Talk:Positive Expectation Policy

Notable

Edit summary on adding "notable" tag and the query from my talk page:

A school's code of conduct is generally unlikely be notable as a far as a general encyclopaedia goes. Provide WP:N by WP:Cite from WP:RS. 23:06, 10 December 2007 Davidruben (Talk)

Hello David,

In regards to the notability tag added to the article Positive Expectation Policy, I would like to ask for a more detailed explanation. I am relatively new to writing Wikipedia articles and had been under the impression that Wikipedia distinguishes itself from other encyclopedias because of its broad range of covered topics. I have read Wikipedia:Notability and am unsure of a course of action. Your help is much appreciated. Merry Christmas! OneElitePenguin (talk) 11:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The stages to confirm that the topic matter is notble are set out by Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline. This goes beyond merely confirming the veracity of the policy code as being that set by that school - for which one must WP:Cite from WP:Reliable sources in order to WP:Verify. Wikipedia does not include everything that is true, as topics must have some wider notablity. Clearly a school's behavioural policy is important to pupils, staff and parents associated with the school, but so are the number of buildings making up the school and, to be somewhat flippant, the location of fire exits. However that does not make these details of importance or relevance to wider society or therefore make them all worthy & appropriate to include in a general (allbeit very extensive) encyclopaedia. What is required are thirdy party references (ie not just direct links to the school's own website, propectus or code of practice) to establish that this code has been reported as notable. Suitable examples might be a turnaround in school discipline reported in national media (newspapers or TV) which mention the code as forming the basis for the improvement, or better still some government or regulatory body citing this school's policy as being an important development and held up as being "good practice" or even "best practice". Consider the difference between an otherwise unremarkable school infomation drive against drugs (important for those pupils but not outside of that) vs Nancy Regan's somewhat simplistic Just Say No which got huge amount of national US and international reporting. It was the reporting of her suggestion that was so notable, not particularly that the message was that different from what was advocated previously.

Please do ask further questions on this, but without supportive references to establish the notablity of this single school's policy, the article's contents probably only belong within the article on the school itself (ie merge the articles). David Ruben ^Talk 01:33, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, David. I will merge the contents of Positive Expectation Policy with Fort Street High School, as you suggested. However, I think I should still include a link to the Positive Expectation Policy (within Fort Street High School in PEP. Is this acceptable? Thank you for your time and support! OneElitePenguin (talk) 03:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Concur :-) Then edit this article to redirect to main article, thus: #REDIRECT [[Fort Street High School]] David Ruben ^Talk 03:37, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I have finished merging the articles together, and added the redirect as you suggested. Could you check the Fort Street High School article? I'm not certain if I should be using a numbered list for listing the guidelines - using subheadings would generate unnecessary links in the article's contents, but using the numbered list does make the source hard to read and seems to stand out like a sore thumb. Once again thanks for all your help :) OneElitePenguin (talk) 12:14, 21 December 2007 (UTC)