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schools - notability

User Kudpung recently made a pretty significant change to the guideline on schools (diff), and I'm posting it here for discussion to make sure there's no disagreement and/or there is consensus to do it ....

Nothing in there until recently.

Recently added version by Brainy J (see diff):

Articles on schools are kept without regard to notability.

Newer version by Kudpung (see diff):

Bona fide mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide education to the equivalent of Grade 12 in their respective regions) that are proven to exist and provide education to that level, are kept. Other schools, such as primary (elementary) schools, middle schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy WP:GNG.

Update by Blueboar (see diff):

Current Wikipedia practice is to consider Bona fide mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide education to the equivalent of Grade 12 in their respective regions) that are proven to exist and provide education to that level as being notable, due to the very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them. Other schools, such as primary (elementary) schools, middle schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy WP:GNG.

Update by WhatamIdoing (see diff):

All schools, including universities, colleges, high schools, middle schools, primary (elementary) schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy this guideline.

Current Wikipedia practice is to assume that all bona fide universities, colleges, and government-run mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide a high school diploma, school-leaving certificate or the equivalent) comply with this guideline, so long as they are are proven to exist and to provide education to that level. Past experience indicates that there is a very strong likelihood that sufficient independent sources, especially in local newspapers, will exist.

Thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 12:52, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

addendum -- I had missed some of the other history; I've revised the above links per Kudpung's comments below, to provide an intro to the issues. --Lquilter (talk) 19:59, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• For accuracy and background, please see user talk:Kudpung#changes to notability guideline on schools. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:12, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
• I believe Kudpung's edit correctly reflects the consensus that has built up over several years on secondary school AfDs. It's worth finally recording it in a guideline to avoid the continued nomination of these articles for deletion, which invariably results in them being saved. The sentence which Kudpung replaced was recently added by another editor who did not appear to agree with it, but was adding it in an apparently pointed attempt to court controversy (by implying that secondary schools were not notable but were being kept in any case in breach of guidelines). There was previously no such exemption in this guideline, but I believe there needs to be one since consensus clearly supports it. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:47, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Consensus? Then why is the notability of schools so often the subject of discussion? The Banner talk 20:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Because a small minority of editors who do not agree with the consensus willfully refuse to accept that one exists and demand that it is shown to them (which is, of course, impossible) in an attempt to justify their minority viewpoint. The fact that it is virtually unheard of for any secondary school article to be deleted at AfD clearly demonstrates the consensus. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:54, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
      • Actually it's the other way around; a small minority of editors believe they have a consensus based on the way some AfDs closed, yet every time it's actually brought up at a location where it can be discussed, they get shot down very quickly. Which consensus do you think means more? That you believe it is "impossible" to show this supposed consensus should tell you something. - Aoidh (talk) 22:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
        • Sadly, the more this tiny minority try to claim there's no consensus the more ridiculous they look. "Some AfDs"? You don't seriously believe that do you? "All AfDs" would be closer to the truth. And tell me how you "show" a consensus other than by pointing out that pretty much every AfD closes the same way? "they get shot down very quickly"? When was that then? I don't recall anyone being shot down in such a discussion. Would you care to point us in the direction of this spectacular shooting down? Presumably you are able to do this, as you seem to believe that I should be able to show you the consensus. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Because Common Outcomes is misused as a policy. And secondly, because three editors use a quite aggressive style towards every other editor who seems to have a different opinion. How many more are there out there supporting your line? And how many editors are intimidated by the roaring of you three? Intimidation is something else than consensus. The Banner talk 00:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
            • You're accusing us of being aggressive. Oh, this gets funnier and funnier by the minute! I've rarely seen such a level of aggression on WP as that expressed by the "secondary schools aren't notable" brigade in their irritation every time they're outvoted on an AfD. And nobody is saying Common Outcomes is a policy. (Neither is this a policy, incidentally; it's a guideline). It does, however, clearly show the consensus. Aoidh, if you're claiming that only a small minority of editors contribute to AfDs, well, that's true. But you could also say that about absolutely every other aspect of Wikipedia, including the creation of policies and guidelines. If you don't accept a consensus on AfDs then by definition you won't accept a consensus anywhere, as every single discussion on Wikipedia is only contributed to by a small minority of editors.-- Necrothesp (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
              • The purpose of an AfD is to discuss a single article, not to discuss the merits of wider notability; when this matter is discussed at an appropriate location (such as here) what the consensus you're saying exists is shown to be otherwise. Every attempt to establish a lasting consensus in regards to what you're saying (and there have been many) by way of an actual a guideline for schools has failed, as have attempts to change this guideline to reflect what you're saying is consensus. If there was a consensus then why have all of those attempts failed? Perhaps there was a consensus based on silence in a limited discussion, but that quickly changes whenever it's actually discussed, which is the only time that matters. Consensus established through guidelines and policies supersedes any consensus established via limited discussion at individual AfDs. I'm not just saying that, it is a Wikipedia policy. To speak of those that won't accept a perceived consensus, what do you say about those that don't accept policy? - Aoidh (talk) 01:13, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
• I think that both versions are wrong. All schools need to meet ORG, not the GNG. Bona fide mainstream (government-run) high schools (in the developed world) are (almost always) kept (unless they are very small or very new) because they do meet ORG. (By the way, the "old version" was just added a couple of days ago.)
  I have re-worded Kudpung's new section to be more accurate. We aren't actually looking for "an exemption". We're looking for people to acknowledge reality, which is that we can find sources that prove compliance with this guideline in 99% of the cases for government-run high schools (and also hospitals, by the way: the situation is not unique to schools). If you don't have the sources for modern high schools in the developed world, it just means that you didn't look hard enough. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:44, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Can you prove that last statement? It might be true in a US-centric world but Wikipedia is wider. The Banner talk 20:07, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
  • Ow, you know Plantage Mavo, a school without proven notability (and not existing anymore). The Banner talk 20:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The notability of schools is so often the subject of discussion possibly due to your many attempts to get them deleted, so Plantage Mavo comes as a bit of a surprise considering you appear to have created it. Perhaps the wind is now blowing in the right direction. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 21:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

By the way, you are grossly misrepresenting my stance. To my opinion, all articles about second level schools and higher can be kept when independent, reliable sources in the article proves their notability. The Banner talk 23:46, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The only reason why I wrote this piece of junk is that nobody will ever remove it based on the assumption that there are sources out there. So it proves the effect that not even the shittiest school-article will ben removed, with or without prove of notability.

By the way, Kudpung, I am not the only one who started discussions about school notability or AfDs on schools. The Banner talk 22:18, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

You are one of the few who thought they could get the guidelines and/or precedent changed by mass sendings of articles to AfD. It didn't work. I fully realised the exercise in creating your 'piece of junk', and yes, that worked. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:25, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yep, and you are one of the not-so-few who is using Common Outcomes as a policy. The Banner talk 23:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The Banner, I have asked you in many such discussions to please get your facts straight. I have NEVER once suggested that OUTCOMES is a policy, and always taken care to remind everyone that it simply documents a well established practice. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

No, you just act like it is one. The Banner talk 00:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

You are back on your traditional schools notability warpath - Please consider dropping the blatant innuendos and avoid the drama. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:37, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

/me keeps mirror up. The Banner talk 22:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you get your local newspaper? Does it ever mention your local high school, e.g., when taxes are needed to expand the building or there are major changes to the administration or the latest reports have been issued on how well students did on the state-wide or nationwide tests? Don't you suppose that everyone else's local newspapers do the same for their local high schools, too? I do not believe that talking about taxes for schools, the construction of school buildings, or the performance of schools is merely some American obsession that never gets mentioned in non-American newspapers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:01, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Nope, I don't as I live two countries away now. The Banner talk 22:19, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

"Local" means wherever you live now, not wherever you were born. It is not actually possible to live two countries away from your local area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

The only problem with that line of thought is that an organization being mentioned only in the local newspaper does not show notability. - Aoidh (talk) 22:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Many local newspapers are also regional newspapers, e.g., The Los Angeles Times. Additionally, The Banner was asking about whether I was certain that any sources existed, not just national or regional ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

A school is not notable just because it gets routine coverage in its local newspaper; not every newspaper is The Los Angeles Times. I'd agree that in almost every case sources are bound to exist, but that doesn't necessarily mean the sources show notability. - Aoidh (talk) 23:14, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

A story about a proposal to build a new building is not what we mean by "routine coverage". A 'story' that says nothing more than "Guess what, the local schools are closed for this major holiday, just like they have been every year for the last century or so" is routine coverage.

You're right that not all newspapers are regional. However, nearly all high schools get at least some mention (e.g., as point of a comparison or in a list of schools affected by some program or another) in non-local sources at some point. (NB that I'm leaving aside the thorny problem of deciding whether reports by national education agencies like Ofsted are "independent" and therefore count towards notability.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:28, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not disagreeing with you there; nearly all do. However, the type and depth of coverage varies wildly and usually warrants discussion to determine if it actually meets WP:ORG; this change would bypass any valid discussion on that point. - Aoidh (talk) 23:34, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)(edit conflict)(edit conflict)Routine mentions about schools in local newspapers are generally about sports fixtures and results, closures due to snow or floods, a new building being commissioned, or a local government grant, A-level results, the kids cleaning up the litter in the park, or about a leaving do for some retiring teacher - that kind of reportage does not assert notability. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

And what is left then? The Banner talk 23:50, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: It looks to me as if this is becoming yet another (#21?) perennial discussion about the same old, same old.What is left, is not wind, it's a clearly practiced precedent. What The Banner needs to understand is the difference between the way primary and secondary schools are handled.

BTW, I do not believe Ofsted adds notablity. What it does do is act as a source for claims to the schools academic performance. And that said, academic (or in the USA, sport) performances do not necessarily assert notability either. According to the notablity for schools as demonstrated by years of well documented precedent, high schools (secondary schools) are deemed to be notable if they are proven to exist (Ofsted will certainly prove that), while primary (elementary) schools are required to meet WP:ORG and demonstrate significance or importance - otherwise they get redirected to the article about their school district (USA) or to the eduction section of the article about their locality.

I don't think any amount of new discussion is going to change any of that. What we do need is to have it written into the Guideline (note 'Guideline' ) and avoid all the time consuming debates and needless AfD campaigns. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 23:58, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the discussion is becoming uncomfy so you try to push your changes through. Without consensus, that is clear. The Banner talk 00:31, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Uncomfy for you perhaps, and that my be why you are now resorting to unhelpful comments like you have in the past on related discussions. You appear to have ignored the fact that I have constantly stated that I have no preference whatsoever about notability for schools and that all I want is a clear guideline so that everyone knows what they are doing. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:10, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

LOL, you are the one who is unconstructive and in fact close to POV-pushing. Sweet dreams, my friend. The Banner talk 08:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I note that the latest revision reads: "Current Wikipedia practice is to assume that all bona fide universities, colleges, and government-run mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide a high school diploma, school-leaving certificate or the equivalent) comply with this guideline." I'm not sure a secondary school has to be government-run to be presumed to be notable. In general AfDs have assumed that private secondary schools that are proper, accredited schools (providing equivalent qualifications to government-run schools) and not just crammers are also presumed notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 00:19, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

You have correctly interpreted the general practice. Education in some areas would even be impossible without the supplement of private mainstream schools. Back-street cram schools are obviously not notable - unless thy have been the object of very significant sources that assert notability for some special reason or another; Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:30, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I've reverted that wording because it reads like something that belongs in WP:OUTCOMES as opposed to a notability guideline. I think it needs to be discussed before being reinserted, since that one sentence makes it sound like the rest of the entire guideline page can be ignored on an assumption (though I'm not saying that's the intention), but that kind of observation is within the scope of WP:OUTCOMES, not so much WP:ORG. It's fine to assume that schools are notable, but that assumption needs to be followed through with evidence that the assumption is sound; wording it that way is an invitation to ignore that requirement. - Aoidh (talk) 01:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

The crux of the larger issue is raised by Whatamidoing's version that includes "Past experience indicates that there is a very strong likelihood that sufficient independent sources, especially in local newspapers, will exist." Local sourcing is not independent, at least in the type of source that I envision. For example where I went to school, a public HS in a suburb of a larger metro area, there was a local paper that covered that suburb and about 6-8 more around it, separate from the metro's paper. Activities of the school would be covered in that paper, and certainly by the GNG standard of "significant coverage", that would be met. But the local paper's goal is to serve newsreaders in that community area, and thus in terms of independence (not so much financial or association, but by interest), I would dare call that paper independent. If the only sourcing that can be found for a school is coming from those types of sources, then the GNG is failed. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you realize that you've just insulted every professional newspaper editor in the world? Editorial independence is about whether the editor decides which stories to run, or whether other people (especially advertisers) get to dictate the contents to him (or her).

This guideline assigns very low (but not zero) value neighborhood newspapers and other tiny-circulation publications not because they fail to be independent, but because their neighborhood-only focus means that they don't represent the ideal notability-demonstrating quality of attention from "the world at large". A source can be both 100% independent and still parochial. You don't need to insult their ethics to reject neighborhood newspapers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:27, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say reporters weren't independent, but the paper itself loses that independence on the more narrower geographic region it serves, because their primary focus is on that local area with their mission to highlight stories of primary interest to the local area. We have to deny notability to topics that are only covered at a local level because those sources are simply not independent. They aren't bad sources to use in addition to other sources to build notability, but by themselves, easily fail. --MASEM (t) 00:35, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

No, you said that the newspaper was not independent, which its editors will take as a serious professional insult. It's also not actually true. They are parochial, but they are independent. They do publish what is interesting to their readers (else they don't stay in business), but so does The London Times and The Economist. The tiniest newspaper, or the most seriously specialized journal, can be just as independent as the big players, and often have to fight harder to maintain their independence. If your concern is with their narrow focus, then say that narrow focus is a problem. (It is a problem.) Don't insult their independence instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The problem is not a lack of independence. The problem is the narrow focus. These are different problems. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

"Independence" as we've used is a broader term than the narrower journalistic independence that you're referring to; when we say a source is not independent, that does not necessarily mean their journalistic independence is in question. You're right that here is specifically about narrow focus, but that's part of our equation of independence. --MASEM (t) 17:40, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted the last version. It is not the nominator who has to prove that a school is not notable but it is the author of the article who has to prove notability. As it is stated in WP:PROVEIT: The burden of evidence lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a reliable source that directly supports the material. The Banner talk 22:54, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

PROVEIT is irrelevant. PROVEIT applies when someone adds a {{fact}} tag to a specific sentence, or removes a specific fact. It has nothing to do with AFDs.

Furthermore, it's not a relevant objection to the material that you actually removed while citing PROVEIT, because that material is about our experience as Wikipedia editors, not about the contents of any individual articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:27, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you just say Every American school is notable because it is an American school.? That is the same effect as your carefully designed wording about guessed sources and local papers. The Banner talk 00:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Presumption vs Proof

Once again, we have a disagreement between those who are satisfied by the presumption of notability and those who demand proof of notability. Both can be taken to extremes. The reality is somewhere in between.
I think it is accurate to say that we start with a basic presumption that accredited high schools, colleges, universities, etc. are notable - because experience has shown that it is highly likely that sources do exist that will allow them to pass both GNG and ORG.
However, we also must accept that there are rare occasions when our presumption turns out to be incorrect... cases where the sources don't actually exist. Just because schools A,B,C,D...X, and Y have proven to pass this guideline, that does not mean school Z automatically passes the guideline... merely that we can assume it does - pending further investigation.
What this mean in practice is this... we have to demonstrate the lack of notability before we can say that school Z is an exception to the norm. To overcome the basic presumption of notability, one has to make a convincing case that sources don't actually exist. In essence, there are a few topic areas where one must "prove the negative" at AfD... and schools are one of these topic areas. Blueboar (talk) 13:22, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

We actually do not have that presumption. The only reason schools are routinely kept is because of OUTCOMES which is used as an argument at AFD to keep (which should never be done but editors forget this). Efforts have been made and fail to make a convincing subject-specific guideline for schools in part because the issue rests on the question "if a high school/secondary school exists, can we presume that there will routinely be GNG-quality sourcing to eventually support a stand-alone article on the school". And the answer to that is typically no - maybe Western regions where the socioeconomic levels are higher, but no one seems ready to affirm that around the world, and because of the region dependence, that introduces a systematic bias that we want to avoid. Thus, the solution has been consistently to drop back to OUTCOMES which assures schools are kept - not because of notability but to avoid the question. This is not saying OUTCOMES is a bad thing to have, it is the circular reasoning we have had with OUTCOMES, where it is not to be used as a "keep" argument yet continue to be be. The real process that should occur if one doubts a school is at similar to what Blueboar suggests - the nominator does need to explain why they think there is no GNG-quality sourcing for the school. Which particular for non-Western schools, likely will take more than a google search (eg: "I couldn't find any hits on google for this rural Chinese secondary school" is not a satisfactory reason). You can't prove the negative that no sourcing exists but you can state in good faith that you searched the appropriate body of sources and found nothing. At that point, the "keep per OUTCOME" !votes are just noise, and now it becomes the case that editors that want to retain the article need to find sourcing. The end result of the AFD should be based on how much reliance we have on the nom that no sourcing exists, and whatever sourcing can be found by those wishing to keep the article or demonstrating that a more thorough (likely physical copy) search needs to be done than what the nom stated. If the AFD is then kept, we then have the presumption of notability for a standalone article. --MASEM (t) 13:45, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• At AFD, the onus is on the nominator to make the case for deletion because a lack of consensus will result in no action and the page will, by default, be kept. The only significant exception seems to be BLP where we have the special procedure of WP:BLPPROD. Organisations are not normally considered to be covered by BLP. That's always seemed strange to me because organisations usually have a legal personality and a reputation which they will want to defend. Warden (talk) 14:02, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

• I agree on that point that there is onus on the nominator to present a good argument for why they don't believe sources exist, and the resulting AFD should consider if the nominator truly did a good exhaustive search. That's why a nom for a rural China school that claims "I searched google and found nothing" is a very weak nom and likely will be refuted since more of the sources would more likely to be in print or in Chinese. Note that in this case, those that want to keep don't necessary have to locate sources, simply refute that the claimed "exhaustive" search really was exhaustive, though source location always helps (I would argue this is why we have the result in OUTCOMES, because demonstrating an exhaustive search for sources on any pre-1990s school likely requires searching print sources). On the other hand, if the nom claims they can't find sources for a relatively new school in the US through google, that's a much more likely case that sources really don't exist. --MASEM (t) 14:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

And then WhatamIdoing kicks in with his statement If you don't have the sources for modern high schools in the developed world, it just means that you didn't look hard enough. putting the burden of evidence not on the author but on the nominator. In principle, the notability of a subject should be clear when the article is launched, by proof and not by guesswork. The Banner talk 14:07, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing is a "she", not a "he".

This fact does not put the burden on anyone in particular. In principle, notability does not require "proof" when the article is created. You apparently wish that it did, but the actual guidelines reject this: "The absence of citations in an article (as distinct from the non-existence of sources) does not indicate that the subject is not notable." WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

And? It still does not say that it is up to the nominator to prove that there are no sources as you are claiming. The Banner talk 00:14, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

What we are wrestling with is the difference between "how it should happen" (the burden of proof should be on the article writer to provide sources that establish notability) and "what actually does happen" (there is a presumption of notability, so the burden of proof is actually on the AfD nominator to counter that presumption). In order to give good guidance to our editors, I think we need to explain both. Our goal should be to strike a workable balance between what should be and what is. Blueboar (talk) 15:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I need to stress this: There is no presumption of notability for any school in any of our guidelines, short of meeting the GNG directly. What OUTCOMES provides is not a presumption of notability. Agree that there is a shared burden here and we should be trying to balance it between having no deadline and the like, but in the case of schools, we're not giving any school the presumption of notability (eg no inherited notability). --MASEM (t) 15:28, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Correct... currently there is nothing in any guideline that discusses this presumption. The presumption exists never the less... it exists despite the fact that it isn't mentioned in the guideline. That's the root of the perennial disagreement here. The guideline does not take reality into account. As currently written, the completely ignores the reality of this presumption. To be good guidance, I think the guideline needs to address it. And that means we need to amend the guideline. The question is... how do we do so in a balanced way. Blueboar (talk) 15:57, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The word presumed appears four times at WP:N, and it is explicitly defined in the GNG. I think we could adapt that to identify a handful of relevant types of orgs that the community normally assumes will meet the guideline. This list includes, offhand, school districts, high schools, colleges, universities, hospitals, Michelin-listed restaurants, publicly traded companies, and all government agencies at the town-size or higher (so "City of Lake Wobegon", but not the Lake Wobegon Municipal Water Agency).

I think that there are two things that the "presumption" material needs to cover:

• The fact that the presumption exists because past experience has proven that 99% of these types of orgs actually do meet the requirements, if you make a thorough search for sources, and not because WP:ITSA high school (or whatever); and
• The fact that if you (or several people) really do make a thorough search without finding significant information in sources (e.g., more than just the score from the high school football team's last game), then this presumption is demonstrably invalid for the specific instance, and the article should be merged or deleted, even though WP:ITSA high school (or whatever).

It might be worth adding a like to WP:BEFORE. And someday we need to write an equivalent of {{Spa}} for the OUTCOMES-abusing people ("You have said nothing except 'per OUTCOMES', but OUTCOMES itself says not to do that.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:17, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

I can agree with all of that. Blueboar (talk) 18:25, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

The approach is right, but I will point out the fact that for secondary school, no one has shown that reliably that GNG-type sourcing exists 99% of the time for these schools. Nearly all of our other subject-specific notability guidelines are based on the topic having some type of merit earned (an award, a best-seller, etc.) and thus with the reasonable expectation that sources about why that merit came about would exist. This is simply not the case for schools. --MASEM (t) 18:38, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you take a US-centered city-centered approach for this. Your truth there is not the same truth here. For example: County Clare has two newspapers and about ten secondary schools (your highschools). Neutrality and independence is immediately compromised by a text on top of the pages of both paper: "For inclusion contact <name journalist> <mailaddress>" So you can send in your own stories. Byebye independence. And you have no reliable independent sources left... The Banner talk 00:27, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

And Ireland is part of the developed world, as you name it. The Banner talk 09:22, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

A quick trip to my favorite web search engine lists The Clare Herald, The Claire Champion, The Clare People, The Clare Courier, Clare County Express, The Clare County Review. I'm not sure which of these are your two.

Are you sure that "For inclusion, contact" means "we'll publish whatever you send us" instead of "please quit stopping me while I'm shopping to tell me about your story idea"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Please, at least try to write the names correct. The Clare Herald is a relatively new internet newsservice, no paper. The Clare Champion and The Clare People are indeed real paper newspapers. The rest junk papers with 75% advertisements and a reliability and independence of 0%. The Banner talk 23:48, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

And how do you know that? Can you show me a source that says the advertisers get to dictate what stories will be run? Or is this just your personal, unverifiable opinion? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing: the word "presumed" is used at WP:GNG, but not in the way you're suggesting. It says that even if something meets WP:GNG, that doesn't guarantee that an subject needs an on Wikipedia but only creates that presumption, not that an article is notable until proven otherwise or anything to that effect. - Aoidh (talk) 19:23, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

I do not understand why you believe that I use this term differently from how the WP:N does. Perhaps you could identify what you believe my use/definition is, and contrast it with WP:N's? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

• Back on track: WhatamIdoing is, like me, a veteran of these discussions about notability for schools. And unless I am very wrong, her concern, like mine, is to have a more or less formal pronouncement so that we all know what to do with school AfDs. Until that is achieved, I follow the precedent in order to have some kind of consistency. Citing Outcomes is not inappropriate, because it happens to be the place where that precedent is documented. The fact that the precedent is established through hundreds, if not thousands, of closures and redirects, is a consensus, even if it has not been reached through a formal RfC and even if some editors just don't like it. A bit like uncodified Common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different occasions we must ensure that all school articles receive equal treatment whichever way the cookie crumbles and FWIW, as it's not broken, and as schools are not generally a contentious kind of article, I see no need to fix it. That is the workable balance. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:06, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
  • I've seen discussions on trying to assert notability of schools and every time it fails. You typically come down to the side that asserts that every secondary school is notable, and when challenged, they can't give any reason beyond "every secondary school is notable", and those that are asking for sourcing beyond primary and/or local sources. Add to the mix that you have people that point to WP:DEADLINE and that sourcing for many schools is hard to get at, and that means that some feel it is improper to AFD a school article until someone can check those sources. Personally I'm of the opinion that we'd be better off removing the OUTCOMES and redirecting school articles that fail GNG to the most appropriate town or region article that the school is in (those articles aren't going anywhere), such that if notability can later be shown, the old content can be quickly restored and expanded on. I will also point out that as best I know, having a notability guideline that reads "every high/secondary school is presumed notable" would be the first blanket topic allowance that has no additional criteria based on merit to consider which is why it seems rather questionable that we need one. --MASEM (t) 13:20, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
    • Speaking as one of the reasons why "every time it fails", I don't believe that every single high school in the world is notable. But what I think we can all agree on is that we need to acknowledge the fact that the overwhelming majority of a particular type are, and to give some advice to people who are trying to demonstrate that even if 99% are notable, this one is not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:40, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
      • • And you seem to translate "a particular type" as "USA highschools located in cities". Even for highschools in rural areas you run the risk of not finding reliable, independent sourcing of their notability. The Banner talk 23:55, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
      • The problem is that the line of which high schools are considered notable nearly always goes "those in Western countries" , a geographic systematic bias that we're told not to create. (I'd also argue most Western schools aren't really notable in the first place, but that's not the question here). --MASEM (t) 22:51, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
        • If it were entirely up to me, we wouldn't have very many of these articles. But they do meet the sourcing standard, they don't contradict WP:NOT, and I am resigned to losing the debate about editorial discretion (I'd merge almost all of them). WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
          • Again, technically, with reporting from local sources, they do fail our notability standards even if they do meet WP:V. Most schools can easily have sources to show they exist and explain briefly their history but their influence on the world at large beyond just being a school (the type of material I'd expect to see in true secondary sources). Just because something exists doesn't mean we have to document it, which is counter to the reasons that school articles are kept. --MASEM (t) 03:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
            • ORG requires one (1) non-local source. GNG actually requires none. Secondary sources don't always explain influence on the world at large. An analysis that has no reference to anyone else is still a secondary source. On the other hand, non-local secondary sources are actually pretty easy to come by: any report by any regional or national government agency that compares schools on the basis of their budgets or test scores or whatever is a non-local secondary source for the school. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:26, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
  • And what you do with that method of working is promoting Common Outcomes to the status of policy. The Banner talk 23:55, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Please see WP:PGE. I cannot see any attempts to promoting Common Outcomes to the status of policy. What I see is a desire from many users to see some clarification on the notability of high schools and primary schools in order to achieve some consistency in the way they are treated. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:47, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Using Common Outcomes as if it is carved in stone is effectively using it as a policy. You use Common Outcomes as an argument to prove that a school-article can be kept, while Common Outcomes does not have that power. What kind of reason do you have to keep a completely unsourced school except Common Outcomes? The Banner talk 08:53, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

You have again fully failed to understand my comments. Please consider reading and what I and other people are saying here instead of adding disconnected innuendos. Most of the participants here, including myself, are simply arguing for a better codification of notability one way or the other, and whatever that happens to be in the future, it will be decided by consensus and we will abide by it whether we like it or not. Perhaps you would like to read the continuation of the discussion about OUTCOMES further down. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• @Masem: You typically come down to the side that asserts that every secondary school is notable... Unfortunately that is quite inaccurate. If you were to review every discussion over the past three years on this topic, you will see that I come down in favour of maintaining the status quo in order to achieve consistency and avoid the bureaucratic load of the perennial campaigns of mass nominations at AfD, and that I would be quite happy to conform with any guideline that we can achieve in getting pronounced, and like WhatamIdoing, this whether I actually like it or not. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:55, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
  • There is always a way to grandfather schools for a year or so to avoid a mass rush of AFD as soon as a more restrictive guide passes, which I know is a fear from the discussions in what would happen if more demanding notability standards were passed. Further, I go back to how OUTCOMES can be applied to school discussions as to challenge a nominator that claims that because the school doesn't appear in a google news search there are no sources - thus avoiding the rush of AFD deletions where more time to sourcing would be required. --MASEM (t) 03:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

None, absolutely none, of the many, sometimes very long discussions have ever reached consensus. Indeed many of them petered out without even being reviewed and closed by an uninvolved editor. I seem to detect that you anticipate a new discussion (or even this one) as closing with a recommendation to abandon the current practice. Let's be fair to the OUTCOMES page - when citing it, people are referring to it because it's the place where the clearly established precdedent is documented, not because OUTCOMES itself is a policy or a guideline. If we were not to cite OUTCOMES as the source of that information, we would have to list the hundreds, or even thousands of diffs where closures and redirects have taken place. OUTCOMES is a shortcut and nothing else, but it does also avoid a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy. As far as I can tell, many school AfD are started by users who are new, or new to page patrolling who are unaware of the full scope of policies, guidelines, and precedents. Others are well aware of them but persistently use AfD as a backdoor attempt to changing the practice. 04:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)

I've explained the problems with OUTCOMES above - though it should only be used to discourage editors from starting an AFD on a school unless they are confident there is simply no sourcing, it is being used as a reason to !keep, even though it is explicitly called out not be used as such. I am not calling for OUTCOMES to be rejected, but to be clear that the right reason to evoke OUTCOMES is to discourage nominations unless one has done the background work on trying to locate sources. Importantly, thought, OUTCOMES is not a notability guideline. --MASEM (t) 04:59, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

And that takes us back to my two-point proposal: we can counteract the abuse of OUTCOMES by explicitly telling people what they need to do to have a successful AFD for a school that they believe is actually non-notable.

(Or a plausible chance at a successful AFD. I 'lost' an AFD once for an "article" whose entire contents realistically could not have been expanded beyond "This is the word for rice gruel in Malayam. It got defined once in an old book by a Christian missionary to India, which Google Books scanned." It was like keeping an article at Agua whose contents were "This is how you say water in Spanish. If you want to know something about water other than how to say it in Spanish, then see the much better article at Water.") WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:32, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, really, you need two steps: one is explaining when and how to nominate school articles in light of OUTCOMES, and second is to define what type of sourcing we're expecting to have been found for schools to meet notability, which presently is the requires for GNG, which I suspect many will find too strict for many high schools to satisfy and contest, falling back onto OUTCOMES inappropriately. --MASEM (t) 05:38, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think quoting the OUTCOMES page is inappropriate. Except from reiterating my post above (and others I've made) about the role of the OUTCOMES page, I don't see how I can explain it better. If sources are required for the precedent instead of quoting the OUTCOMES page, there is of course the Category:Redirects from school articles and many more that are not listed because most closers forget to add the 'R from Foo' template to the redirect page. As far as I know however, there is no cat for 'schools kept at AfD' although a regex could probably create a list of them. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:16, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

And I just think that quoting Common Outcomes as an argument to keep an article in completely inappropriate. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Common Outcomes is a result and nicely worded statistic summarizing older AfD-results, not a valid argument to use in an AfD. The Banner talk 11:51, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

As you correctly states, OUTCOMES is a sort of statistic. It certainly summarises what is usually done, and what can be further backed up by a host of other data as I mentioned above. OUTCOMES has been discussed in other threads on this page, you might find them interesting; at the moment I'm not sure now whether you are arguing that schools are not notable, or whether OUTCOMES is not a viable shortcut to clearly extant precedents. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:17, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

It is self-fulfilling prophecy and in fact not true. It is the same as collecting evidence that active editors are alive and using that statistic to prove that editors who have a retired-tag on their talkpage are 100% still alive and not considering any other options. On the Dutch Wikipedia we lost four well known editors this year alone. The Banner talk 14:19, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not saying we need to get rid of OUTCOMES, but, at least for schools, need to be clear that a !vote at AFD of "Keep per OUTCOMES" is nonsensical. On the other hand, "Keep, as nominator has not searched appropriate offline locations for sources for school as described at OUTCOMES" is valid, as the reason school articles are routinely kept is based on the claim sourcing at the local level exists. There's the separate problem if schools only sourced at the local level are really notable, but that's orthogonal to the OUTCOMES factor. Right now, we have the problem that many editors read OUTCOMES as a de facto notability policy which it is clearly not. --MASEM (t) 14:27, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure that the term 'self-fulfilling prophecy' is fully understood here, or even relevant if it is. What is happening is that people are trying to make the situation more complex than it really is. There are only two ways of looking at this: Either accept the clearly demonstrated precedent (whether is is documented at OUTCOMES or not), &and let it be written as a guideline, or completely rehash notability for schools from the ground up and get it written as a guideline. Either way, it will require a consensus, but arbitrary assessments of any consensus in this current discussion by involved participants are not going to achieve that. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:53, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Still Common Outcomes is still a mere statistic and not a keep-argument. If you jump high or low or drag me to AN/I, it still is no keep-argument. The Banner talk 04:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

A different interpretation is that instead of saying "Keep because it is in Common Outcomes" editors are saying "Keep because it is the consensus of the editing community (many more editors than the few who have contributed to this discussion) that high schools, inhabited places, legislators, and professional athletes are notable" or that "Overwhelming experience is that in every case of an X editors have been able to find significant coverage in multiple reliable and independent sources." This guideline has the unusual requirement of "national" coverage, which I question. Edison (talk) 16:31, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

This is going nowhere

In basic, we all agree that school need sources to prove their notability. To my opinion, there are two differences now: 1) What is a reliable, independent source? and 2) When do you add prove of notability.

I suggest to skip question 1, because the definition is depending on so many factors that we can't control that it is nearly impossible to get a straight answer that works in all cases. What works for a New York Highschool is not necessarily working for a school in Kilmihil or Fuvahmulah. Look at it at a case by case basis works better.

Question 2 is less clear. Group 1 wants sources straight away when an article is written, Group 2 wants sources ASAP (without timeframe), Group 3 wants sources quickly after they are requested and Group 4 assumes that sources exist and that one day someone will find them and add them. Is there anyway to move these groups closer together? The Banner talk 14:41, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

If we go by the more normal approach that subject-specific notability guidelines take, what should be offered is some list of criteria that says "if a school has achieved any of these, it is reasonable to expect additional sources can be found and thus we presume the school is notable for a stand-alone page" - thus assuring the page should not be deleted allowing sources to be found and the development of the article. This is how to balance "sources must exist" and the no-deadline aspect. (We do expect a source to affirm the criteria but that's usually much easier to produce and usually only needs to be a reliable third-party source). For example, I would argue that any school that appears on a nation's top HS school (similar to the national list produced by US News + World Report, [1]) is likely going to be notable, and only needs to start with a source that puts it on that list to start the article. --MASEM (t) 14:54, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I hate to be negative, but the groups Banner has just described are not unique to the issue of sourcing school articles. Banner's description is a good summary of the various attitudes towards sourcing in general... throughout Wikipedia. And the debate between these groups dates back to the earliest days of the project... so I doubt there is a way to bring the groups together. Blueboar (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

But this is about the only field I know in which the groups clash rather "violently". The Banner talk 15:27, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

I think your sources works a bit like the Michelin Guide, Masem. Being mentioned in the Guide does not make a restaurant notable straight away. But a Gold Medal makes it more than likely that you can easily find additional sources to prove notability, just like a Michelin star makes it more than likely that you can easily find more sources. But for number last in the (for example) Alabama list it is likely to be more tough. The whole website proves only that a lot of schools exist, but says nothing about their notability. The ranking only says something about the likelihood of finding additional sources. The same with the English school reports, they also only proves the existence of a school. The Banner talk 15:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

This is why it is important to understand that all of our notability guidelines work on the presumption of notability. If a restaurant has received a Michelin Star, there's a good chance that more sources exist for it, and thus per DEADLINE unreasonable to delete that article until editors have a chance to find it (once you verified that the Star was given out). Now, if someone vested in trying to learn more about that restaurant does a rather thorough search of sources and comes out "I can't find anything but that Star and a few local reviews", then we can talk about AFDing that article on the basis that our presumption was wrong. All that matters is that the nominator has done that thorough of a search to do their best to proof the negative that no sources exist. Similarly, being one of the top 50 high schools in the US is a good presumption of notability but one that can potentially fall through later. We accept that. We just don't want criteria for notability presumption that get it wrong a lot of the time (eg saying "every TV episode is notable" won't fly), hence having good refined criteria for schools is what is needed. --MASEM (t) 15:44, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm... let's explore that a bit... what would be some of the refined criteria? I can think of a few: 1) academic achievement, 2) sports achievement, 3) having multiple notable alumni (Multiple is important... to avoid WP:INHERITED)... what else? Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Has reliable, independent sources in the article instead of guesswork? The Banner talk 12:52, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Multiple alumni doesn't work, as all that says is that there will likely be sources that say "X went to Y" with no comment on Y, giving us no sources to work with. (The GNG case should always be used, but noting that local sources along aren't sufficient to establish notability.) --MASEM (t) 13:17, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Remember that we are examining the criteria for a presumption of notability at the moment... this is preliminary to determining actual notability.

If a school has multiple notable alumni, I think it safe to presume that there is something about the school that stands out. And I think it reasonable to presume that sources will have noticed this fact and commented on it... the next step is to see if sources actually support that presumption. Blueboar (talk) 14:34, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Not really. I'm sure there are schools that are notable due to fact that some famous person went there and the school attracted attention from that, but that's not a consistent event. Just because a lot of well-known people graduated from that school does not make the school necessarily notable. Further, it is a metric that can be games - what does "multiple" mean? Many will take that as "more than one", and thus race to find two alumni that have articles on WP (or create them) and then use that to justify the school. --MASEM (t) 14:43, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Re: "Just because a lot of well-known people graduated from that school does not make the school necessarily notable." I agree... it does not make the school necessarily notable... but that is not what we are talking about... we are talking about presumption, not proof. I think having lots of notable alumni does give the school a presumption of notability. If a school has lots of notable alumni, I would expect there to be reliable sources that discuss the school (perhaps noting how there are all these famous people who went to it). Remember that we are discussing the presumption of notability, and not proof of notability... a presumption can exist in the absence of proof. A presumption might turn out to be inaccurate, but it exists whether there is proof or not.

But let's not get sidetracked on this single (potential) criteria... what other criteria exist that would give us a presumption that a school is notable? Would the age of the school be a criteria? (ie would it be safe to say that a school founded 200 years ago is more likely to be notable than one that is only 10 years old?) Blueboar (talk) 15:47, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

School age has nothing to do with it (though there may be overlaps with places on historical registers at that point). Again, consider all of the other subject-specific guidelines. Nearly all of them have something do with something the topic merited that puts it above the average example of that topic, and that merit is so significant that there likely has been or will be sourced to talk about the topic due to that merit (if not more). That's why I suggest national "top X high schools" as a reasonable starting point. I'm sure there are awards given at the national level to schools that would suggest more sourcing can be found. The criteria needs to be "if the school meets X, there is a strong likelihood (>95%) that secondary sourcing can be found." (And again to be clear: a school can still be notable if it doesn't met these criteria but does have GNG sourcing) --MASEM (t) 15:52, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

"I'm sure there are awards given at the national level to schools"... Such as? Blueboar (talk) 21:44, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Statements above sometimes conflate notability with "excellence." The two are quite different. When we look at notable people, we do not search for the bravest, nicest, smartest, kindest people. The Nobel committee, the Medal of Honor determiners, the Person of the Year board might look for those. War criminals and mass murderers are as notable as saints,geniuses and titans of industry. Wikipedia is not sort of "Michilin Guide to Education," with articles only about The Best Schools. If a high school receives widespread coverage over numerous problems such as being rife with gangsters who sell drugs, with rapes, with a dangerous and decaying physical plant, with incompetent faculty and administrators hired through nepotism who embezzle the school's funds, with a very low level of academic achievement, then it is a notable school. I argue for this guideline to include a statement that complies with the defacto result of countless AFDs over many years, that public high schools and most legitimate public high schools are presumed notable, since coverage throughout their US state or equivalent district in other countries can be found in all cases i have investigated. Edison (talk) 20:47, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

...and what part of the currently written guideline makes that an issue? If sources can always be found, then there are always sources and there's no problem meeting the very basic requirements for a standalone article. This isn't WP:OUTCOMES, that's where your suggestion would belong (and is already present). - Aoidh (talk) 19:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Political parties

I'm involved in an AfD where someone has said "I favor the lowest possible barriers to inclusion of articles on political parties, their leaders, and their youth sections, without regard to size or ideology. We should treat these much the way we treat high schools because this is the sort of material which SHOULD be included in a comprehensive encyclopedia." I can't get my head around this. Does it make sense? Obviously ideology is irrelevant to notability, but the rest? Dougweller (talk) 10:50, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

A few years ago, such deletion discussions would result in merges to the relevant election. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 11:16, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I certainly think in this case the state parties should, unless they pass GNG, simply be mentioned in the parent article, and that youth groups should be treated as any other youth group, which reminds me I forgot to take one to AfD. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 11:27, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

That one certainly looks like list fodder in its current state, though I imagine that since it fought multiple elections, it really deserves expansion with individual primary and election results. Kind of a {{R with possibilities}}. Just one opinion. --Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 13:25, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Notability (political parties) exists, FYI. I'd suggest reviving that discussion; at the very nice it would be nice to end up with an essay. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 13:38, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Academic organization discussion

A discussion of notability of academic organizations has been going on at Wikipedia_talk:Notability_(academics)#Academic_Organization_notability_guideline. Sorry for the late notice. RockMagnetist (talk) 17:09, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

The discussion has been revived (see Wikipedia talk:Notability (academics)#Restarting discussion (April)). RockMagnetist (talk) 23:34, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Ethiojobs

Abel Asrat (talk) 08:24, 8 May 2014 (UTC)I am Abel a Wikipedian In Residence in Ethiopia and recently I wrote an Article about Ethiojobs but my article is facing speedy deletion.I chose to write the article since the company was the number one online recruiting company with 500 companies network and 250,000 Cv database https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiojobs

First, you need to stop thinking of it in personal terms, as being "my article".... as soon as you hit "Save Page" it becomes "Wikipedia's article".

Having said that... there are multiple issues that would lead me to support deletion:

(1) The article does not really establish what makes the company notable... It may well be the greatest company in the world... but we can't say that unless a reliable independent source (someone outside of the company) says it. Are their any industry sources that have written about the company? Has it been discussed by the media?

(2) the article reads like an advertizement for the company (examples: "... providing a satisfying e-recruitment service..." and "Driven by a team of qualified staff members..." are the kind of sentences that are usually written by a company's marketing department). Blueboar (talk) 12:19, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

WP:LISTED and Hoover's

This came up at a recent AfD, so I thought I'd mention it here. I notice that a Hoover's profile is listed as a criteria for notability under the WP:LISTED section of this notability guideline. I think that this should be removed. The reason is that, as the Wikipedia article on Hoover's points out, the company maintains a database of 80 million companies. (A google search indicates a number varying from 75 to 85 million.) Even if the number were a tenth or a hundredth of that size, this would still be a pretty useless criteria for notability. Coretheapple (talk) 14:33, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Does anyone know what the criteria are for being listed in Hoover's? I can't find it on their web site. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 14:40, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I think that all you have to do is incorporate. I know a guy who incorporated a family nonprofit and he got a call from Hoover's! Coretheapple (talk) 15:26, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I agree it should be removed then. --Spike Wilbury (talk) 13:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I've removed it, but if anyone feels it needs to be discussed further, then back it goes I guess. Coretheapple (talk) 12:28, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Submitting an article

Hi,

We would like to write an article on PronounceNames.com

It has been featured in Wall Street Journal, CBS News, Revision 3 Tekzilla (100th episode), etc.

It gets over million visits.

Does this meet the criteria for having extensive independent coverage?

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maherlewis (talk • contribs) 16:29, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

The information you need is probably at WP:BFAQ. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

IMPORTANT: Could a knowledgable senior Wikipedian

Please create, or submit for creation, a "WP:" template to make linking/referring to this subsection, [2], easier? It is important in patent acceptability/verifiability discussions. Ping me when done? THANK YOU. Cheers, Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 02:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Done, Leprof 7272. Anyone can do this. Open (edit) this link and view this diff to see the two steps involved in creating shortcuts. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Beautious, tyvm! Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 02:57, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

"Schools" section and proposed notability guideline for geographic features

The "Schools" section (which appears to apply to all educational institutions) excludes all other subject-specific notability guidelines. This may contradict the proposed guideline Wikipedia:Notability (geographic features), as educational institutions may be notable for their buildings or as legally-recognised populated places. Peter James (talk) 09:32, 11 May 2014 (UTC)

• I thought we had a well established rule of thumb, that secondary schools (and above) are generally notable. This has arisen partly because of pupils wanting to write about their own school. This has produced a crowd effect that it was impossible. Conversely Primary and Middle Schools are generally NN, but articles on them may properly be merged into an article on education in their district or on the place where they are. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:27, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
• This seems a strange argument. Schools, corporations, colleges, public bodies, other institutions, and individual people, may all be associated with buildings, but equally they may occupy a number of different buildings, either at once or in sequence. A school is not a place any more than a person in their house is a place. Notability of building and occupier is separate. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:00, 15 May 2014 (UTC)
• If, through significant coverage in reliable sources, we can establish that a school building as a physical structure is notable as an architectural or historical topic , then we ought to have a article about it. Leaving aside such relatively rare issues, our well-established presumption is that primary and middle schools are not notable, but that degree awarding secondary schools and colleges and universities are notable. We redirect search terms about non notable schools to articles about their school districts or locales. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:35, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
  • This - a school as defined here is an entity but not a building as would be at the geographic features guideline. --MASEM (t) 15:05, 15 May 2014 (UTC)

Explanation requested for phrase " A story reprinted in multiple newspapers is still one source (one publication)"

I am hoping someone can enlighten me. In the footnotes of the main page of this article is the sentence, "A story reprinted in multiple newspapers is still one source (one publication)". This makes it sound like a story about a trip to the moon published in 200 newspapers worldwide is just one "source". Could someone explain what is meant by "multiple newspapers" here? I suspect that what is meant is either that a single story published in the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and the Orlando Sentinel (all owned by the Tribune Company) count as only one source (provided they are all the same article with the same author) or that the same story-line covered multiple times in a single newspaper is to count as only one source (which seems like a vague and counterproductive value, given that a major newspaper may cover the same subject multiple times thereby reiterating its notability). How is "multiple newspapers" to be considered "one source" with "one publication"? is my real question. I am sure there is an answer to this, but I am having some difficulty understanding it the way it is currently worded and want to know when to apply it to my own evaluation of sources for determining notability. And if/ when I get an answer, it would be great if that sentence could be rephrased for clarity (and I will be glad to do that myself if no one beats me to it!) Thanks! KDS4444^Talk 02:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Frequently, news stories come from wire services like the Associated Press, and they will be published in multiple papers, perhaps with a few small changes and edits, but otherwise effectively the same stories. Though these would be different sources, this is the "one source" for our purposes. Most trusted papers will have this byline in their lead to be clear that the article is not their original content and hint that you may find duplicates of this story in other newspapers. --MASEM (t) 02:49, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Also to add, particularly when talking companies, press releases about companies will be republished in multiple papers; this is the same situation, there's only "one source" irregardless how many times it is republished. --MASEM (t) 02:50, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Now I understand. Thank you! KDS4444^Talk 02:52, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Aside, though: aren't press releases generally considered not independent?? KDS4444^Talk 02:53, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Right, pressers are dependent sources, even if published by the third-party newspaper. I think the key walk-away is that just because a newspaper publishes something doesn't make the newspaper the publisher of the information when it comes to considering notability. --MASEM (t) 03:01, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Regular newspapers don't simply reprint press releases. If you find an alleged newspaper that is simply reprinting press releases verbatim, then you should ask yourself whether they're actually reliable, e.g., exercising editorial control. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

True, though there are other sources like magazines (or more their online version) and online news outlets that do this, but the same logic applies, the republication of the presser in multiple online sources doesn't make that multiple publications. --MASEM (t) 13:32, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Speaking as a writer for higher quality trade publications for over 30 years, I would say that such publications often have clearly marked sections like "New products" that consist of rewritten press releases. But even those show a degree of editorial judgment, as the editors may receive ten or twenty times more releases than they can publish. But "staff signed" articles in such publications indicate a higher level of independent reporting and research. Like so many things, independent editorial judgment by Wikipedia editors is required. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:11, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:AUD

WP:AUD requires at least one regional, national, or international source. I have some questions about this.

1. If a news story is published in a local paper, then reprinted in a national one, will it still be considered a "local source"?
2. If NYT reports something in New York, will the report be considered a "local source"?
3. How to determine whether books or research papers are "local" or not?--180.172.239.231 (talk) 02:39, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

1. Usually, it's "national" then. The goal is someone thinking that it's worth national attention.
2. Not usually, but it depends. National and regional papers do report on local issues, but they do a lot less of it compared to local newspapers. If it's specifically in a local section, then it might be considered local-only news.
3. This is almost never raised as a concern for anything except periodicals. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

The key here is readership numbers (ie how many people are likely to have read the report). If something is only reported on by a news outlet with a readership of a few hundred, that something will be far less notable than a similar something that is reported on by a paper with a readership of thousands or millions. Small town papers tend to have tiny readerships... the NYT, on the other hand, has a huge readership. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Notability of company

Hi there,

i have updated the article but got declined from the admin on the basis of adequate reference. I just discover that there is a way of acceptability for notable company, but wondering how should i establish the company is notable. Regards — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.179.166.182 (talk) 15:50, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

As explained at WP:GNG and on this page, notability is normally established with multiple reliable independent secondary sources discussing the subject in detail. WP:PRIMARY sources (e.g., the company web site, press releases, etc.) and sources offering only trivial coverage (e.g., of announcements of personnel changes, openings and closing of local branches, etc.) do not contribute to notability. Msnicki (talk) 20:30, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Msnicki is correct... to establish notability you need to cite secondary sources that are independent of the company itself. Once you do that, however, you can use primary sources (company publications) to flesh out the details of the article (Note: See the WP:PSTS section of our WP:No original research policy for more on how to do this appropriately.) Blueboar (talk) 12:43, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

Revision for listed companies

I do not think that the presenttext reflects our actual practice. It now reads:

There has been considerable discussion over time whether publicly traded corporations, or at least publicly traded corporations listed on major stock exchanges such as the NYSE, NASDAQ and other comparable international stock exchanges, are inherently notable. Consensus has been that notability is not automatic in this (or any other) case. However, sufficient independent sources almost always exist for such companies, so that notability can be established using the primary criterion discussed above. Examples of such sources include independent press coverage and analyst reports. Accordingly, article authors should make sure to seek out such coverage and add references to such articles to properly establish notability.

Editors coming across an article on such a company without such references are encouraged to search (or request that others search) prior to nominating for deletion, given the very high likelihood that a publicly traded company is actually notable according to the primary criterion.

In reality, we do not consider the NASDAQ, or the minor parts of the NYSE such as the former American Stick Exchange, as major exchanges. Companies listed there are usually not kept, unless they happen to be major companies that have maintained their listing there rather than moving to the major exchanges, in the absence of special factors of newsworthiness; advice to the contrary here is plain wrong: anyone who follows it is very apt to find their work wasted. For most NASDQ companies, even if there are sources of a sort, in practice we usually find a way of rejecting the sources as either non-indpendent or non-substantial or as routine indiscriminate listings. Probably 2/3 of the NASDAQ companies at AfD have been deleted; most never get that far. There is no point in having guidelines that do not reflect reality--they just guide people into confusion. (Of course, I would have no objection at all if we did keep essentially all publicly traded companies, & I have proposed it in the past. But since we do just the opposite, we should say so.) DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

I suggest we simply modify this by removing the word NASDAQ. We could then add a paragraph about other exchanges but it isn't really necessary--the general rule holds. DGG ( talk ) 05:10, 30 August 2014 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for pointing out the problem. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:52, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Significant coverage not required for nonprofits?

WP:NONPROFIT states: "Information about the organization and its activities can be verified by multiple,[1] third-party, independent, reliable sources."

At first this sounds like a reiteration of WP:GNG, but absent from this is GNG's requirement of "significant coverage". Is that really the intention to give nonprofits a free pass around GNG or is this just an accidental omission? -- intgr [talk] 09:09, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Good point. I'm sure this was an oversight. Coretheapple (talk) 15:42, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

This is one of the problems with having short cuts that point to specific sections instead of pointing to the entire policy or guideline. People only read the section that is being pointed to and not the entire page. Note that this guideline starts with the statement:

• An organization is generally considered notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources. Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability. All content must be verifiable. If no independent, third-party, reliable sources can be found on a topic, then Wikipedia should not have an article on it.

This covers all organizations... non-profits as well as for-profit organizations. The fact that the phrase "significant coverage" is not repeated in every single section does not mean it does not apply. Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

True but I can see this omission used in deletion discussions. I think that the best course is to add a few words about "significant coverage" to this section. Coretheapple (talk) 16:37, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I think it can be interpreted like that regardless of the shortcut. The lead section sets the "general" criteria, but the nonprofits subsection is under a section called "alternate criteria". And it re-states only part of the general criteria, why would it do that unless the point is to relax that criteria? IMO that implies that it does not work in conjunction to the general/primary criteria. And due to confirmation bias, people are prone to accepting the interpretation that suits them best.

Sorry to digress, but this always puzzled me, why do we even have all these enormous subject-specific notability guidelines if it all boils down to GNG? The section "Alternate criteria for specific types of organizations" says...

Organizations are considered notable if they meet one of the following sourcing requirements

1. these alternate criteria,
2. the primary criteria for organizations, or
3. the general notability guideline

So by your interpretation the choices are... (1) GNG + more restrictions; (2) GNG + more restrictions; (3) just GNG.

And WP:N says "It meets either the general notability guideline below or the criteria outlined in a subject-specific guideline listed" great...

Is it just me or can we completely throw away WP:ORG without affecting anything? Because GNG is always sufficient, and is always required anyway. I get the impression that nobody actually thought this stuff through. -- intgr [talk] 18:24, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

I agree with intgr that the point is usually to relax or clarify the GNG.

The most recent relevant discussion I can recall was one about a small learned society that published an important journal or ran an important conference. The problem was that a national non-profit in a legitimate academic discipline does not easily satisfy GNG, yet appears on the face of it to be notable to the Wikipedia community. I don't recall the details, though perhaps someone can offer a link. The conversation on the specifics reinforced the consensus around the exception that intgr describes in the opening question.

It can be useful to revisit these topics from time to time, especially if it gives the impression that "nobody actually thought this stuff through" to an experienced editor. Goodness knows what newcomers think.

--Hroðulf (or Hrothulf) (Talk) 15:55, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Agree that we need to revisit the criteria. We absolutely do not want to provide more relaxed criteria for nonprofits. There are a massive number of them out there, most absolutely unremarkable. Coretheapple (talk) 16:14, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Personally, I would prefer if the subject-specific guidelines were abolished entirely. The only times I've seen them being used is when someone tries to weasel through vanity articles that couldn't possibly be expanded from permastub status without original research, due to lack of good sources. The GNG has a good rationale at WP:WHYN, but no such justification seems to exist for the (in my view) arbitrary criteria in subject-specific guidelines. -- intgr [talk] 20:29, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

This exists largely to help explain the GNG in a subject-specific context, and to give people a realistic idea of where the bar stands at AFD. In practice, it's the people at AFD who decide whether the subject needs to "only meet the GNG, or whether ORG's "GNG+more' model is more appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

"Deciding" to require ORG's criteria in a deletion would be dishonest, wouldn't it? Both guidelines state unambiguously that just GNG alone is sufficient, as I listed above. But I digress...

There seems to be a consensus here that the requirement of significant coverage in WP:NONPROFIT was an omission, or should be added. It seems that word doesn't fit very well in the current sentence structure, however. I propose replicating GNG here, which should reduce misunderstanding:

The organization has received significant coverage in multiple reliable sources that are independent of the organization.

The current word "third-party" seems redundant, "independent" already implies that, right? -- intgr [talk] 18:38, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

There is technically a small difference between those words, but for notability it doesn't really matter. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:02, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Well it's been a week without any for/against comments, but I believe it reflects a consensus of the above discussion. Am I within my rights to change the guideline? -- intgr [talk] 17:46, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Web-only news organization

I have a question that may provide a specific case for the WP:AUD discussion. Notability of WhoWhatWhy has been challenged on grounds of WP:WEBCRIT. That guideline is actually irrelevant because its two criteria apply to web content, not to the organization, and indeed the noteworthiness of the content on the website is unquestioned and I think pretty obviously unquestionable. I think the deletion challenge will die a natural death. But the noteworthiness of the organization seems to rest on WP:AUD, or at least I haven't found anything else. The results of investigation and research by their reporters are published in articles on their website which are cited, quoted, or picked up in their entirety by an international diversity of web, print, radio, and TV media. The site is called out in diverse places (it struck me that one is the the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Library) as a go-to place for insight, and it gets close to a million unique hits per year. But it is very difficult to find any articles describing the organization itself in any extended way, beyond the mentions and brief discussions that I cited on the talk page for the article and the talk page for the deletion proposal. This seems to be in the nature of the beast. Its notability is primarily in the readership of its content, hence, WP:AUD. Is something more needed to recognize this class of organization?
Bn (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

This isn't really an AUD issue. It's a WP:WHYN issue: if you really can't find "any [independent sources] describing the organization itself in any extended way", then Wikipedia should not have an article about it, full stop. Without independent sources that describe the organization itself, then you cannot write an article about the organization that complies with WP:V and WP:NPOV. It's actually impossible to comply with these policies when the only possible sources are the subject.

That said, the media likes to write about its own industry. Before you give up, try contacting a reference librarian to see whether they have information that would be useful to you.

Finally, the AFD participants (especially the closing admin) are the ones who decide which of the potentially relevant guidelines they choose to apply. If they decide that WEBCRIT (or GNG, or ORG, or anything else) is more relevant, then it will be judged against the guideline that they choose, even if you believe that a different one is more relevant. There's nothing we can do about that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:23, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Since the issue is not the web content but the organization, WP:ORG is more apt than WP:AUD. It says "If the depth of coverage is not substantial, then multiple independent sources should be cited to establish notability." That criterion is easy to meet. Whowhatwhy has international recognition, and in many places there are brief statements of what it does, how it does it, and the importance of what it does.

There are many independent sources talking briefly about the organization and what it does, but SFAIK no extended description of the organization as such in any one place, certainly nothing comparable to the 1990 book about CNN (which was published 10 years after its founding).

I'll keep looking. I have a substantial list of references to investigate, audio & video as well as print. It will take time for me to go spelunking through them.

This question was whether the properties of this sort of news organization as a class merited some specialization of the notability guideline. Maybe WP:ORG already provides the appropriate specialization. I haven't looked into the history, perhaps the reason for this provision is the difficulty getting non-publicity information about organizations because what an org does is generally more notable than what it is. This is certainly true of an org that only does investigative reporting.

Bn (talk) 17:15, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

School sports leagues

There are a lot of articles about US high school sports leagues and their subdivisions - such as Liberty League (California), with one reference and Section 8 (NYSPHSAA). The website used as a source for many of them is "MaxPreps: America's source for high school sports". Are they notable? Over at Wikipedia talk:Notability (sports) I've been told that the Notability (sports) guideline defers to WP:ORG here. I don't see that these leagues satisfy WP:ORG: they are local, and don't show evidence to meet "Organizations whose activities are local in scope (e.g., a school or club) can be considered notable if there is substantial verifiable evidence of coverage by reliable independent sources outside the organization's local area." (or does coverage by Maxpreps fit this?). Any thoughts? PamD 10:51, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Very Iffy... The issue isn't really whether the league itself is local... but whether coverage of the league is local, regional or national. A quick google search on the Liberty League did not turn up much in the way of sourcing beyond Maxpreps ... and the google news hits predominantly related to a collegiate level league (in the North East) that has the same name. Indeed... I was hard pressed to find even local news coverage of the league. So, it really does seem to come down to the question: "Is the Maxpreps website, alone, enough to establish notability?" I too have to question that. Blueboar (talk) 12:07, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

For the second one and the related Section 1 (NYSPHSAA), I severely doubt notability due to lack of independent sources. The Banner talk 17:43, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

WP:NSCHOOL and the meaning of "this guideline"

At WP:NSCHOOL, which points to level 4 heading 4.1.1, entitled Schools, it says:

"All schools ... must satisfy either this guideline or [WP:GNG], or both."

The meaning of this guideline is unclear. Since there was nothing further below this sentence in 4.1.1, it couldn't refer to that, so I thought it maybe meant the encompassing section 4.1, Non-commercial organizations, which did not seem unreasonable. However, someone else suggested this guideline refers to the entire page (WP:ORG) instead, which also seems reasonable, given the hatnote that refers to it as a singular guideline:

"This page documents an English Wikipedia notability guideline."

Based on that, I added the highlighted clarification at [3]:

"All schools ... must satisfy either this guideline (WP:ORG) or [WP:GNG], or both."

Any problems? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:51, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

You are correct: the whole guideline. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:08, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Yes, there are problems. I 'm not too keen on the way this entire guideline slowly but surely gets and sneakily perverted over time by POV notability pushers without prior discussion. There was a jolly bit of edit warring going on about schools, almost exactly a year ago to the day, where if I hadn't been involved (by having made only one edit - based on fact - that was subsequently radically removed without discussion), I would probably have issued some formal EW warnings. Perhaps one needs to be reminded of the comment box at the top of the guideline wherein it is clearly stated that there may be exceptions. Schools quite clearly and indisputably enjoy an exception. The text that was removed went something like:

− Current Wikipedia practice is to consider Bona fide mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide education to the equivalent of Grade 12 in their respective regions) that are proven to exist and provide education to that level as being notable, due to the very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them. Other schools, such as primary (elementary) schools, middle schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy WP:GNG.

The only things that should be altered in this guideline without discussion or clear evidence based facts are typos, punctuation, and MoS issues. And for those who need to brush up their grammar, while the modal must can be used in a policy, the nearest a guideline can get is 'should' - which does not imply an obligation. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:48, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:PGE disagrees with you about must, and I hope that you agree that "mere guidelines" like WP:External links correctly use the modal must when they say things like "External links in biographies of living persons must be of high quality". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:25, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I think Kudpung's statement above is the existing consensus,and should be restored. The version now in the statement simply does not represent current practice. and should be removed. I interpret Kudpung's wording as a replacement for the current sentence, not a supplement to it. There is no point in a guideline that provides a guide opposite to what we do. People following it will be misled, because in the last 3 or 4 years at least there have been to my knowledge essentially no exceptions whatsoever at AfD. But Kudpung I think forgot that colleges and universities need to be included also, so it should read

Current Wikipedia practice is to consider degree-granting universities and colleges, and Bona fide mainstream high schools (secondary schools that provide education to the equivalent of Grade 12 in their respective regions) that are proven to exist and provide education to that level, as being notable, due to the very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them. Other schools, such as primary (elementary) schools, middle schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education must satisfy WP:GNG.

I would also make several interpretative notes

(1) "Grade 12 or equivalent" means Grade 12 or the equivalent grade that prepares for entrance into a university (in much of the world, grade X), or is the equivalent final year of secondary education for those not going to a university."

(2) This does not include tutoring academies, language schools , or vocational schools that do not lead to an academic degree. All of these may or may not be notable, but there is no presumption.

(3) "Colleges and universities" include "junior colleges" with programs that lead to an Associates's degree or the equivalent (normally 2 years after secondary education). It does not include programs that lead to a certificate only (normally one year of post-secondary education.

For all of these interpretative notes, I base what I say on precedent in the last two years. They have held in that period without significant exception, and I think in fact without any exception at all; that is long enough to make a guideline.

I personally do not like the general approach of thinking of it as "implied notability:"; I think it rather is an expression of the fact that the general notability guideline is not seen as applicable in all cases, and the very GNG guideline says that--beyond the general nature of guidelines that Kudpung mentioned. I would personally remove that part of the statement, but I'd rather keep it than fight about it. The true basis for the special guideline about schools s that it represents a compromise which developed in the period 4 to 6 years ago to avoid disputation in thousands of special cases. Before that, we fought over not just every secondary school, but every primary school also. I don't think we want to go back to that.

More generally, I think the entire ORG guideline and possibly the entire Notability guidelines are best justified as a practical way of avoid promotionalism, rather than as some sort of general principle. An encyclopedia with even a very broad inclusion principle is still an encyclopedia. With promotionalism, we would not even be an encyclopedia in any meaningful sense, and there would be no reason why anyone but advertising agencies would bother writing here. DGG ( talk ) 12:08, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I don't generally follow this talk page much but I do notice in another thread above that Blueboar makes an excellent observation: "This is one of the problems with having short cuts that point to specific sections instead of pointing to the entire policy or guideline. People only read the section that is being pointed to and not the entire page" and when the statement they land on is practically the opposite to the standard accepted practice, then the problems start, such as the frequent clogging up of the AfD system by newbs who have nothing else better to do - all in good faith of course, but it's one heck of a job explaining to them that they are investing their time in the wrong quarter. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:52, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

We're talking a bit at cross purposes.

• Are most high school and university articles kept? Yes.
• Why are they kept? They're not kept because they're schools, and we've all decided that schools are just so terribly important. They're kept because they do meet the criteria in this guideline.
• What is the proposed addition? To spell out that we treat these kinds of schools as being "notable, due to the very strong likelihood that" they meet the sourcing criteria in this guideline.

The reality is that, for better or worse, nearly all bona fide mainstream high schools and universities can meet ORG with half their sources tied behind their backs. Requiring them to "meet ORG" means we keep these articles. So there's no sort of contradiction or divergence from actual practice here. It's just a question of whether we spell out reality, or keep the guideline more concise. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I think I should chime in here since I made some amendments to the wording earlier. I considered objecting to the "must" wording at the time for the reasons Kudpung gave earlier, though there are a number of guidelines which used the word already. I did however change the wording to make clear that the WP:GNG can be used to satisfy notability regardless of what WP:ORG says, as SNGs are an alternative path to achieve notability, not an additional burden, as per WP:N.

I share Kudpung's general frustration of this guideline having been slowly re-written by a very small group of editors without any real substantive discussion, let alone consensus. The proposal of local sources not counting towards notability, for example, has been rejected multiple times by the wider community (with the exception of WP:EVENT, which is a special case), yet it has made an appearance in WP:ORG.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether a sub-section for schools is appropriate here, though the current layout hasn't been well thought through at all – the shortcuts and sub-headings only mention schools, yet the content mentions universities. Universities have always been looked at a little differently from school articles and are looked after by their own WikiProject. Furthermore, this section has been lumped under non-commercial organizations – yet there are plenty of commercial schools and universities in the world. Are they exempt from this sub-section? CT Cooper · talk 14:59, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Responses to this comment have been moved into #Revising WP:AUD below. 22:29, 29 September 2014 (UTC)

In my opinion, it would be far better for Wikipedia when every school have to prove in the article that they are notable instead of assuming that the school is notable, based on vague assumptions as When you search hard enough, sources can be found. The Banner talk 16:56, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I think we do need the paragraph added to show the prevailing practice of keeping colleges and secondary schools (and it should be "secondary schools", not "high schools", as a more inclusive term - many associate "high school" with America), established by long-standing de facto consensus. There are too many nominations for deletion, which are invariably defeated. However, I believe it should be grade 10 and not grade 12, since 16 is the legal school-leaving age in many countries (and this has also been established by consensus). It should also be "age 16" and not "grade anything", since the latter is also an Americanism and Wikipedia is multinational. The fact that private schools that meet the criteria are kept should also be recorded, as this has been an issue at AfD in the past. It should thus read:

Current Wikipedia practice is to consider degree-granting universities and colleges, and bona fide mainstream secondary schools (that provide education to the age of 16 or above), both public and private, that are proven to exist and provide education to that level, as being notable, due to the very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them. Other educational institutions, such as vocational schools and colleges, primary (elementary) schools, middle schools, and schools that only provide a support to mainstream education, must satisfy WP:GNG.

-- Necrothesp (talk) 10:56, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

If there's a "very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them," why do we need an exception to make them notable? If there are sources, there are sources, and the articles will survive because they can be properly cited. Plus, you don't have schools like this thoroughly non-notable one skating in on a waiver.

Exploring the meaning of "notability" relating to schools, what is it about yet another one of thousands of schools that should make it notable? Is it simply enough that it exists (and why)? Shouldn't it be distinct in some important way, like consistently high or low or suddenly different educational achievement (competition, test scores, etc.), sports achievement (record-setting, championship-winning), novel approaches to teaching, distinctive instructors, etc.?

What's the point of having articles for every cookie-cutter high-school that graduates the same crappy students in the same crappy way year after year? They seem to mostly just attract student vandalism. Even if it does get some primary-source-driven expansion by some enthusiastic students or alumni (against policy), will it ever be kept accurate as they move on? Will someone be vigilant enough to keep minor edit vandalism from turning it to mush? Who reads such articles, and do they really care that a Gym III class is offered on Tuesday? The articles can't possibly be considered current or accurate. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 13:35, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Current policy explicitly rejects deleting articles because they are subject to vandalism, and there are plenty of good reasons for this. Either a school is notable enough for an article or it isn't. Whether its a target of vandalism or not is irrelevant, as is whether people personally find its content interesting or not. There is such thing as inappropriate additions to school articles, which is what WP:WPSCH/AG, particularly WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI, exists for. If the existence of third-party sources can be shown, which is usually the case for most school of secondary level or above, the current state of the article also becomes irrelevant. CT Cooper · talk 19:10, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

• "If there's a "very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them," why do we need an exception to make them notable? " While the sources will exist, not all of them will be accessible online, and that's why we have WP:SNG. --114.81.255.40 (talk) 12:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

But we do not require that sources be accessible online. Hard copy sources that exist in libraries and other public archives are fine. Hell, as far as Notability goes... we don't even require that the sources be cited in the article (although any halfway decent article will cite at least some of them). All we require to establish notability is that the sources exist (so that we could cite them, if needed). That is already covered in both the main part of WP:ORG and at WP:GNG... so why do we need NSCHOOLS? What makes schools, as a topic area, so different that we need a separate section of the guideline to discuss them? Blueboar (talk) 13:02, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

The requirement for sources is very well justified at WP:WHYN; it couldn't be a good article if it doesn't cite sources, anyway. Are there any reasons to tolerate bad articles about schools, if we don't for topics? -- intgr [talk] 15:54, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

It could be a good article if independent sources exist somewhere. --114.81.255.40 (talk) 05:27, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The sad thing is, is that WP:COMMONOUTCOMES is often misused as a kind of policy to keep articles, no matter how bad the articles are. Resulting in a massive bias towards schools in the USA. The Banner talk 16:39, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

"If there's a "very strong likelihood that sources will exist that discuss them," why do we need an exception to make them notable? We don't need an exception. We aren't creating an exception. There is no exception, and there never has been.

The only value in such a paragraph about schools is the same value in the very similar paragraph about publicly traded companies: if the corporation is traded on the London Stock Exchange, then you can safely assume that it's notable—not because we have any special exceptions for publicly traded companies, but because the sort of companies that are listed there all meet the GNG (and this guideline) very easily. Listing the "non-exception exception" for major publicly traded companies in this guideline has stopped editors asking us to declare them to be inherently notable, and it might have stopped a couple of misguided deletion attempts. Listing the "non-exception exception" for bona fide secondary schools might similarly stop editors from asking us to declare all high schools to be inherently notable, and it might stop a couple of misguided deletion attempts. (I rather doubt the latter in the case of schools, because WP:Nobody reads the directions, but it's possible, even though it didn't seem to have any effect when it was present.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

The "auto-notability shortcut" (let's call it) for public companies makes sense because of the minimum listing standards of exchanges and the underwriting process which guarantees there will be analyst coverage that can be cited (though that's a can of worms on its own). I don't see how the same can be said for schools, though – especially small, private schools like this one (which was the cause for my seeking clarification here). What guarantees that such coverage will exist? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 09:42, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

There is no guarantee in either case. However, someone looked into it a while ago, and when you're talking about the main class of schools that people actually mean to cover (you'll notice that the word bona fide keeps being added by people who have been through this discussion many times before), more than 90% (was it 98%?) of high schools could be sourced enough to meet ORG. The main problem is that you have to do a lot of work, especially searching local and regional newspapers directly rather than relying on Google News, to find the sources.

If there actually are no independent sources, then we should delete the article per WP:V and WP:NOT (and also ORG). WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

• In actual fact despite the years of discussion on school notability WP:COMMONOUTCOMES is never misused as a kind of policy to keep articles. Hence it can be safely understood that OUTCOMES is merely a page that accurately documents what we actually do with school articles, as evidenced elsewhere by the consensus drawn from 1,000s of school article AfD closures and redirects. It is therefore the business of Notability (organizations and companies) to reflect that consensus and not to attempt to convince the occasional visitor to the guideline of the contrary or something else. Our rules are rarely written by experts in language, and a closer examination of the semantics in the guideline will reveal that the far stronger leitmotif of the guideline indeed supports the kind of exceptions which we accord to educational establishments.

I'm happy to accept Necrothesp's final version of what I and DGG have suggested (which was quietly removed a year ago) and I think we can all live with it, including WhatamIdoing and The Banner. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:38, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

and I will accept it also, much though I would like to see it worded stronger without needing to use the presumption. I do not understand people who want to argue instead of compromise over matters like this. There's important work that needs to be done here, including deleting thousands of hopelessly inadequate articles, and trying to change a reasonable consensus of grounds of what a general guideline ought to mean (but doesn't say) detracts from this. The policy of NOT DIRECTORY is critical--where we draw the line is not, and everyone in practice has to compromise on every subject. Otherwise, we'll have AFD back at several hundred pagesd a day, with results that are more erratic, but no better. DGG ( talk ) 13:59, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

The problem with "presumption" is that while it usually matches reality, it does not always match reality... in every situation where we "presume" that sources exist, there are cases where that presumption is simply false... where sources don't actually exist.

The presumption of notability is an indication that we should be reluctant to delete... it is not a "free pass" indicating that we should never delete. Blueboar (talk) 14:20, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Just look up how many people are using Common Outcomes as an argument for keeping an article about a school, Kudpung And look up how many admins keep a school-article because of Common Outcomes. The Banner talk 15:56, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

But consensus, as illustrated and enumerated by Common Outcomes, is a very good argument for keeping articles! -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

I disagree that OUTCOMES is "never" cited as if it were an absolute rule. I've seen quite a number "Keep per OUTCOMES" votes for schools. People here might have seen this exchange just last week over at Wikipedia:WikiProject Deletion sorting/Schools:

Speedy keep – Educational institutions are notable --Hackerboyas (Talk) 05:51, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Is this policy? Can you point me to it? AlanM1(talk)]— 08:12, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

The second bullet point at WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is the relevant one. AllyD (talk) 08:48, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

He asked for a policy, and he was given (only) OUTCOMES. So, sure, "never", so long as "never" means "about once a week". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:12, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

It's absurd to ask for a guideline that always matches reality. First, guidelines are intended to be flexible; Second, the precision of WP decisions does not even come close to "always matching reality." Nor should it: we trying to make a usable encyclopedia, not a perfect one--our method can not do more than that. Trying to make perfect decisions is so much effort it detracts from writing articles, except for critical issues of BLP and verifiability and copyvio--all we need is a good approximation. AfD decisions in general probably have at least a 5 or 10% error in each direction, and we will never do better without much wider participation. When we discussed individual schools at AfD, with only 2 or 3 people working on meeting the challenges to the sourcing, we kept about 80% of the high schools. Assuming that at least half of the ones not kept could have been kept if there had been time to work on them, that's as good as we do now, but it took enormously more labor. (There is an immense dissymmetry between the ease of nominating for deletion and the difficulty of finding sources to prevent it--myself, I could easily do a sufficient WP:BEFORE check to nominate 10 or 15 articles a day, but I would be hard put to successfully defend more than 2 or 3 articles. And if, like almost all people who were nominating schools for afd, I ignored WP:BEFORE, I could nominate as many as I could paste a prebuilt reason into Twinkle.) We also kept about 1/4 of the elementary schools, most of which were probably not actually notable in a realistic sense, because the result at afd reflects the energy with which something is attacked or defended, as much as the merits, Nowadays we merge almost all of these into the locality or sponsor, a much better result. That's what I mean by calling the current practice a workable compromise. DGG ( talk ) 19:29, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps in your opinion, I still call it "misusing of Common Outcomes". The sheer fact that you use terms as "defending" and "attacking", points at a less than healthy attitude towards AfDs. The Banner talk 00:29, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"attacking" is in my opinion the best single word to describe the way in which deletion of such articles was attempted in the past. I agree AfD should take a different approach--I have several times usggested calling it "Articles for discussion". DGG ( talk ) 04:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC) 04:45, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

"attacking" is in my opinion the best single word to describe the way in which people respond to an AfD. To my opinion, in a rather aggressive way and in teams to hide the lack of real arguments. Shouting loud and many times is a rather effective method used on AfDs regarding to schools... The Banner talk 12:12, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

What people are doing by referring to Common Outcomes is merely pointing to the summarised consensus to keep articles on certain classes of institution without having to trot out the same old arguments every time. When there clearly is a consensus (and there is - when was the last time such an article was deleted?), there is very little point regurgitating the same old arguments on both sides every time an editor nominates an article in this category for deletion. This is certainly not a misuse of Common Outcomes. It is, however, a clear use of Common Sense. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:14, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Which has been pointed out to {U|TheBanner}} umpteen times. You'll never get him to understand that because, (and previously as user:Night of the Big Wind), on all these school notability discussions over the years, he apparently does not want to understand it. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:55, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

I have tried so many times to let you understand that Common Outcomes is absolutely misused as a guideline for keeping. Assuming that a school is notable, as you nearly always do, is also not in line with the guidelines. And the real sad thing is, is that it has lead to a massive bias towards American schools as there are far more tiny local papers that publish the press releases of the local school than let say in Africa or even Europe. The Banner talk 18:51, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

The Banner, the way you have seriously misquoted me for years and blatantly again here, leads me to abandon good faith and assume that either you do not perfectly understand English, won't take the time time to fully read a discussion, or that you have some other kind of agenda. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:57, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Don't get worried by that. Seeing your keep-a-school-no-matter-what-mentality I know that you want to circumvent the usual rules and requirements for notability by using Common Outcomes as a policy and argument for keeping school-articles. Still, despite your breaching of the real policies I still assume good faith in you. The Banner talk 10:24, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Does WP:CONFLICT mean I shouldn't edit an article about an organization of which I am a member?

In general, I understand that in biographical articles, the subject of an article is discouraged from self-editing. Makes sense -- if they're notable, plenty of other interested parties will probably do it, and have a better stab at maintaining NPOV. But in the case of membership organizations, most interested parties will have themselves joined the org as members. Are they then discouraged from editing the article about the org? Or is that okay as long as they stick to the other guidelines? Is there a guideline on this? I couldn't find one explicitly stated, one way or the other. Thanks for whatever perspective and clarification you can offer this very-occasional wikipedian! Myself248 (talk) 18:54, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Ooh. The answer appears to be "yes, that's exactly what it means". Found it over here: Wikipedia:FAQ/Organizations -- I think I should probably leave this comment, and the above, in this talk page in case others like myself have trouble finding it initially. Myself248 (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Read the FAQ again... because it actually says that you can edit an article about an organization of which you are a member... you just have to be very careful how you do so. Blueboar (talk) 13:42, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

Its an interesting question see Wikipedia:Best practices for editors with close associations. In UK councils we distinguished between, pecuniary and non-pecuniary interests and substantial and insubstantial interests -and unless it was substantial and pecuniary we prefaced our comments with the phrase, 'I have an insubstantial and non-pecuniary interest and exercise my right to speak ....'. This can be put in the edit summary. If the interest is substantial, reference your change then ask another editor to look over it before you post it. As you are on the spot, you are in the best position to confirm of deny the facts so your contribution is highly valued-- just be open and cover your back.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 17:18, 6 November 2014 (UTC)

New investors

Hi all, I'm just wondering something. There seem to be a significant number of articles that try to establish notability through sources that primarily mention new investors in a company. We have a list of example sources that generally are considered trivial under section 2.1, but should articles that primarily mention new investors also be listed there? Has there been a discussion of this previously (I've searched the archives without finding anything)? Bjelleklang - talk 16:48, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

Well, the prevailing idea that notability is not inherited may be applicable here. Analogous to a company having notable investors might be a business that happens to be owned and run by an Olympic medalist. The person is notable, but that doesn't imply notability of any business ventures of that person. I'm sure Warren Buffet has bought stock in companies nobody had ever heard of, either — they become notable later. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:20, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

The question isn't really one of inheritance. It's about routine coverage, and yes, most "Look, we have another investor!" news articles should qualify as routine, non-notability-conferring coverage. It's not any more significant than the routine "Look, we hired a new employee!" news articles. (NB "most". Some articles that are deemed "news" because of a recent investment/hiring/whatever are actually valuable sources that cover far more information than just "Look! We did something last week!) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

I agree that if the news of a new investor is from the organization/company itself (ie a primary source) it does not indicate notability. However, if the source is independent of the organization/company (a secondary source) it can go towards notability (for example, the Wall Street Journal makes a to-do abut the fact that Bill Gates has just bought 42% of XYZ Corp", that would go towards the notability of XYZ Corp.) Blueboar (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

You have just used primary and independent as contrasting terms, and while I know that you are well-versed in the difference, you have given me an excuse to link to WP:Secondary does not mean independent again.  ;-) WhatamIdoing (talk) 11:07, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

True... there is a distinction... my bad. What I should have said was this: when a new investor is noted by an independent and secondary source (such as the Wall Street Journal) that coverage can establish notability of the company. Blueboar (talk) 12:41, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Question regarding crime

Any person who is accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty, how about an organization. Suppose some person accuse that the organization is involved in the acts of terror although there are no evidence or convictions against that organization what should we do. Should we assume that the organization has committed no such crime or should we consider it guilty because reliable source says so? -sarvajna (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

We don't assume anything. But if it's relevant, and reliable sources report it we can do it as well. Bjelleklang - talk 12:30, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your response Bjelleklang, if you look at WP:BLPCRIME it says that a person A person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and convicted by a court of law should that not apply for organisations as well? -sarvajna (talk) 17:48, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Strictly speaking that shouldn't really matter. We cannot say that someone is guilty if there hasn't been a conviction by a court, but we can report what the sources say. If an otherwise reliable source reports that company XYZ is guilty of a crime, we should present it as a claim by the source, and not as a fact. On the other hand, if one source claims that the company is guilty and another claims the opposite, we should present both views. This is easy to say for me right now of course, in reality it may be more difficult depending on the specific company. I hope this made sense, as English isn't my primary language :) Bjelleklang - talk 18:27, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again, English is not my primary language as well, my primary language is Kannada one of the many Indian languages -sarvajna (talk) 18:35, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Off-topic post: Bjelleklang and sarvajna, I hope that both of you are active at the projects in your native languages. I would be very interested in hearing from you both (on my user talk page) what you think about the projects in other languages, and especially about whether you encounter any technical barriers in editing there. Also, if you are interested in doing translation work to (or from; it's always your choice) your native languages, then WP:Translators available is one place to sign up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 6 January 2015 (UTC)