User:Sue Rangell/Secondary Schools

An increasing number of articles on secondary schools are being proposed for deletion. The proposers and their supporters are generally the same hard core of editors, often self-identifying as deletionists, and the opposers are generally an equally hard core of editors, including myself, and I consider myself to be a deletionist, so it is doubly frustrating for me personally. In general, secondary school articles are kept, but they continue to be nominated, presumably in the hope that one day we will suddenly "get it". --Sue Rangell ✍ ✉ 20:46, 30 December 2012 (UTC)

Becoming quite tired of repeating myself, I offer same old tired responses to the same old tired objections.

Information on secondary schools is not verifiable

• Wikihistory has shown us that the exact opposite is true, per WP:OUTCOMES. Nearly every time a secondar school has been brought up on AfD, the result has been a Keep, more often than not per WP:SNOW, because once the heavy digging begins, sources appear that obviously would have eventually been discovered had the article been left alone. The Afd served only to waste a lot of editor's time.

WP:OUTCOMES is not official Wikipedia policy

• Very true but it is a very good guidline for Articles about subjects that seem to be non-notable at first, but inevitably become very notable after the third or fourth round of research. There is ALWAYS something that is found (A statistical "Always" anyway). And it is simply a waste of time to put 1000 secondary schools up for AfD to find the one wierd one that actually deserves to be deleted. It is a massive waste of everyone's time and energy.

We don't want huge numbers of stubs, or even articles, on schools

• Por que no? Wikipedia is not paper. It doesn't matter how many articles we have. If you find a stub, the idea is to improve it, not delete it.

It's original research

• How so? Please read WP:OR again, assuming that you ever read it in the first place. Original research is quite specifically defined. Using this as an argument is to say that you do not understand what original research actually is/means.

School articles attract a disproportionate amount of vandalism

• This is very sadly true, but certainly not a reason to delete an article. The article on Adolf Hitler attracts a disproportionate amount of vandalism, as do religious articles, and articles about guns, animal rights, race issues, abortion, etc., etc., but surely nobody is suggesting that we should delete those, correct?

It's better to trim the number of articles than to add more articles

• Articles that cannot be sourced, are unencyclopedic, or that add nothing to Wikipedia certainly should be removed, particularly when there are WP:BLP issues, but secondary school articles do not fall into any of these categories.

The inclusionists are idiots; only the deletionists follow the one true path (or similar comment)

• I am a deletionist, and yet I do not see the point in wasting a lot of time placing articles into AfD when they have a WP:SNOW chance of actually being deleted... I certainly am not actually an inclusionist. There's a lot of rubbish out there that deserves to be deleted, and I'd happily support its deletion; but these articles don't fall into that category. To make such comment really has nothing to do with the article itself anyway. This isn't about being a deletionist or an inclusionist. It's about improving Wikipedia and not wasting everyone's time.

You're generalising and not addressing the issues of this particular school article

• If the generalisation applies, then it applies. This is another non-argument. I wouldn't say something if I didn't think it applied to this particular school. I am addressing the issues of this particular school article, since, as I've already stated. I believe that pretty much all secondary schools are notable enough for articles (with the possible exception of schools with a few dozen pupils, although even they may be notable), and should be assumed to be notable unless there is good reason to think they may not be. I've also given my reasons.

My house is very notable to me, but surely you're not suggesting that Wikipedia should have an article on it?

• Of course not, unless it is notable in some other way. Do you live in a castle? Some other unusual place? If you don't, I doubt if your house is anywhere near the notability of your nearby school.

The school only gets 3½ Google hits, so it can't possibly be notable

• This argument is a red herring. For one thing, there are many, many, many, other sources to look at. Google is not the be all and end all of notability nor will it ever be. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It has severe limitations. It will only bring up references to things that have been posted on the internet, and the Wikipedia policy on verifiability certainly does not state that only sources posted on the internet are valid. The fact that it is an internet search engine also means that it will not bring up any information predating a few years ago and it is far less likely to bring up information on schools that are not in developed countries. Does this mean they are any less notable? No, of course it doesn't.

If we deleted all the rubbish in the article then what was left would often only be a stub

• and...? Stubs are perfectly acceptable on Wikipedia. Wikipedia does not ban or even discourage the creation of stubs. A stub saying that the school exists (usually verifiable as already stated) is perfectly acceptable. The stub can now be improved with the research required to find notable events. And trust me, they are there, we always find them, because schools have long histories, and when you do enough digging, there is always SOMETHING.

Wikipedia deletion policy says that unexpandable stubs should be deleted

• School stubs have proven to be very expandable in 99% of the cases. As stated above, secondary schools have very long histories and are well reported. They participate in State events, etc., etc.

All these school articles mean that Wikipedia will not be taken seriously

• This is another red-herring argument. There is no evidence for this statement at all. In fact, I would put the school stubs on a far higher level of importance than, say, a very complete article about the latest meme, dance, or television commercial, but that is me.

Wikipedia is not a directory

• Schools do not fall into any of the definitions of a directory mentioned in that context. To make this argument, one must actually ignore policy.

Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information

• Schools do not fall into any of the definitions mentioned in that context either. See above about ignoring policy.

The school does not meet the notability criteria listed in WP:SCHOOL

• WP:SCHOOL is only a proposed guideline that has not been accepted by the community at large. I will also point out that guidline also lists WP:OUTCOMES as important reading material, which of course it is.

Why should the notability standards for schools be lower than those for other organisations, like companies?

• They're not, nor should they be. Any company that employed hundreds or thousands of people and had employed many more people in the past would almost certainly have a right to an article on Wikipedia. Especially if such company had a very long and colorful history, employed people that were notable in their own regard, or participated in national events, won awards, etc.

Secondary schools are not inherently notable

• Of course they aren't. Nothing on Wikipedia is, but consider this:
  • Hundreds of people (often thousands) spend a large part of the day at every school for five days a week, most of the year, for up to seven years. They are certainly very notable institutions to their pupils. Those pupils represent a considerable portion of humanity, about half, in fact.
  • People retain the influence of their secondary school for the rest of their lives, since it's where they spent a large part of their adolescent years. Prom night alone is often the high point of many people's lives for many many years. Thus they are also very notable institutions to their former pupils, every bit as much as the tertiary institutions that we invariably do keep by consensus. This is not just a few people, but thousands and thousands.
  • Secondary schools are usually major landmarks in their community, occupying large cathedral-like buildings or complexes which often provide facilities to the community at large as well as to their pupils.
  • Most secondary schools have very long histories, and are reported on in the news. There are sports events. There are notable alumni. There are other events in which the schools are evolved. Schools are often the place that the community gathers during a disaster.