comprehensively present a school's alumni (unless there are very few of them indeed). The above examples do not contradict this: they have such lists, just in separate articles. Kanguole 10:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree that lists are the most accessible way of presenting alumni. A prose section is as discussed more appropriate where there is a separate page with a list of alumni. I suspect it would be difficult to comment on a school's reputation for alumni and the impact they have created as this would be very subjective and difficult to source except for the few elite schools. A factual list seems more appropriate. Dahliarose (talk) 12:55, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends on the circumstances and what one wants. I find the examples given to be informative, helpful, attractive, satisfying and readable. Dartmouth_College#Alumni is an excellent piece of informative writing. Though I also understand the value of a quick glance list, my point, which I fear is being missed, is that I don't think the guideline should be saying that editors should only create lists. Given that the current guideline is clearly being ignored by Wikipedia's best editors producing Wikipedia's best articles, I feel the direction to produce only a list is restrictive, unhelpful, and contrary to both the wider community consensus and also best practice.

How about this:

Alumni — Provide a section on the alumni of the school where possible. Notable alumni should be mentioned with an appropriate amount of detail on each person. Attention should be paid to guidance provided: Notability: Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and Style: WP:Embedded lists, and a decision made as to the most appropriate way of presenting the information (either prose or list). If the number of alumni is too much for a short section, consider creating a split out article in WP:Summary style, linking the alumni section to the alumni article; see Harrow School#Notable alumni for an example. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details where available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society.

I want to point out that the changes do not say "Do not write in lists". I want to emphasis that it is left to the editor(s) discretion to write in prose or in list. But it gets away from the direction to "Provide a bulleted list...". SilkTork *^YES! 09:44, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just added "(either prose or list)" to make it clearer that lists are not actively being disallowed. SilkTork *^YES! 09:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that these examples show that the guidance to always produce lists is being ignored, as every one of them does present their alumni in list form. (That includes Dartmouth College, though as a tertiary institution it is outside the scope of WPSCHOOLS.) But these lists are able to justify separate articles, summarized in the main article. To say that there should always be a list is not the same as saying there should only be a list. Kanguole 10:32, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded the section to include examples and links to guidance, but have kept in the advice to use bulleted lists:

Notable alumni — Provide a section on the notable alumni of the school where possible. Alumni should be mentioned with an appropriate amount of detail on each person. Attention should be paid to guidance provided: Notability: Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and Style: WP:Embedded lists, and a decision made as to the most appropriate way of presenting the information. All alumni should be notable and sourced as to having attended the school. If the number of alumni is too much for a short section, consider creating a split out article in WP:Summary style, linking the alumni section to the alumni article; see Harrow School#Notable alumni and Baltimore_City_College#Notable_alumni. A bulleted list of alumni, either in the alumni section or in the split out article, is considered useful. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details where available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society.

SilkTork *^YES! 09:47, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I am uncomfortable with a return in the guideline to a "direction" to create a list. The reason I came here is that I am doing a GA review on City of London school, and as part of that review ensuring that it complies with criteria 1 (b): "it complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation" - Wikipedia:Good_article_criteria. I indicated that the lists at the end of the article did not conform to list incorporation. The nominator pointed out that was because of following the guidelines here. I have engaged in discussion regarding this project's guidelines which "direct" editors to create lists which appear contrary to the standard guidelines and best practise. I have attempted to formulate a guideline which allows editors to be aware of the guidelines, best practise, and yet allows editors to make informed decisions. While we agree there is some ease of viewing afforded by a list, a section giving a prose overview and context allows the reader to extract more value from it. An overview of the alumni of the school, picking out the most significant of the alumni, is of value for those readers who do not wish to read through a list. There are readers who do not value lists in the same way as us editors, and that for compliance with GA criteria the Alumni section should follow the Wikipedia:Embedded list guidance, which doesn't forbid lists, but asks for some reflection on the situation, and for a prose overview to be provided first. A WikiProject should not provide guidance which is contrary to standard guidelines, and all projects should be encouraging editors to follow WP:MOS.

The current version:

Notable alumni — If possible, provide a list of notable alumni of the school with appropriate detail on each, moving the list to a separate article if it is too large. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni, providing appropriate details where available, such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society. See #Alumni for further guidance.

New suggestion:

Notable alumni — If possible, provide a section on the notable alumni of the school with appropriate and sourced detail on each, creating a split article in WP:Summary style if the section becomes too large. Attention should be paid to guidance provided: Notability: Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and Style: WP:Embedded lists. A list of alumni, either in the alumni section or in the split out article, is considered useful. The section may also include an overview of the school's alumni such as the school's reputation for their alumni, the fields in which the school's alumni have had a impact, and any alumni society. See #Alumni for further guidance.

I hope people see that I'm not trying to be awkward, but looking for compliance between this project's guidance and the MoS guidance. At the moment I am comfortable with City_of_London_School#Notable_people as the section has a prose overview, though City_of_London_School#Headmasters fails Wikipedia:Bio#Lists_of_people and WP:Embedded lists. Regards SilkTork *^YES! 10:46, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Headmasters are a separate issue (and I think I agree with you there). Regarding alumni, as you say the Embedded list guideline asks for consideration on whether lists are appropriate. This project has given such consideration to the specific case of school alumni, and for the reasons discussed above decided that lists are the best way to present all the notable alumni of a school. All the examples we have seen (including yours) do exactly that. The above guidance does suggest a summary, and does not ask for a list in this section if the comprehensive list is spun off into a separate article. (I would go further, discouraging a list in that situation.)

I also think that this guidance is more helpful if it is fairly self-contained and avoids directing people to general guidelines unnecessarily. As I see it, the function of project-level guidance like this is

to explain the general guidelines as applied to the specific case of school articles, and
where appropriate, to record project-level guidance on matters that are left open by those guidelines.

For example, this guidance (this paragraph and the Alumni section it points at) explains what Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people means in the case of lists of alumni, and gives the project view of when lists are appropriate for a specific type of article. Kanguole 12:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

In the current version of this project's guidelines there is no reference to WP:Embedded lists and no mention of the project's rationale for using bulleted lists against the MoS guidance. If this project feels that there is a strong case for using embedded lists, then that argument, with reference to WP:Embedded lists, should be on the guidance page, both for the benefit of project editors to be aware there is an issue, and for other people (such as GA reviewers) who are coming to check out why Schools articles are apparently not complying with MoS guidelines. SilkTork *^YES! 01:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I propose adding this at the start of #Style of entries:

The WP:Embedded list guideline invites consideration of whether information might be more appropriately presented in list or prose form. As the notable alumni of a school typically form an assorted group with little in common, describing all of them in prose would be clumsy. Unless there are very few notable alumni, lists are recommended as the most accessible way of presenting all of them. Adding a prose summary is encouraged, particularly if the list is split off as a separate article.

Kanguole 15:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I think that is very promising. However, "describing all of them in prose would be clumsy" appears to be an opinion - and one that is not totally accurate as there are prose overviews which work very well. A more plausible rationale, and one that fits within Wikipedia policy, is the notion that a prose overview might be considered WP:Original research. SilkTork *^YES! 20:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

We appear to be talking about different things. The above paragraph criticises prose for coverage of all the notable alumni of an institution, but you respond about overviews. Kanguole 00:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we are far apart. I think we are fairly close - talking about the same thing, but we have different approaches to it. I am trying to help here - you say "clumsy", and I say "might be considered WP:Original research". But we are talking about the same thing - the difficulty in writing about a disparate group of people. My suggestion is to use the existing guidelines and polices on Wikipedia to say pretty much the same thing. have a think about it. However, I'm not entirely convinced that it's that difficult to write in prose about people who have something notable and formative in common. SilkTork *^YES! 19:34, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

My point is that writing an overview is very different from describing all the alumni of a school. In an overview you can pick groups of related people and write engagingly about them. When covering them all, you have to deal with everything that is there. Thus Dartmouth College#Alumni is fairly readable because it is selective in this way, and it is able to be selective because the detail is in a list, namely List of Dartmouth College alumni. On the other hand, one could conceivably rewrite List of Dartmouth College alumni#Members of the United States Congress in prose, but I don't think anyone would want to read it. That is what I mean by "clumsy". I maintain the same is true if the number of alumni is not sufficient to justify a separate list article. In fact in such cases the individuals will have even less in common. Kanguole 19:59, 25 August 2009 (UTC)