Talk:List of international schools in Thailand

Shortening

I have removed those entries that didn't have a Wikipedia article. There's no point in simply duplicating the official list, and the list had in fact expanded beyond the official by about 20 entries. Not everything the government lists is inherently notable, and there's not much of a point in hiding the truly notable schools among the clutter. Huon (talk) 02:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Limiting the list to only blue links without actual vetting of notability isn't a good solution; there surely are many notable schools that don't yet have articles, and some schools with articles might not in fact pass the notability guideline. The list's function in this form will now only duplicate that of the already existing category. WP:LISTCOMPANY explicitly allows organisations to be included in list articles even if they don't individually meet the notability guideline, and a hundred-plus items isn't too large for an exhaustive list. I originally chose to make the list inclusive because (1) it's easily verifiable and non-arbitrary, unlike relying on random additions by Wikipedia editors, and (2) almost all international schools in Thailand are probably notable enough to survive AfD anyway (especially given the trends there regarding schools). --Paul_012 (talk) 05:26, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

Pinging Huon. I'm considering reverting the change. Contrary to your statement, I think there's plenty of reason to include a comprehensive list here, especially given the difficulty accessing the official list. Though I won't object if a clearer inclusion criteria was established, that isn't just the existence of an article. --Paul_012 (talk) 06:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Well, I hope you at least check that the list isn't more than comprehensive when you re-add entries. There were a few dozen more schools on the list than the source says exist. That's the disadvantage of these lists: They accumulate cruft. That said, I rather doubt the existence of a government list means that the list itself meets WP:LISTN; if the government published similar lists of, say, police stations or polling precincts, would we be justified in duplicating those lists on Wikipedia too? If not, what makes these schools special? Huon (talk) 21:33, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I understand your concerns. I'm actually against the creation of lists like this on Wikipedia. But since once created they're practically impossible to get deleted at AfD, at least they should be tidied up. --Paul_012 (talk) 08:13, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

2024

I previously explained the rationale for formatting this as a complete set list above. Policy-based reasons would be appreciated for changing the approach. As I noted in an edit summary, WP:CSC allows for "Short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group." --Paul_012 (talk) 01:35, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

@Huon and Paul 012: Apologies for re-removing without discussion in-between. I didn't see (or didn't remember) that someone had restored this long list of unsourced non-notable schools after the last time. Short, complete lists are for presidents, constitutional amendments, discographies, etc. Schools open and close all the time, accreditation is granted/revoked, etc. Some are non-profits, some are government-run, and some are just businesses. The "exhaustive" part of CSC isn't for lists of bands by genre, lists of businesspeople by alma mater, lists of word processing software, lists of houses in London, or lists of companies or organizations in a country (including schools). That's why we have WP:NOT. At minimum, if you're going to claim these exist and constitute a comprehensive list, you should be providing sources showing as much. I'm not typically the biggest stickler for WP:BURDEN, but when unsourced claims form the basis for a list's inclusion criteria, I think it should apply. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:53, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I should probably explain my thought process a bit more. I'm not actually against limiting list inclusion to a set of well-defined, non-arbitrary criteria, but while the notability guideline is a reasonable attempt at such criteria, I am not willing to accept the existence of a blue link as a proxy for notability. There are plenty of notable subjects that lack articles (especially in this part of the world), and there are those that probably aren't but so far have eluded AfD. A blue link only tells us that either good-faith editors have taken interest in the subject, or that the COI editors pushing the subject have been good enough to avoid detection. Basing a list's inclusion criteria on blue links alone will indirectly reward those who use promotional editing (that haven't been caught).

Ideally, a notability-based list would have each and every entry individually vetted for in-depth coverage in independent reliable sources. But that is an unrealistic amount of work that cannot be expected. It would also be a nightmare to maintain. So I see plain verifiability as a simpler and more viable alternative. I don't have time to re-check the current list just now, but the last time I did in October 2022, every entry that was not verified by the reference document was already flagged with the citation needed tag. --Paul_012 (talk) 08:56, 23 January 2024 (UTC)