User talk:DGG/Archive 0.53

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2011

Thoughts on a "high school" A7

As I am, of course, well aware following my RfA, CSD A7 explicitly exempts schools. Do you believe that it applies to "online" schools; specifically, Denver Online High School? I just removed the speedy deletion template, though I'm not really sure it qualifies for the exception. Looking at their webpage (just added as an EL to the article), it looks like they probably are real, and seem at least somewhat connected to the Denver public school system (though they also seem to charge fees, which confuses me). If the are operated by the State, then they probably even meet the general "All high schools are automatically notable" AfD exemption.

Obviously, the article needs clean-up, but I'd rather wait and see if it should even be an article before doing so. Qwyrxian (talk) 05:01, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

This is indeed a public school, though private high schools are just as notable as public ones. (I don't see a mention of fees, but most public schools do collect some sort of fee, and almost all charge tuition to students from outside their district.) The article however was totally unacceptable--mainly devoted to the names of the teachers. I removed that, but there is still much necessary rewriting. The real question for an online school at this or any level would be whether it is actually a separate school, or merely a program--we cannot necessarily go by the name it calls itself. If a program, it would best go in the article for the Denver Board of Education. My feeling is that it an actual separate school, but for something like this, a 3rd party reference will be really helpful. What it clearly is not is a mere tutoring center or support facility, which are almost never notable. DGG ( talk ) 05:31, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

That all sounds very reasonable to me; I figured erring on the side of caution (removing the A7) was the better choice. Thanks for the trimming; I'll go take a look and see if I can find any sort of third party sources. Qwyrxian (talk) 06:07, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Notability of high schools

Hi -- I hope you have been well. I seem to recall, and have stated (or mis-stated, as the case may be) that I thought you may have said in the past that (verifiable) high schools are generally presumptively notable. But, in the event I've mis-spoken as to what you said, feel free to correct me. I made mention of my recollections at an AfD where I've not myself !voted (as of yet), here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mesivta Tiferes Yisroel. Best.--Epeefleche (talk) 09:37, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

such is the accepted compromise: high schools have articles, elementary schools in the absence of special notability get merged. But the compromise , like all informal and formal Wikipedia rules, has effect only as long as people here want it to have effect. I think recent decisions have upheld this in general, but there are always one or two people who challenge it. Such is probably the case here,There may be other factors, though, which I mention them at the AfD. DGG ( talk ) 16:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Contesting speedy deletion of The Linden School entry

Hello;

I am a high school teacher at The Linden School, a girl's school in Toronto, and have been working with the grade 11 & 12 media studies course to create an entry for our school. This assignment arose from a podcast we heard about the gender disparity in Wikipedia contributors. We have had many discussions about informative vs. marketing language, and the girls have looked at the Wikipedia articles for similar local private schools like Bishop Strachan, Havergal and Branksome hall for tone, layout and citation. We were ready to finish the work today only to see that it has been speedily deleted.

We're hoping that you could please reinstate our article. They have worked very hard with the English teacher to keep the language as unbiased as possible, but if there are any examples you can give otherwise, we will of course change it.

Thank you for your time. --Kgoodale (talk) 18:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see, it hasn't been deleted.

In the meantime, the bad news is that most school articles on Wikipedia are not good examples to imitate! (For example, there are more than ten thousand articles covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools that have never got past "Stub" status, as compared with only a few dozen that have reached "Good article" or better. Chances are, other similar schools in your locality are amongst the ten thousand.)

This first link is probably already on the article now, but take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines, and possibly take a look at the way some B-class school articles are laid out, phrased and referenced, alternatively an example of a secondary school article that has reached the heights of Featured Article is The Judd School. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 19:55, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I restored it immediately I read the request, though I'm just posting this message now. I apologize for deleting it, for it was in fact fixable. It however needs considerable work--it is nowhere ready.

Statements like " Linden believes in a feminist pedagogy and focuses on female-centric leaning" need sources--presumably it's the school motto or something of the sort and can be quoted as such. The section on "Acknowledgements" is inappropriate. Convert the quotations into references to statements about the school. Remove unsourced statements of praise. Avoid all vague terms of praise--in fact, try to use as few adjectives as possible. Include only material that would be of interest to a general reader coming across the mention of the school and wanting the sort of information that would be found in an encyclopedia. Do not include material that would be of interest only to those associated with the school, or to prospective pupils--that sort of content is considered promotional. Do not include the names of individual teacher, Keep in mind that the goal of an encyclopedia is to say things in a concise manner, which is not the style of press releases or web sites, which are usually more expansive. Try to put the information into paragraphs, not lists.

There is great difficulty in writing a really good article on a recently established school, because the usual topics that warrant extensive discussion, the history, the architecture, the famous former students, are not generally applicable. If there are already any former students who have a WP article, add a section linking to their articles. The article Demiurge mentions is a good article, but that;s because there's an extensive history to discuss, & thearticle is almost exclusively devoted to discussing the history. It cannot really serve as a usable example in an ordinary case.

There is some basic information missing: the number of students (and its growth from the beginning) , the name of the current Head, the basic physical facilities--it mentions a building, but of what size--what athletics facilities does it use? It is usual to indicate the % of graduates who go on to university, & it is not out of place to try to indicate the quality of the universities. :We have a formal program for assisting you. But since, I've begun, Ill continue. I 've asked the 2 editors of this articles who have enabled their email to email me, but the person I 'd normally work with is the instructor..

More generally, I agree that most articles on non-historic UK schools are pretty bad, even within the limitations. For lack of other things to discuss, there is usually extensive treatment of the uniform, the details of the house system, the exact curriculum, and sometimes the school hours. None of this is of any real relevance except to the students and their parents or prospective students. (US schools have similar but not identical problems) I only deleted this article because it was considerably worse than even our usual.

DGG ( talk ) 20:33, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

An example of a specialist school founded in 2004 that (just barely) made it to Good Article status is Pathlight School. It may be more useful as an example because it's much shorter than just about any other GA-class or even B-class school article that I've seen. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 13:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

• After that fuss it's interesting to notice that the article appears not to have been edited since 3 November except by long-established Wikipedians (ie not by anyone from the school) and reflects badly on the school's attention to detail and spelling - I've refrained from correcting "puilding", "conudcted" and "Extra-cirriculars", though I mentioned them on the talk page, as the girls are supposed to have been working so hard on the project! Ah well. PamD 23:52, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Inherent notability for elementary schools which have been "Blue Ribbon Schools"

I am contacting you because you participated in either the AFD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Kennedy Middle School (Cupertino, California) which resulted in a redirect or the deletion review Wikipedia:Deletion review#Kennedy Middle School (Cupertino, California) which resulted in restoration of the article because it was once a "Blue Ribbon School". I have opened a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (organizations and companies)#US elementary schools: Inherent notability: for "Blue Ribbon Schools" as to whether the 5200 schools which have been found awarded the "Blue Ribbon" seal of approval get inherent notability, or if they each have to satisfy WP:ORG via significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources. Your input is welcome. Thanks! Edison (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

P.S. Should I have made this a "RFC?" I rarely get involved in such general policy forums. Edison (talk) 19:34, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

the way we've been doing it recently, it would best be to be made an RfC. But it should not be worded "inherent notability " but "presumption of notability", and, personally, though I care relatively little for these articles one way or another, I do care to maintain the existing compromise, because it protects the high school articles, about which I do care: I don't care about the articles per se, but on having topics for new editors. It is not realistic for most elementary school pupils to be able to handle Wikipedia editing well, but ti is realistic for high school students. These days I care more about helping new editors get started than I care about any article. DGG ( talk ) 22:31, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

High schools

You may be interested in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools#RfC Mock-up. TerriersFan (talk) 02:25, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

2012

Lansing Middle School

I PRODded this to give the original editor a week to come up with something "notable" about the school to save it from deletion (in the expectation, perhaps over-optimistic, that the deleting admin would make the redirect you suggest). By removing the PROD it's now just sitting there - a hopeless stub, as it doesn't even tell us what country the school is in - though from the editor's other contributions it appears to be in Kansas, USA. Having come across it while stub-sorting, what should I have done? Just redirect straight away (after researching to find Lansing Unified School District to which to point it)? Just walk away after stub-sorting as "school", place unidentified, and hope that someone else falls over it later? I often drop a note on the editor's page in a case like this, to point out that we need to know what country and city it's in rather than just the street address, as this is an international encyclopedia, though I don't seem to have done so this time.

I would think that making it into a redirect immediately would be more offputting to the newby editor than PRODding it for a week's consideration.

Perhaps we need either:

• a new template of PROD/REDIRECT, with a parameter for the target, so that an article can be proposed to be converted into a redirect if not improved/objected to within a week?
• a new CSD category for non-notable primary/elementary/middle school? (How to define non-secondary school across cultures might be an interesting question, given different ages, educational pathways, etc, when you think UK/US/Europe/sub-saharan Africa etc)

PamD 08:07, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, how to handle these is a problem, part of the more general problem of how to work with articles from first-time good faith contributors that will nevertheless be unacceptable because of our established guidelines and practices. There are only a few real answers:

1. What we can do now without changing our policies is explain to them individually, speaking personally & informally, and help them merge the content if at all possible , and work with it there, or suggest other things for them to work on and guide them in it. This takes time and skill both with Wikipedia and with helping young or naïve people,and the willingness to make the necessary effort. . (I think I have the skill and willingness, I do not generally have the time for more than a few such efforts a day. As far as I can tell the combined time of everyone here who has the skill and desire to use it would not really be sufficient, unless we did nothing else)
2. We could modify our guidelines to accept more readily the articles such beginners are likely to write. In the case of schools, it would mean adopting a guideline to accept well written articles on primary and intermediate schools (and possibly other institutions such as police departments and libraries) even though they have not really met the requirements of WP:LOCAL. I would support such an effort (it means changing my long-standing restrictive view of notability for local institutions , but I would be willing to do it, for our need to attract and retain young users is more important in the long run than accepting things which are less than encyclopedic. However, I think it very unlikely that this would gain community consensus.
3. What I suggest as a long-term solution is a Wikipedia Two - an encyclopedia supplement where the standard of notability is much relaxed, but which will be different from Wikia by still requiring WP:Verifiability, and WP:NPOV. It would include the lower levels of barely notable articles in Wikipedia, and the upper levels of a good deal of what we do not let in. It would for example include both high schools and elementary schools. It would include college athletes. It would include political candidates. It would include neighborhood businesses, and fire departments. It would include individual asteroids. It would include anyone who had a credited role in a film, or any named character in one--both the ones we currently leave out, and the ones we put in. This should satisfy both the inclusionists and the deletionists. The deletionists will have this material out of Wikipedia, the inclusionists will have it not rejected. And beginners would have a place to work and to learn.

Returning to this specific case, what one should do at present about an individual article

1. Since we almost always redirect or merge primary and intermediary schools there is no point in a CSD category for them. Unless the can not be shown to be real, they are almost never deleted.
2. However, we very rarely make articles for them either, so encourage contributors to work on them is not going to be in the end helpful for them--they will do a good deal of work, and then the article will get deleted.
3. There is, I think, practical consensus about what level is a high school and what is below it. A high school prepares for college or university, or the sort of job a person would get at that age. Anything that stops at an earlier level is an elementary or intermediate school. This seems to deal with most of the practical problems.
4. Your suggestion of a PROD/REDIRECT template is a good one. It would make it much easier patrolling prods if people suggested this initially. It is not a complex change: they could be dealt with as part of the Prod list without a separate process. The main difficulty is that it often should be a merge of a small quantity of content, not a redirect, but a merge takes considerably more time than a Prod.

Normally, even now, I do treat Prods in this manner, and at least suggest the redirect target. My excuse this time is my usual one: I was too rushed--there are only 3 or 4 people who regularly patrol prods, and there were an exceptional number of prods to deal with this week, because of a very large batch of almost exclusively unjustified prods from a single otherwise excellent editor (who has now understood the problem & is taking a wiki-break from at least deletion process), And I realized, actually, that it would take a little work to find the right target. Thanks for doing it. Deletion process can be seen as a 3 way, not 2 step process: the person who marks for deletion, the person who decides, and the person who follows up. DGG ( talk ) 17:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm still not clear what I should have done in this case - boldly redirect (having researched to find where to redirect to, and then tweak that target page so it no longer links to what is now a redirect), or label with {{notability}}, or PROD it as I did! (In each case leaving a personalised note on the editor's talkpage). No solution seems ideal, but I feel that having come across it at stub-sorting it would be a waste to let it just pass by with no claim for notability and in an inherently un-notable category. PamD 22:17, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Speedy Deletion of language schools

This page should not be speedily deleted because... (the exception to A7 is educational institutions which it is; also other language schools are listed in wikipedia such as Mackdonald Language Academy which has no content at all other than "Mackdonald Language Academy is a language school in Kilkenny, Ireland." ACUPARI also have no references and there are many schools like that and I can provide other examples as well. Moreover, unlike some language school it is not an orphan such as EasyMandarin or such as Empik, Emanci Language Institute, Keary Portuguese School, etc. Hong Kong Institute of Languages has a box saying it is an orphan and this article appears to be written like an advertisement. Please help to improve it by rewriting promotional content from a neutral point of view, so I would also like to be able to list the school and if there is some problem fix the content so that it is a neutral point of view. I would like some time to be able to create references, etc so please restore my page so I can do that such as for example the school has participated with the Russian government in programs in Italy and also as taking part in other government programs in foreign countries, and the school was involved in implementing government programs in countries in Europe. The school also regularly participates in seminars and conferences and has won the Dante Alighieri prize, etc. user jeonjubibimbap(talk)

whether institutions called schools that are not actually degree-granting or certificate-granting schools can be speedy deleted by a7 is a matter of some difficulty. The problem is determining exactly the nature of the institution, because names do not always clearly define this. I have speedy-deleted tutoring institutes via a7; some few of them are notable, but if there's no indication of this, the assumption is fairly safe that they are not. Something called a "language school" can be of many different types--in most cases it's primarily a tutoring institute.

The article in question here was Ruslanguage. From the article, it offers ""Intensive, part time, evening and individual courses are offered as well as corporate language training. " I do not consider this a school in the sense of a7, and iI deleted it according. Were it a school that primarily ran group classes or offered a certificate I would instead have used Prod. . If you think you can show it's notable, write an article with some references in user space, and I will move it back to mainspace. DGG ( talk ) 23:08, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

And I thank you for listing the other problems you found. If they are as weak articles as you indicate, they won't be here much longer. DGG ( talk ) 23:16, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my questions. I will write an article with some references and include notable people in my user space. My intention for pointing out other articles was not to criticize them but merely to find a good language school that I could model my page after as I thought since those schools were already on wikipedia and some for quite a while, it meant they had acceptable pages. Thanks again for your help in what makes an acceptable article and I appreciate the time you spent on my article as well as the time you spent on wikipedia. Now that I've starting creating and modifying articles, etc. I am starting to understand a bit of all the hard work that goes on to make wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeonjubibimbap (talk • contribs) 06:29, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

2013

Worthington City Schools Distinguished Alumni

You have tagged my page for speedy deletion Worthington City Schools Distinguished Alumni is the page. I am the owner of http://jenijeni.tripod.com and am the author of the text in question. If you look at the talk page for WCS Distinguished Alumni, you will see that I have already filed this information with WP and was told to post the OTRS notice on the talk page. Could you please remove the speedy deletion tag or tell me how I may contest it?? Thank you, Jennifer Bynes, aka Jeni Bynes, aka Jenijeni, aka jenibynes. 02:21, 15 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jenibynes (talk • contribs)

Not exactly. The way we deal with these situations is exceptionally and outrageously complicated, and it is perfectly reasonable that you should have gotten confused. It was tagged by another editor for deletion; you sent the email, but it has not yet been acted on. I therefore stopped the deletion, and replaced the visible contents of the page with the standard message saying that it should not be deleted until the matter was resolved. The original contents is visible in the page history for now, and when the ORTSteam that works on these places the required permission certification on the talk page, they will restore the contents from the history.

However, I explained to you on the talk page why I think this contents cannot possibly make a Wikipedia article in the current form. Many of the individuals do not meet our standards for notability, and the ones that do are covered or should be covered in individual articles--we do not use combination articles of this nature. You can add some of the material from that page to the individual pages or use them to make new pages--include the OTRS number that they will place on the present page on the talk pages where you add the material.

But there are two remaining problems: first, the material on their careers has to be sourced by references to references providing substantial coverage from 3rd party independent published reliable sources, print or online, but not blogs or press releases, or material derived from press releases. Your page, or the school's page, does not do this: newspaper or magazine articles or the like are needed. Second, did you yourself personally write the material on that web page, or did you take it from another source, such as the schools's web site or other material? If you did, you do not own it and cannot give the permission. All in all, it would probably be better to simply use the material for information on the people--but remember, neither your web page nor what the school may have published is a suitable reference for it. You might want to take at look at WP:BIO and the pages to which it refers. DGG ( talk ) 02:38, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Singapore primary schools

Looking for somewhere to where to merge De La Salle School, Singapore, I found the recently-created (Dec 2012) List of primary schools in Singapore - but every school in it has a link, as the creator of the list apparently believed every primary school would/should have an article. Some few of them already have articles. Should someone mention it to the list creator, and/or unlink the redlinks? PamD 22:23, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Right, this sort of thing is a recurrent problem, when the normal step would be merge/redirect but the article that needs to be redirected or merged to had not yet been created. I agree with you that using List of primary schools... would not be a good idea, because such lists are normally used only for those individual items that are notable enough for WP articles.

the question now is where to make the redirects: the question is whether there is something corresponding to a school district. Alternatively, for religiously sponsored schools, or those in some other special association, we've sometimes used that as the redirect target. I see the Ministry of Education page Singapore Primary Schools by Planning Area which could be used to construct such page. (sometimes a religious or type separation is more feasible. In some countries, it's been possible to group LaSalle schools, but this seems to be the only one.)

For the moment, the simplest thing to do seems to move the page to Primary schools in Singapore, which I have done; but rather than nominate them individually for redirection/deletion, & probably get into the multiple consequent battles, I agree with you that we'd better discuss the problem with the article creator. Could you try to explain to them. I'll take a look also. DGG ( talk ) 23:14, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I've now redirected the stub to the main article, adding the one snippet of novel information (founded 1952: it also claimed to have been founded, that year, by someone who died in 1719, so I quietly dropped that wording!), and unlinked the school on that page. I've left a note on the page of the creator of the list page.

Clicking a couple of random bluelinked schools from the list I've found an AfD, and Concord Primary School which has a 5 year page history! PamD 08:30, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

And Maha Bodhi School which beats that with a 7 year page history, and is "an extremely cool school that many admire for the extremely good teachers". PamD 08:30, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

(talk page stalker)Sorry to intrude. If you're looking to create articles for schools in Singapore by planning area (or something mopre accurate), I've been working on a couple of articles that describe school regions, such as what you're intending to do, Pam. You're welcome to take a look at User:Danjel/Botany Bay Network, User:Danjel/Georges River Network User:Danjel/Inner City Network. User:Danjel/Inner West Network, User:Danjel/Network 8, User:Danjel/Port Hacking Network, User:Danjel/Port Jackson Network, and User:Danjel/Woronora River Network, which are my work(s)-in-progress (halted for a moment, because there are some impending changes to the organisational structure that I'm waiting on). Of course, any feedback would definitely be appreciated also (feedback from DGG would also be welcome). ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 01:52, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

someonewho knows the local system is exactly what is needed to do these right! (one factor to keep in mind is thatthere's no real advantage in using too narrow areas with just 2 or 3 schools in each--some US districts are constructed in such a way to have only 1 high school and its feeder schools, and I'm not not sure it's helpful. But since there's an advantage in a standardized approach, I wouldn't suggest changing it. Singapore, of course, is administratively unique, so there's no reason not to use whatever is most reasonable there. DGG ( talk ) 03:01, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I'm not "intending" to do anything further with Singapore schools - I have no particular interest in either Singapore or schools, just got involved when I unwisely PRODded a non-notable primary school which happened to be in Singapore while stub-sorting! (Having moved another school from the base name, sorted out its incoming links, created a dab page at the base name, etc). PamD 10:15, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Schools

Thanks for the advice on elementary/middle schools. What should I have done instead? M&R myself, or what's the best way to tag those things for an admin to take care of it? Woodshed (talk) 21:55, 29 January 2013 (UTC)

Be bold. M&R. But see a little above above for a query by PamD that raises the problem of what to do when there isn't a suitable page. DGG ( talk ) 00:56, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

2015

Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ibn_Sina_Medical_College_(2nd_nomination)

Interested in your thoughts here, if you like. Jytdog (talk) 21:21, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

For my first 2 years here, I helped establish the principle that every institution of higher education is to be considered notable; ever since then, for the following 6 years, I have successfully defended it. It is almost never even challenged, which is more than I can say for most of our guidelines. (there are sometimes exceptions for unaccredited institutions whose real existence is not all that clear, but that doesn't apply here) DGG ( talk ) 22:43, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand why you did that, but congrats for setting a policy-in-practice! I have withdrawn the AfD (in word only at the AfD - I don't know how to formally do that) If you like, I would be interested in hearing your rationale - not to argue, just to learn. Jytdog (talk) 23:18, 11 July 2015 (UTC)

The argument I made is that if one searches carefully enough, especially for potentially notable alumni, it is possible to meet the GNG for high schools and colleges most of the time, depending on the usual argument over whether sources are sufficiently substantial, etc. It would also be possible to show this for elementary schools a good deal of the time. The results in practice depended on how hard they are argued and searched for more than anything about the school itself, and have an equal amount of error in each direction. Every last one of them was at the time argued, and we therefore spent a good deal of effort at AfD, without getting any more precise results than if we accepted all the high schools and rejected the elementary schools. (Most of the discussions were for high schools; it is accepted as being all the more true for colleges.) As a compromise, it was accepted that high schools and up were notable, but primary schools would not ordinarily be notable. We therefore avoided about 10 afds a day without adversely affecting the encyclopedia. Everyone, thse arguing in both directions, realised things were better that way.

As contributing factors for the acceptance of the result, was the general view that they were appropriate for the encyclopedia considering the interests of our writers and readers; that there was limited opportunity for spam; & that they were good articles for young beginners. It's essentially the same argument by which settled geographic places are notable, but not necessarily unsettled geographic features. Both of them have proven very stable compromises.

They rely on the notion of presumed notability as a concession to those who thing the GNG the main factor. I do not, personally think it ought to be, and I have supported every effort to set a demarcation line based on something intrinsic to the subject. There are stable similar compromises for many types of athletics, for popular music, for astronomical objects, for academics, for scientific journals, for government officials , for some types of local institutions, for national vs subnational associations, etc. I don't agree with the demarcation lines in some of them, but I support all of the compromises. I consider the GNG to reflect the bias of the internet, and that if we really worked at finding sources we could make nonsense out of it.

The entire rationale for a notability standard at all is a little shaky, as compared to most of our other rules. The original rationale is so we look like what people expect an encyclopedia to look like. This was extremely important in the beginning , when people already had an expectation based on the print encyclopedias they knew, and it was necessary to establish ourselves as a serious project. The better reason is that lowering the bar too far leads us to become an advertising medium. It is much easier to control what we have an article on, than to control the content of articles. If we are more or less inclusive, we're still an encycopedia ; if we accept advertising as articles, there's little point in existing, because the internet does as well by itself. DGG ( talk ) 00:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to write all that, that all makes sense. The only argument I would have, is the "limited opportunity for spam" thing. A good chunk of COI stuff I deal with (I won't hazard a guess on the percentage, but it is not insignificant) is raw academic boosterism - maybe the state of higher ed today would call for an examination of the assumption? I do hear you on cutting down on un-necessary AfDs - there is great value to that. Jytdog (talk) 00:25, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

I've said it all before :). As for promotionalism: I was thinking primarily of high schools, where the sort of promotionalism in their articles is usually trivial to remove, and goes as soon as someone notices it. Colleges are much more of a problem.especially because so few of us even occasionally try to clean them up (except that there are now consistent efforts to remove non-notable alumni) Almost every US college & university article on WP is written by PR staff, except the few written by over-enthusiastic alumni. The alumni are worse: just like all fans, they don't give up. The PR staff are usually local PR staff, who are generally incompetent as compared to the people who work in industry. They follow a standard pattern, which is remarkably similar to the one-page descriptions in college guides. I don't know if there are people training them, or whether they copy each other.

I hadn't seen the boosterism essay you linked to--thanks!. I think I'll add to it. I also added a little to WP:College and university article guidelines.

I've decided to check some of the university FAs, to make sure we aren't specifying well-written but promotional articles as examples. DGG ( talk ) 03:14, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

2016

WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES compromise

Hi,

I've seen in a few places you've mentioned WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (or the idea behind its practical use) as "the compromise". It sounds like there's some backstory there that I don't have.

To me, just seeing that description, it seems like the opposite of a compromise. In other words, who is it a compromise between? If it's between those who want to apply WP:N to school articles and those who do not -- or between those who believe sources always exist for schools and those who do not -- then it seems to fall squarely on one side. A huge number of AfD debates could go either way depending on participation and tenacity, but we don't say "this side is always right from now on" without there actually being consensus for a guideline to that effect doesn't sit right. Am I missing something? Maybe what I'm missing is just all the drama that led to the rule in the first place -- that if I went through that I, too, would breathe a sigh of relief even if a sort of IAR guideline-not-guideline was required? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 01:49, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

User_talk:Rhododendrites, it is a compromise between those who wanted all schools to be notable, primary schools included, and those who wanted to limit even secondary schools by whether or not there were practically findable references to meet the GNG guideline. Back in the days before the compromise when I was new here (2006-2008) , I and a few others routinely defended every elementary school article, on the basis that it was significant to the community, and that if one had access to the local sources, one could always find references significantly discussing the planning and construction and zoning of the school. Additionally, quite a few of even the primary schools had two or more notable alumni and these would usually lead to coverage also. the arguments over whether the references were substantial were dependent mainly on how hard people argued, and there were at that time some really radical broad inclusionists way beyond anything contemplated nowadays, who were willing to argue very hard indeed. There were, correspondingly, some very radical deletionists (or more exactly, narrow-inclusion proponents), who at times were defining substantial to mean that the subject had to be the main point of the reference, and unless two entire substantial magazine articles or books were written about a subject, we shouldn't cover it. The effort needed for arguing about a single school could mean hours of work for half a dozen people. AfD decisions those days were really erratic.

At that time, I felt WP should be very comprehensive with respect to local notability, partly because of the readers, partly because it was a good place for beginning writers. I changed my mind about this over the last few years, because too many local institution, both non-=profit and business, were being used for promotion, and I came to realize as I became more involved with paid editing problems, that this factor was the most important. (Schools are very easy to remove promotion from, without the need for actual rewriting, and the amount of vandalism there used to be ton those articles is much less with the edit filter.)

You see, Notability is deliberately not a policy, because we can really set the dividing line anywhere we please. We make the encyclopedia , we make the rules, we can include in it what ever there is consensus for. This is a new kind of encyclopedia , and we're not limited by what used to be the limits of paper,or the convention that an encyclopedia was mainly an academic reference. It doesn't much matter if we have articles on relatively trivial subjects, as long as we can keep out the really dangerous content, which is promotionalism and POV writing.

I do feel that using the GNG for a dividing line is absurd--it was a really stupid guideline in the first place, because it made inclusion depend upon the practical availability of certain particular kinds of references to the sort of writers we have. We are limited by Verifiability, and that gives an unavoidable bias in some areas, but we shouldn't add to it. I have always thought any rational meaning of notability is a function of the subject, not of the references.

I also feel that consistency matters: people should be able to predict what they are likely to find in the encyclopedia, both what type of subject, and what type of coverage. This is very difficult to achieve with our method of decision making, but fortunately the range of variation is smaller than it used to be. One of the reasons it matters is to give a impression that the encyclopedia is prepared by serious people who know what they're doing. There are other practical compromises of this sort. One is PROF, which as applied means we cover all full professors (Though rank is not part of the formal guideline, the decisions in practice follow the full vs. associate line very closely.) I think this is the wrong cut-off, and it should include all tenured faculty at universities, including the Associate professors. I could give along argument why, and in my early years here I gave a great many. I usually lost, however, and I decided it was more practical to make sure we did cover the notable full professors at least. And in practice we reached agreement on that, and consequently AfDs on researchers are quite predictable--and quite rare. In other fields too: I would include many more academic journals than we do, but again, I thought better to accept a median position where we predictably kept the ones in major indexes.

It is better to have a clean compromise rule than to argue. This goes at least for everything that is not a fundamental moral principle. The only policy here I consider truly of that nature is NOT CENSORED. DGG ( talk ) 05:15, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

In short, Rhododendrites, notability for schools was in fact an idea originally seeded by our founder. Over the years, and even longer than the 7 years I've been a coordinator of the WP:WPSCH, this principle has been loosely applied as documented at OUTCOMES. There have been a geat many debates on the subject and even near-vandalism scale attempts to batch delete school articles through AfD. Neverteless, while not one single one of the debates reached a consensus one way or another, at AfD High Schools continue to be retained and non notable Primary Schools are redirected to their school district article or locality. In the meantime, as this is now supported by literally thousands of such closures, we can assume a tacit consensus for the current practice. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:36, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to go into detail. I indeed misread what the "compromise" is/was between. This is a more well reasoned way of framing the position than I've seen lately, when arguments have been dominated by demands that tradition take precedence over notability guidelines without going much further than that. I see granting ~"inherent notability" to a subject as a huge deal -- and if there is consensus for it to be so, then it's crucial it exist in the form of a policy or guideline rather than as informal understanding or tradition (I'm sure we could get into a number of discussions about the merits and problems with rules vs. traditions in the context of Wikipedia...).

While some who were part of the conversations leading to the compromise (and others) take it for granted, many others (myself included) take for granted that notability applies to every article unless modified, qualified, or exempted through some other policy or guideline -- because that's how it works for almost everything else (I can't think of an exemption as broad as secondary schools that is likewise uncodified somewhere). I agree that it's important for notability to remain a guideline. There's too much variability, too much subjectivity, too many other guidelines that modify it, and too great a need for judgment in exceptional cases. But providing a broad, [practically] beyond discussion exemption is just the sort of thing guidelines like the subject-specific criteria are there for.

Having read a great number of arguments on the subject now, I think I'm sufficiently persuaded to fall on the "support" side of adding it to a guideline should it be proposed, but until that happens I still see it as highly problematic to point to a descriptive essay to shut down discussion, asking for it to be treated as a prescriptive guideline. That's why I appreciate your rationale here, because it's not simply presented as WP:OUTCOMES -- a collection of noted trends that perpetuate themselves by their being wielded as an absolute rule.

In other words, your points are well taken. The problem is WP:OUTCOMES. I can't imagine those who support the notability of schools find it an ideal representation of consensus on the subject, either. I feel like I get the compromise, but if good will among the community was part of the reason for it, I think that the further we get from the date of that agreement, the more conflict and confusion the present arrangement will generate. Based on the above, I'd suggest you be one of those involved in drafting whatever RfC would address the problem? (Adding high schools to the gazetteer function of Wikipedia or WP:ORG seems the most straightforward rather than a whole new guideline).

Anyway, this is a longer followup message than I intended and I feel like I'm repeating myself a bit so I'll end there. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 02:50, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

The declining of these G13s

Hi DGG. I wanted to know why you removed the deletion nomination of Draft:De Paul School Brahmapur, Draft:GMERS Medical College and Draft:Government Engineering College Bharatpur. Please expand on what you believe what "notability" is. If there are no reliable sources available for the schools, obviously they aren't notable. Writing "it's the top school in ____" doesn't prove notability, either. I could go ahead and edit something like Steve Jobs and write "He was a good at fishing" but if it doesn't have a reference proving it's real, it doesn't matter whether he was the best at fishing or the absolute worst. I agree with one the essay on schools, where it says:

“ Individual schools are not inherently encyclopedic and there is nothing to distinguish insignificant schools like this one from thousands of nearly identical schools around the world. WP:NOT states "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of items of information. That something is 100% true does not mean it is suitable for inclusion in an encyclopedia." ”

I'd like to know what you follow for the notability guidelines on schools. I don't mean to be rude, and you have been here longer than me, but don't remove a CSD G13 from an article which obviously doesn't have any future, unless you, yourself, edit it and fix it. Draft:De Paul School Brahmapur was last edited on 14 April 2013‎, just under 3 years ago. Draft:GMERS Medical College was last edited on 8 August 2015‎ or 29 May 2013‎, depending on what you define an edit being; either way it's been at least 11 months since the last edit. Draft:Government Engineering College Bharatpur was last edited on 2 January 2015‎, a year and a few months ago.

Thanks for reading all this, I hope I didn't come across harsh at all, I'd just like to know your reasoning. I'll be waiting for a response, I'm watching your talk page so no need to ping me (not stopping you, though). Anarchyte (work | talk) 10:43, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

• there are several questions here. For the reason why I think all high schools, by most certainly all colleges should be treated as notable ( see my response to Rhododendrites, a little above. Basically, it's to avoid arguing each of them. Similarly I would treat essentially all elementary schools as non-notable-- again, to avoid arguing each one of them.

Second, under G13, the draft is deleted only if nobody is working on it, but we normally define that as nobody being willing to work on it. I am willing to work on school articles, so I removed the G13. And in fact I added some material to all three of them today, though not much, and removed the puffery, as I always do from any article I work on. I do have a rather long list of drafts to work on, but I eventually get to them, or someone else does. But even at MfD, we normally do not drafts if they have any plausible possibility of making an article, unless they are harmful in some such way as being significantly promotional, or if multiple attempts to make an article have failed.

Since in the last five years very few high school or college articles has every been deleted on grounds of notability, I would even be justified in moving them to article space, since the criterion is merely that the article is likely to pass AfD. But I did not do that, because I like most of us at AfC do not move such weak drafts to article space. DGG ( talk ) 00:30, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Eden English School Btl

I'm not asking you to agree with my comments there as you and I do occasionally differ with our opinions, but I do think that academically, this is an AfD you might wish to (and probably should) take a look at, particularly as a DR overturned the first closure. That said, I think that over the last year or so, the AfD process has begun to degenerate into a farce. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:09, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

note -- a challenge the validity of the schools compromise, which was closed as NonConsensus after a DR from a close of Keep. DGG ( talk ) 08:51, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

restore Alpha Academic

Hello, could you please restore the [Alpha Academic] page as a draft, so i can make the relevant amendment, as I can now add a reference to confirm it provides vocational education. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 14:51, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

does it lead to a degree? do you have any 3rd party RSs that are not PR? Unless you do, there may be not point in claiming it as an educational institution, because it will be nominated by deletion & probably deleted. DGG ( talk ) 16:54, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Hi, it does lead to a degree (LEVEL 5 Diploma) recognized by Ofqual in the UK and it is recognized on the awarding bodies' website: http://qualifications.vtct.org.uk/finder/qualfinder/qual.php?qual=BU5D1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 11:09, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, If I cannot list it as education institution, can I listed it as a private training provider? I've already forwarded you the link to the awarding body's website where it is listed as an approved centre. Please advise — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 16:51, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

Constancelyn:

First of all, it seems you are the same editor as User:Alpha constance. You need to use only one account.

Second, since it seems obvious that you have a conflict of interest,you need to declare it according to our policy on WP:Conflict of interest, and, if it applies, according to our Terms of Use, particularly with respect to paid contributions without disclosure

Third,it is not clear whether there is a presumption of notability for this school. We have never fully considered the various levels of UK trade schools, but for US trade schools we have generally thought that the key factor on whether it fits within the group of all high schools and colleges , which are presumed suitable for articles, is a function of the type of institution ms much as the level. But any organization will be considered notable here if it has references providing substantial coverage from third-party independent reliable sources, not press releases or mere announcements. I see draft at [:https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Alpha_constance/sandbox&oldid=742575223]. It does not have such references. In addition it's not really clear abou the nature of the organization , e.g. "Alpha Academic's main business is proprietary trading and electronic market making, and specialises in providing trading training" -- is its business making markets, or education, or both? The 2nd sentence there talks about it as a market maker for various commodities. The web site is uncear, and I can find no indication of the number of students, etc. or any mention of its notable alumni. It does indicate if read carefully that the first group of students at level 5 has not started quite yet.

I suggest that if--but only if--you have good refereneces as just outlined, that you try in Draft space, and describe the actual institution. DGG ( talk ) 22:35, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

First, I was asked to create a new account because my name were said to have COI with the page. I simply created the username because I liked the word alpha. Second, I am not being paid to write this article nor have I have COI, i included third party reference such as FOW like OSTC Group did. Third, the qualification sits on the Qualifications and Credit Framework which is the national credit transfer system for educational qualification in England. Additionally link can be provided. Could you please kindly restore this to a draft so at least I can have another attempt and send you the draft for review/approval. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 19:28, 7 November 2016 (UTC) I forgot to add that Alpha Academic also has a UKPRN number10061816 which is traceable from the government website https://www.ukrlp.co.uk/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.24.109.137 (talk) 16:28, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Having a government certificate proves nothing . It does not even prove real existence, in the sense of there actually being any students or teachers. . And,from their website "The UKRLP does not quality assure or accredit in any way the learning provision of the provider." Is their ant source of financial information for this firm? Is it now solely a training institution, and ho wcan this be confirmed? DGG ( talk ) 22:33, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi, like I said i found a third party source from Futures & Options World (an leading news and data service for the international futures and options industry). There are two articles by FOW, one of which mentions the rebranding of Alpha Academic from LDN (http://www.fow.com/3582777/Prop-firm-LDN-rebrands-as-Alpha-Academic.html) and the other states that Alpha Academic runs advanced level 5 programmes (http://www.fow.com/3595960/Alpha-Academic-to-run-advanced-trading-course.html). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Constancelyn (talk • contribs) 20:38, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

2017

We've got a problem

OK. I looked at the famous February 2017 RFC on SCHOOLOUTCOMES, analyzed it some also did some thinking on my own dime. My full unfinished take is here, but don't click that link, it's long. In summary:

• FWIW WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is indeed accurate. Of 35 randomly sampled the result was 34-1 Keep (or maybe 34-0, 29-1, 29-0 depending on how you count).
• FWIW there are valid reasons to cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES I think. 1) it's valid to say "this works, let's keep doing it", 2) it's valid to say "not this shit again, its a timesink, let's not do it" 3) the community has consistently expressed its opinion on the general question for 15 years, and that counts. 4) maybe others I didn't think of. It's a matter of opinion, but reasonable opinion that one can disagree with but not just blow off, I would say.
• Examining the February 2017 RFC, I found that the closers made a mistake -- a bad one. They said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that's not actually true; it wasn't (I'm pretty sure; I'm still working on analyzing this, and it will take some hours; but it appears so at this point).
• Therefore people are being given a bum steer, I would say. The poor admin over at the Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2017 May 10#DRV for Kent School is having do deal with a shitshorm, and its not his fault. He followed what is written: "Firstly, I think the new language at WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is unequivocal: Secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist"

This is a problem IMO.

I didn't say this in public, but I have dark suspicions about the people who closed the February 17 RfC. Be that as it may, we can at least say that they demonstrated lack of acuity and diligence. As someone who has closed a couple RfC where I took a week (not 40 full hours, but still), I was appalled to see statements like "many arguments didn't make sense and were ignored". Man, that is not how you adjudicate a hugely visible and important RfC! I mean at least don't say that out loud. If you're too busy do to it right don't do it.

The key point is that the closer said "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOME... has been rejected by the community", but that isn't true, apparently (still working on this, but pretty sure it is not true). Mendacity or... lacking acuity... doesn't matter. They used this (untrue ) statement to make or authorize significant changes to a couple of pages, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes and Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions.

My inclination is to roll back these changes and cite User:Herostratus/Understanding SCHOOLOUTCOMES as justification. Whether WP:BRD applies after three months, I don't know... doubt it. My inclination could also get me in a heap of trouble. I'd rather let jack do it. If I'm going to do it, I need cover. I have enough enemies already.

But it's important enough to not just shrug off IMO. As a matter of principle the whole affair frosts me, for one thing. Four guys supervoting on a highly visible RfC is toxic to community feeling. As a matter of practice, leaving this alone will probably result (after much wasteful drama, and admins being caught in the middle) with a blow to our coverage of high schools outside the first world.

So what to do next? Herostratus (talk) 01:55, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

What to do next is to vigorously defend all plausible articles, while letting the very weakest go. I'm willing to accept literally that "citing SA doesn't have consensus" Focus on the rest of the RfC, that in practice we do always keep them. Since nothing in that whole section of common outcomes is policy or even guideline, just advice. I wouldn't bother trying to upset or reconsider the RfC=, no matter how aelf-contradictory its conclusion. Policy & guidelines are important concepts in hierarchical organizations, but at WP, policy is what we do unless there's a very good reason otherwise, and a guideline is what we usually do., unless we decide not to. Usage makes the policies sand the guidelines. Even so , notability isn't even a policy, but a guideline for one part of the real policy, WP:NOT INDISCRIMINATE, and the so-called GNG is just one possible way to apply WP:N. We can use it if it helps. I don't thing it often does, because experience shows how easy it is to manipulate the details to get whatever result is desired. It's a way of arguing, not a useful guide. If I were more cynical, I'd support it, because it would serve my interests, as I have considerable skill and experience in arguments using it in both directions. NOT INDISCRIMINATE is an important and in my opinion necessary policy, but the details of how we choose to apply it it are what affects the results. Just don't cite it. Cite the facts, as you just did in the first sentence above: We always keep them, unless there are unusual circumstances. It's a convention justified by its utility. Remember, as WP idiosyncratically uses the term, "notability " says nothing about actual merit. It's a term of art, meaning only "worth keeping in the encyclopedia".I wish we had never started using it, but instead, said what we meant.

I cannot explain the existence of the current push against high schools. It has the effect of clogging up AfD and preventing proper consideration of the real problems here, which are promotionalism and fan support of the transiently popular. I hope that isn't the intent, but rather am misguided faith in ideological purity. WP is not the place for ideological purity. WP is driven by consensus, and the essence of consensus is compromise, not rigour. Those wh owant rigour wshould go elsewhere.

But consensus has a weakness--it an be defeated by zealots. The only defense is for sensible people to stay with their purpose, and argue each dispute as it comes up. At WP, success goes to the most persevering, Think of it as those who care the most, not those who are most stubborn. who are assumed to care the most. I was raised in a tradition of political activism, and what I was taught was: always appear at every opportunity. Let's see who has the real majority. Otherwise the minority of zealots rule, as they currently do in what I still think to be my country. DGG ( talk ) 07:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)