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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)
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)
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)
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Thanks. — Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Needs rescuing please. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
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 thought you might find this list interesting. - Jarry1250 ( t, c) 17:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
Two more pulled from the db-spam speedy deletion queue. - Dan Dank55 ( push to talk) 03:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Some copyright infringement, but the article creator is working with us. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
"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)
OK. Could you please suggest a revised wording in light of that? Alarics ( talk) 15:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Another question: when referring to statements in self-published materials(e.g.:the school's), is it necessary/appropriate to say
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
or
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)
Please consider what Jimbo has to say on the subject... The founder of wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is an inclusionist.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
An amendment based on Bulleted lists discussion:
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'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)
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:
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)
As an alternative suggestion, how about adding the following to the end of the section WP:WPSCHOOLS/AG#Separate_alumni_pages:
That would, for example, address this issue at the City of London School GAR. Kanguole 23:59, 16 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:
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 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:
New suggestion:
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)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. 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 | ← | Archive 15 | Archive 16 | Archive 17 | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 |
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)
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)
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)
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Thanks. — Headbomb { ταλκ κοντριβς – WP Physics} 09:52, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Needs rescuing please. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:52, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
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 thought you might find this list interesting. - Jarry1250 ( t, c) 17:01, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
Two more pulled from the db-spam speedy deletion queue. - Dan Dank55 ( push to talk) 03:17, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Some copyright infringement, but the article creator is working with us. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:43, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
"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)
OK. Could you please suggest a revised wording in light of that? Alarics ( talk) 15:14, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
Another question: when referring to statements in self-published materials(e.g.:the school's), is it necessary/appropriate to say
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 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)
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)
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)
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)
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:
or
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)
Please consider what Jimbo has to say on the subject... The founder of wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, is an inclusionist.
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)
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)
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)
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)
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)
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 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)
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)
An amendment based on Bulleted lists discussion:
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'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)
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:
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)
As an alternative suggestion, how about adding the following to the end of the section WP:WPSCHOOLS/AG#Separate_alumni_pages:
That would, for example, address this issue at the City of London School GAR. Kanguole 23:59, 16 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:
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 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:
New suggestion:
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)