I began this page with several hopes in mind. People with differing views will be able come together to discuss school related articles' futures in a forum dedicated to such articles. School article will be recognized as similar, and it won't depend on the week whether or not schools are deleted via VfD, as everyone knows there are more deletions of schools some weeks than others.
I think this proposal will be the best way of attacking this problem. Feel free to discuss and contribute. Nothing I initially wrote is set in stone by any means. I hope everyone will take this proposal seriously, discuss what Wikipedia's future in this matter will be, and of course treat each other with respect. Remember, we're all Wikipedians working in the best interests of Wikipedia. — siro χ o 13:54, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
I think that merging school stubs with their city articles is the best idea, but full articles about schools should certainly be permitted, as they grow within their city articles. The bigger and older the school, the more encyclopedic quality information they will merit. We cannot restrict a school to a two-sentence entry if there is more to be said. That said, we cannot bloat article about schools either, the information presented should truly add to the encyclopedic quality of the school article. If not enough information exists, (very little of note has happened) the school article should be restricted to its corresponding city article.
Some notable factors that add to the encyclopedic quality of a school article are circumstances of founding, circumstances of major expansions or moves, notable alumni, faculty or administration, large effects on their town and surrounding area, sports or academic teams that achieve state-wide recognition, unconventional academic philosophies or methods used by the school, awards given to the school, and of course events of significance relating to the school. Lastly, we should not blindly delete school articles via VfD, we should use a better evaluation policy (like the one proposed on the correpsonding project page). — siro χ o 13:54, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me that the single most useful thing we could do is to lay down criteria for what would make a school notable enough to merit inclusion.
So far, we seem to agree that:
Less clearly, one might propose that:
-- Jmabel | Talk 00:35, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
Agree entirely with older≠wiser. Nearly every school has affected tens or hundreds of thousands of lives, there's little issue of notability. The only firm requirement for notability per se is how notability is inherently connected to verifiability, and encyclopedic quality of the article. As Wikipedia is, indeed, not paper, something that is very important to the lives of tens of thousands of people seems to be quite deserving of as much of an article as it can produce. Be it a small mention on the city page or a full article. — siro χ o 08:08, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree so vehemently with the above two statements in terms of their implication for Wikipedia that there is no point in my attempting to work with either of you on this. The standard you are setting would also mean that every person in the world is of encyclopedic notability because thousands of people have met him or her; similarly every business, every product, and every web site. Seeing that this is your stance, I will take this page off of my watchlist and will oppose your effort to set up a separate VfD process for schools, since it is clear that you are simply trying to use this as a mechanism set up an extreme inclusionist policy in one particular subject-matter area. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:46, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
Following two comments copied from User talk:Jmabel, user talk:Siroxo:
Jmabel, I want to apologize for jumping on your comment about notability. I took it too far and replied with a blanket statement, which was unfair of me. I want to let you know that I am not plotting to make Wikipedia:School articles needing evaluation into some inclusionists' collection of nonverfiable substubs. My prime reasons for creating this page were to divert the hostility of VfD away from these school articles, and to give us a better way of evaluating them. I am against school (or any) substubs in principle, and would not advocate keeping them as such. In fact, I think that merging schools into their related city articles is probably the best idea for most school articles. I do, however, think that there are some very well written articles about schools, (ex. Moanalua High School, Saint Louis School). and I don't want vfd to make it impossible to achieve that. Lastly, I do not support inclusion of articles about all people who have met thousands of other people. A person who has not had a profound effect on all of those people, an effect that has a verifiable paper-trail and possiblility for an encyclopedic article, rarely deserves an article, if ever. I don't support including unverifiable advertisments about businesses, products and websites either. I merely want to be able to give better evaluation to school articles than VfD currently does. Hope that helps to clear stuff up. — siro χ o 01:45, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
Please provide any examples of good encyclopedic articles about normal schools which have have been in existance for at least 20 years to show what a good encyclopedic articles about schools could be like. Articles can be from Wikipedia or from any other source, on the web or off it. Jallan 02:36, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Here are two excllent examples of what school articles can become: Moanalua_High_School, Saint_Louis_School. Also, if there is not enough information to create a full encyclopedic article, the next best idea is to include information on the corresponding city page. The point of this policy is to help check and find facts to decide what should be done with each individual school article. If there aren't any verifiable facts, then we would not be able to include anything about it. — siro χ o 08:20, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
An interesting set of guidelines to what school articles should look like. Seems like a good set of guidelines. I don't think this project should take on such rigid standards, but its certainly something people contributing might like to be familiar with. — siro χ o 20:55, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
A place where you can check out the schools that have been up for debate for deletion. — Lowellian ( talk)[[]] 23:27, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
I am generally against merging school information into a city article. Too many schools per city, for one thing.
I think a good compromise could be "Schools of X". "X" could vary (city, state, etc.), depending on various factors.
Another possibility could be some type of two-tier system or "Wikischools." Wikischools could include any school; those that pass whatever bar is set could also go in the Wikipedia. Maurreen 18:46, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/School_articles_needing_evaluation. -- Woohookitty 06:36, 16 July 2005 (UTC)
I began this page with several hopes in mind. People with differing views will be able come together to discuss school related articles' futures in a forum dedicated to such articles. School article will be recognized as similar, and it won't depend on the week whether or not schools are deleted via VfD, as everyone knows there are more deletions of schools some weeks than others.
I think this proposal will be the best way of attacking this problem. Feel free to discuss and contribute. Nothing I initially wrote is set in stone by any means. I hope everyone will take this proposal seriously, discuss what Wikipedia's future in this matter will be, and of course treat each other with respect. Remember, we're all Wikipedians working in the best interests of Wikipedia. — siro χ o 13:54, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
I think that merging school stubs with their city articles is the best idea, but full articles about schools should certainly be permitted, as they grow within their city articles. The bigger and older the school, the more encyclopedic quality information they will merit. We cannot restrict a school to a two-sentence entry if there is more to be said. That said, we cannot bloat article about schools either, the information presented should truly add to the encyclopedic quality of the school article. If not enough information exists, (very little of note has happened) the school article should be restricted to its corresponding city article.
Some notable factors that add to the encyclopedic quality of a school article are circumstances of founding, circumstances of major expansions or moves, notable alumni, faculty or administration, large effects on their town and surrounding area, sports or academic teams that achieve state-wide recognition, unconventional academic philosophies or methods used by the school, awards given to the school, and of course events of significance relating to the school. Lastly, we should not blindly delete school articles via VfD, we should use a better evaluation policy (like the one proposed on the correpsonding project page). — siro χ o 13:54, Oct 30, 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me that the single most useful thing we could do is to lay down criteria for what would make a school notable enough to merit inclusion.
So far, we seem to agree that:
Less clearly, one might propose that:
-- Jmabel | Talk 00:35, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
Agree entirely with older≠wiser. Nearly every school has affected tens or hundreds of thousands of lives, there's little issue of notability. The only firm requirement for notability per se is how notability is inherently connected to verifiability, and encyclopedic quality of the article. As Wikipedia is, indeed, not paper, something that is very important to the lives of tens of thousands of people seems to be quite deserving of as much of an article as it can produce. Be it a small mention on the city page or a full article. — siro χ o 08:08, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
I disagree so vehemently with the above two statements in terms of their implication for Wikipedia that there is no point in my attempting to work with either of you on this. The standard you are setting would also mean that every person in the world is of encyclopedic notability because thousands of people have met him or her; similarly every business, every product, and every web site. Seeing that this is your stance, I will take this page off of my watchlist and will oppose your effort to set up a separate VfD process for schools, since it is clear that you are simply trying to use this as a mechanism set up an extreme inclusionist policy in one particular subject-matter area. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:46, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)
Following two comments copied from User talk:Jmabel, user talk:Siroxo:
Jmabel, I want to apologize for jumping on your comment about notability. I took it too far and replied with a blanket statement, which was unfair of me. I want to let you know that I am not plotting to make Wikipedia:School articles needing evaluation into some inclusionists' collection of nonverfiable substubs. My prime reasons for creating this page were to divert the hostility of VfD away from these school articles, and to give us a better way of evaluating them. I am against school (or any) substubs in principle, and would not advocate keeping them as such. In fact, I think that merging schools into their related city articles is probably the best idea for most school articles. I do, however, think that there are some very well written articles about schools, (ex. Moanalua High School, Saint Louis School). and I don't want vfd to make it impossible to achieve that. Lastly, I do not support inclusion of articles about all people who have met thousands of other people. A person who has not had a profound effect on all of those people, an effect that has a verifiable paper-trail and possiblility for an encyclopedic article, rarely deserves an article, if ever. I don't support including unverifiable advertisments about businesses, products and websites either. I merely want to be able to give better evaluation to school articles than VfD currently does. Hope that helps to clear stuff up. — siro χ o 01:45, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)
Please provide any examples of good encyclopedic articles about normal schools which have have been in existance for at least 20 years to show what a good encyclopedic articles about schools could be like. Articles can be from Wikipedia or from any other source, on the web or off it. Jallan 02:36, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Here are two excllent examples of what school articles can become: Moanalua_High_School, Saint_Louis_School. Also, if there is not enough information to create a full encyclopedic article, the next best idea is to include information on the corresponding city page. The point of this policy is to help check and find facts to decide what should be done with each individual school article. If there aren't any verifiable facts, then we would not be able to include anything about it. — siro χ o 08:20, Oct 31, 2004 (UTC)
An interesting set of guidelines to what school articles should look like. Seems like a good set of guidelines. I don't think this project should take on such rigid standards, but its certainly something people contributing might like to be familiar with. — siro χ o 20:55, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
A place where you can check out the schools that have been up for debate for deletion. — Lowellian ( talk)[[]] 23:27, Nov 7, 2004 (UTC)
I am generally against merging school information into a city article. Too many schools per city, for one thing.
I think a good compromise could be "Schools of X". "X" could vary (city, state, etc.), depending on various factors.
Another possibility could be some type of two-tier system or "Wikischools." Wikischools could include any school; those that pass whatever bar is set could also go in the Wikipedia. Maurreen 18:46, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/School_articles_needing_evaluation. -- Woohookitty 06:36, 16 July 2005 (UTC)