Wikipedia talk:Notability (schools)/Archive 4

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Top and tail

Moved from up the page.

  • Can we start by topping and tailing the debate? What articles do everyone want and what articles do nobody want? Top: Can we go lower than universities? High schools? Bottom: x is a y-type of school in z? Nursery or preschool? Lower? Higher? This might help to clarify what we're talking about here and home in on the contention. Perhaps I'm missing something and these are already clarified somewhere. --Celestianpower háblame 21:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I believe from AFDs past we can reasonably assume that the following criteron for AFDs would be acceptable to the general Wikipublic. 1) Highschools and above (assuming they are verifiable) are automatically keeps. 2) Kindergarten/Preschools/Playgroups/School Bands/etc... (assuming they don't have some notable event like a mass suicide at them) are deletes. The crux of the debate is still going to be centered on elementary/middle schools. But if we can put the above 2 points in solid writing that will eliminate a large number of both AFDs in the case of highschools, and some of the uneeded debate in the case of preschools.Gateman1997 20:48, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Can someone be bold and put a notice at the top of this discussion page? Unless there are objections of course... --Celestianpower háblame 19:34, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
        • You mean a notice about what is considered "finished" debate (ie: High Schools and Preschools?).Gateman1997 19:40, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • For what it is worth, I would suggest that the existing consensus (although consensus isn't really needed for this aspect) would be to merge things like preschools, playgroups, school bands, school sports teams, school debate clubs, school student associations, school alumni associations into the school article where relevant, and to delete such things where there is not a suitable merge-candidate (ie. a Preschool attached to a school should just be merged to the school in question without the need for an AfD, whereas a Preschool that is stand alone (unless clearly exceptional in some fashion) would have a consensus for speedy delete based on existing precedent and consensus.--Nicodemus75 08:07, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't believe there is a currently finished debate. I would argue that highschools without substantial articles should be merged (NO CONTENT LOST), not kept on sight. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Honestly I agree with you on that, however in the interest of satifying all parties I believe there is good reason to keep highschools (ie: they are rare, usually one a city, at top level institution for many students who don't go to college, centers of city life in places like west Texas, and preceedent has it that NO highschools have been deleted this year so continuing any AFDs on highschools is a futile gesture. Also as a side note almost all highschool debates end in out and out "keep" not "no consensus".)
      • One question I've asked in a couple places and still haven't gotten an answer to: in communities without schools, should community institutions like bingo halls, general stores, malls, etc. get articles instead? I'm not convinced that merely "being a center of city life" in a small town is sufficient to merit an article. flowersofnight (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
        • If it follows all of our policies, then yes. Hipocrite - «Talk» 20:47, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
          • I have to agree with Hipocrite on this. Many "centers" of communities have articles so it is a reasonable criteron for keeping High Schools especially in the midwest.Gateman1997 20:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
            • Could you link me to some example articles? I'm unfamiliar with what you're referring to. The next question is: if we accept this criterion, which communities' centers are notable enough for articles? There are some tiny towns out there where literally the only business is a gas station; should that gas station get an article? Where do we draw the line? flowersofnight (talk) 21:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
              • I propose that we leave the the fight over "gas stations as town centers" for another day.--Nicodemus75 04:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
                • That day will come sooner than either one of us would prefer if we adopt "town center" as a criterion for giving schools articles. We must carefully examine the consequences of any proposed criterion before using it as a pillar of consensus. So, I'd rather address the issue now. Is the gas station article OK or not? Why? flowersofnight (talk) 04:41, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
                  • I most strenously oppose going down this road. Those of us with extensive history on the schools know that these red herrings and strawmen will not help to determine a consensus on schools. This is a discussion about schools, not gas stations. If and when gas stations are being debated as "town centers" that is something for gas station inclusionists and deletionists to hammer out. I submit it is wholly inappropriate to get bogged down in this sort of discussion about largely irrelevancies. Before you know it, we will be trying to debate churches, libraries, cemetaries, city halls, police stations, water fountains and everything else under the sun. Let's stick with schools for now, it is more than a big enough task for us.--Nicodemus75 04:58, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
                    • We are not just debating whether schools should be kept here, we are debating under what principles schools should be kept. Why are you uncomfortable with considering how this "town center" principle might be applied outside of schools? It's the responsible thing to do when trying to establish precedent. Or do you want the "town center" reasoning to apply to schools only? If so, why only to schools? Will we need to have the same debate hundreds of times more when it comes time to decide policy for other types of institutions? If not, when exactly should it apply and why? I'm not trying to set up a strawman, only to explore the full implications of the ideas proposed here. I realize these are hard questions, but I think they deserve a fair hearing and a response. flowersofnight (talk) 06:02, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
                      • Feel free to debate gas stations or whatever else you like, but you won't be doing it with me (nor I daresay, a healthy number of other school "inclusionists") in this forum.--Nicodemus75 08:03, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
                        • If you read my last post a little more carefully, you will notice I didn't mention gas stations at all. I'm sorry that I brought up a potentially inflammatory example; let's drop consideration of that specific case and move on to the actual questions I asked most recently. The questions I have raised about how the principles here should be applied elsewhere are genuine and asked in good faith. Should I take it from your response that you intend to apply the "town center" principle only to schools? Or am I misunderstanding you? flowersofnight (talk) 10:42, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • As for my "top and tail" of the debate: I believe that university-level institutions are the only academic institutions worthy of "inherent notability". University level is the point where students generally start contributing independently to the academic world. Universities set their own academic standards and policies. Original research is often sponsored and carried out at universities. In short, each one is substantially unique, and plays a non-negligible role in society as a whole. By contrast, primary and secondary schools are generally constrained to teach a certain core curriculum (though they may add to it or present it in a novel way). Policy is often handed down from the district level or higher. School activity is generally centered around inculcating pupils with a common base of skills, in preparation for higher education or a career. As such, it is of little interest outside the immediate community it serves. I believe that unless a primary or secondary school represents a significantly novel approach to teaching these basic skills, or has gained notoriety for other reasons, it doesn't need its own article. That's my 2 cents. I do realize that consensus is not with me on certain areas, but this is my general "statement of principles". flowersofnight (talk) 20:38, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • While I do agree with much of what you say personally, we do have to take into consideration the fact that many users have the exact opposite view and view everything from a Kindergarten school up as notable. In addition we do have to take preceedent into account and preceedent says High Schools don't get deleted and are outright kept by a super majority. And this preceedent by it's very nature is consensus if achieved through AFD of a super majorty. We're not going to be able to change people's views on this and any attempt to is futile as the last year has proven (note again that no HS has been deleted in over a year and the vast majority have achieved super majority/consensus for keep). Better to focus our efforts solely where the community still has the most conflict... elementary/middle schools. Gateman1997 20:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I understand that we have to work within existing consensus, but I'd also like to see decisions made based on overarching principles rather than ad-hoc decisions and horse-trading. That's why I put up my ideas, and I encourage others to do the same. I'd really like to hear similar position statements from those who disagree with me. If nothing else, it will help me to understand all sides of the issue better. flowersofnight (talk) 21:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • We must grapple the problem of what we do with elementary/middle schools if there is to be any point to all of this verbage this page has gathered up recently. High Schools and Preschools are really dead issues. There are many, many problems with a simple merge compromise, and we can hammer them out once there are a few more participants in this discussion. I have a number of key objections and observations that need to be made about the merge proposals (many have been stated before) which I will try and summarize in the next couple of days. I think that we can have *some* agreement to merge *some* "sub-stubs" with an agreement on how it will take place, and also a clear definition of what a "sub-stub" school is, and what to do with a "sub-stub" that shows up at AfD. These are actually subtle and complicated issues that we need to discuss in order to move forward.--Nicodemus75 04:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
        • This looks like progress. I'm interested to hear your ideas. David D. (Talk) 05:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Perhaps I am too full of myself, but I hope that all who have been part of this discussion for some time will know that I have been a long-standing proponent of the deletion of school articles in general, on the basis that virtually no school is notable enough to be encyclopedic, and will appreciate that it is a big stretch for me to change my position to accept that high schools will have an automatic bye into Wikipedia, either through having a stand-alone article or a merge into a school district or town article. The "top" for me is high schools and up, and the "tail" is elementary schools and down. As a former elementary school teacher who has seen the insides of more elementary schools than any five people in this discussion combined, you will not convince me that elementary schools are, on the whole, notable in any sense of the word, except in rare circuimstances. You will also not convince me that elementary schools are an important part of a person's self-history or a community's sense of self. My vote for elementary schools will be "delete" unless genuine notability can be demonstrated. As far as middle schools/junior high schools goes, I will vote to keep if the school is notable. I will also vote to keep if the article is comprehensive but the school is not, in my perception, notable. However, non-notable school + substub = BZZZZT. Denni☯ 01:19, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • From all of the commebnts above I see a common theme that High Schools and higher is the top and Preschools and lower is the tail. Can I put a notice at the top of this page saying something like "This debate is about Elementary and Middle schools. Consensus and precident dictate that High schools and Universities should be kept and Preschools should be deleted."? Perhaps my wording is wrong but would everyone be happy me doing this? --Celestianpower háblame 13:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I think saying all preschools should be deleted will lead to Nicodemus75 launching some kind of jihad upon you. I don't think many people would object to a clarifying statement that nobody thinks universities should be deleted, and obvious consensus (despite my personal feelings being the other way) that High schools should be kept. Proto t c 16:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

  • User:No Account has just reverted me saying that there's no consensus and there's lots of AfD's ending in "no consensus". Ths is untrue, most ended in keep. --Celestianpower háblame 19:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Analysis

I'd like to approach this from a different angle for a moment.

There is no question that AfDs aren't deleting schools. None. However, there is a lot of discussion about what that actually means.

There is some contention that this means that the people have spoken and that this is a dead issue. There is a middle ground claim that this hasn't been decided, and that AfDs should go on. There is also some contention that the process has been hijacked, freeped, and that these results are seriously out of step with broader unsampled consensus.

I'd been sitting in the middle, based upon some very rough analysis done on a small sample two months ago. I've recently been presented with some evidence that I haven't yet had time to examine that suggests otherwise.

I do have the analytical skills to extract some information from voting patterns. My earlier work I had deleted in a fit of piqué, but I'm sure I could get it restored. This could then be expanded to include a larger time series, and get statitically sound results. It would take some time, and a little bit of thinking, and I'm hesitant to waste the time I have left.

Thus I'd like to know how people from both camps would respond to possible outcomes. I'll list some below, based upon a very small sample but a fairly large body of non-wiki experiance. Please put how you would feel and/or respond to these findings, not if you beleive them now. There isn't much point in saying "this clearly isn't true" without actual analysis, ok? And pointing to lists of previous AfDs doesn't necessarily mean anything, ok?
brenneman(t)(c) 06:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Assumptions

All these assume that the overall percentage in school AfDs comes to foo. This is the obervational mean, which is taken to represent the actual mean.

Possibility 1 - schools are in

An aggregate sample across many many schools shows that we are sampling the population correctly, and that foo percent of people actually want schools kept.

  • This would be a strong result, and I would be willing to stop saying "delete" on school AfDs. I would discourage others from creating nominations. I would still want to discuss merging stubs and sub-stubs. - brenneman(t)(c) 06:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Per Brenneman Denni☯ 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Possibility 2 - up in the air

The aggregate sample shows that the overall rate of people who want schools kept is less than foo, but more than (1 - foo). This would require that there existed a group who deviated from the norm slightly, either in the way that they voted or in the frequency.

  • I would stop saying "delete" on school AfDs and begin saying "merge". I would not discourage others from creating nominations.brenneman(t)(c) 06:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Per Brenneman Denni☯ 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Possibility 3 - freeped

The aggregate sample shows that the overall rate of people who want schools kept is less than (1 - foo). This would require that there existed a group who deviated from the norm strongly.

  • I would attempt to present this information and hope that some reasonable discussion could take place. brenneman(t)(c) 06:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Per Brenneman Denni☯ 03:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Other discussion on this

Tony Sidaway's view

Sampling using afd is inevitably skewed, but I'm not sure where this examination of the sampling population is supposed to lead us. If there exists a subpopulation that strongly wishes to keep a class of articles, then there can never be a general consensus to delete such articles.

I do not oppose--will never oppose--the nomination of articles for deletion, whatever the subject. I'm in absolutely no doubt that school deletion nominations have been vastly and overwhelmingly good faith attempts to improve the encyclopedia.

As a matter of practical advice, I'd continue to advise editors considering such nominations to make a realistic examination of the likely outcome of their nomination, taking into account all factors. An hour or so spent by the prospective nominator attempting to improve the article, perform a merge or redirect, or whatever, could save many man-hours of effort to no avail in a deletion debate. --Tony SidawayTalk 11:19, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

The point I'm asking people to consider is that, whatever view they have, it may not be representative of a wider consensus, and that self-selection bias may be screwing things up. For myself, if I saw real empirical evidence that my opinion was off base, I'd be willing to stop self-selecting. The phrase "then there can never be a general consensus" implies a very un-wiki-like attitude on the part of this supposed group. It would imply that, even if made aware that they were gumming up the works, they wouldn't stop. This would be tantamount to disruption, to gaming the system. Surely we wouldn't support that?
brenneman(t)(c) 11:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)


Other views

I think for me, some numerical analysis would be interesting but not conclusive. I would especially like to see an analysis that divides people into more groups than two, as I feel that treating this as a binary division rather than a lumpy continuum is part of the problem. I want to help build a consensus, and so any data that helps me understand what I'm trying to build it out of would be welcome. --William Pietri 17:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Bear in mind that many people do not vote on these pages, like myself. But, when I have voted I have only voted delete. I remember Nicodemus asked why have you never voted keep? My answer was simple, if it looks like a good stub, and the school already has plenty of keep votes, I generally don't vote since its a slam dunk. So be careful about any statistical analysis. It is only useful for users who vote on EVERY Afd. David D. (Talk) 17:54, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Both of these are good points, and are in fact examples of what I'd be hoping to see. In the last sample of ten AfDs I took, for example, the mean number of participation was around two, but there were a few people who were in every one. And even though that are (basicly) only two ways you can declare, there are way more than two ways you can behave. - brenneman(t)(c) 22:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
My voting pattern is a little more complex that either just keep or just delete. I base my vote on the factors of notability and completeness. If a school article demonstrates notability and is well-written, I will vote to keep. If a school is a high school, I will vote to keep as long as it is well-written, even though notability may be lacking. For all other schools, if notability is lacking, I will vote delete. I vote on every school AfD. Denni☯ 00:41, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • So what we'd would see (if you had been in the previous sample frame) was that your participations was several s.d. above the norm, but that your consistancy was not. If we did clustering analysis, you'd end up in a different cluster than either someone who voted "delete" all the time or someone who voted mixed but not often.
  • I just going to do the analysis and hash out the results, since there does seem to be some interest. Anyone who knows how to strip the HTML so that I don't have to click "edit" and copy/paste a few thousand times would make me really happy.
    brenneman(t)(c) 11:28, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Bravo for just doing it. I can happily write scripts to process the AfDs. Could you give me an example of input and output you'd like? Feel free to do that on my talk page. --William Pietri 21:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Linking to pre-made arguments

Hi! A quick suggestion for the project page. Suggestion 4, linking to Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep or Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Delete seems like poor form to me. Maybe I just haven't had time to become jaded, but I think each school, like each person or website, is worth looking at individually. Knowing that somebody thinks that one or more of 16 assorted points applies doesn't help me a lot in evaluating a particular article. The AfD process is supposed to be about consensus, and getting a form letter does not give me the feeling that the copy-paster has any interest in that. --William Pietri 07:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Maybe they are just tired of typing out the same reasoning in circular arguments with the opposition 300 times in a row.--Nicodemus75 08:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Then perhaps they shouldn't bother, and consider trying to be constructive for a change, elsewhere on Wikipedia. Proto t c 10:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Down this road lies useless sniping. People have many reasons for parrticipating in the AFDs, and have carefully considered their positions. That said, many people also feel that discussion in those AFDs boilsdown to a repetition of the same basic points. While, ideally, I'd like to see useful discussion in each and every AFD, that's not likely to happen while people are bloc voting and accusing each other of bad faith. For the time being, the summarized arguments are marginally better than the alternative, and discussion (of a sort) is ongoing here. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 10:10, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Part of my point, Nicodemus, was that a) identifying an "opposition" freezes the discussion, and b) treating everybody who disagrees as if they're part of some bloc helps to create that bloc. To me, we're all people working on the same project, and so we must eventually come to consensus or the project will founder. I'm having trouble reading a copy-paste vote that links to sixteen different possible points as other than a sign that the voter has stopped listening and stopped trying to seek out consensus. Are there reasons I should have a different impression? --William Pietri 16:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

  • See wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep.--Nicodemus75 16:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm having a hard time interpreting that comment, Nicodemus. Gritting my assume-good-faith teeth, my best guess is that you have indeed stopped trying to seek consensus on this issue and think this is a humorous way to convey that. Is that the interpretation you wanted me to have? --William Pietri 16:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I want you to have whatever interpretation makes you feel the happiest.--Nicodemus75 20:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
        • The happiest one is that you will shortly address my points. I came here with a good-faith suggestion and a desire to learn more about why schools should be kept. I'm having a hard time not taking your comments as snarky and belittling of my concerns. Could you aid me in my effort by more clearly demonstrating good faith? Thanks, --William Pietri 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Actually, the beauty of it is that we don't need consensus, due to the fact that the policy wisely provides instructions as to what we do when consensus is lacking. If there's no consensus, then all schools are kept, and the project goes on its merry way. It certainly doesn't founder. This de facto procedure isn't policy, but acts just as effectively -- we add ~70 school articles every day and deletes virtually none. In a week we gain 300+ articles and delete perhaps 1. When people cease challenging the seemingly obvious fact that Wikipedia keeps schools, we will all be much more comfortable. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Which is why we're trying to work out what to do with the 300+ articles that are added each week. Merge into content or let them drift in cyber space as individual sub stubs? Masses of content with no context is not useful. Masses of content with redundant information is not useful. What are the goals of wikipedia? To collect information or to collect AND organise information? David D. (Talk) 20:28, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I haven't been adding much to the debate lately, but I just stopped by and wanted to add that I, for one, often vote keep when a merge wouldn't bother me in an AFD because the word "merge" gets interpreted different ways by different closers. The majority close by saying that merge means "keep the information" but some also close with the interpretation that merge means "delete the namespace and hope the information gets pulled out of the history."
I would say that maybe thinking about merging can wait until once a lot of this has cooled down, and we have a consensus on when/what kinds of information on schools are acceptable to keep at all. Then we can go about thinking where to put such information. Plus, from an information science point of view, I would add that I think it's easier to sort and arrange a collection, instead of one or two articles. Let's find out what the collection looks like, then play with where to put it and how to sort it. Jacqui★ 23:44, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm just countering the notion that somehow the project will suffer a disaster if we don't do something here -- contrary to the rhetoric, we already have an effectively defined procedure for how to deal with schools. This procedure has served us well and has encouraged dramatic growth in the useful content of Wikipedia; if, as I expect will be the case, nothing much comes of this discussion, then the existing procedure will continue to serve us quite fruitfully in the future. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed on almost all points. The only "impending disaster" is that deletionists can see their efforts are producing zero result, so there is a desperate, last-ditch effort to hammer down a "compromise" before keeping all schools becomes policy by massive precedent and consensus which they see approaching. So far, the efforts on these pages have alienated 2 inclusionists who were trying to engage in discussion in some degree of good faith, and failed utterly to convince/attract other school inclusionists to the table. No real discussion is required - the current policies and procedures are doing their job, it's just that school deletionists don't like the result.--Nicodemus75 21:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Just so everybody's clear, I am not a deletionist (or any -ist at all) and got sucked into this because I nominated a series of garbage edits for deletion, one of which happened to be a school, and got jumped on. Whatever inferred or stated motives you're attributing to others, please leave me out of them. --William Pietri 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Before you withdraw from the discussion are you going to continue the thought you started above? "There are many, many problems with a simple merge compromise, and we can hammer them out once there are a few more participants in this discussion. I have a number of key objections and observations that need to be made about the merge proposals (many have been stated before) which I will try and summarize in the next couple of days." I for one, have not seen your objections for merging sub stubs or microstubs what ever they are called. David D. (Talk) 21:40, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think you have countered that notion, Christopher. What makes Wikis work is consensus and mutual respect. The schools foofaraw is the one significant area where I see that falling apart. From your comments above, it seems like you're saying that you have given up on forming consensus and don't care because the rules let you have your way. Is that really what I should be taking away? --William Pietri 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I certainly haven't given up on forming consensus; however, I don't plan to do so by compromising on the fundamental goal of building the encyclopedia. I think my plan for building consensus -- which is to let events slowly drive home the futility of school deletionism and its contradiction of the basic values and realties of the project -- is actually extremely likely to work, and I look forward to seeing consensus established in the future.
  • I don't mean to imply that school deletionists are wrong, or operating in bad faith -- certainly neither is true. Whether to keep schools is a value judgment, and clearly most school deletionists are editors with the best of intents. However, I believe that time will demonstrate that school deletionism is an untenable position, and a natural consensus will emerge to reject it. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't know exactly what a deletionist is, but let's set that aside. We both share the fundamental goal of building the encyclopedia. What I hear you saying is that you have given up on trying to reach a consensus about what that might involve because you believe that the rules allow you to have your way and that people with different opinions, even if they are a majority, will eventually accept your position as a fait accompli. Is that correct? That doesn't seem very neighborly to me. --William Pietri 02:11, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I think this will be the last I will respond to this particular section of enquiry. Christopher, myself and others who are simply tired of repeating ourselves over and over, haven't "given up on trying to reach a consensus" (and it really is getting stale that you keep trying to force that characterisation upon us everytime we try and answer you), but we have chosen to try and achieve consensus in another way than (what many of us see as) pointlessly debating it here. Many of us have come to the conclusion that the best way to build consensus is to work through the process of AfD results. I understand that "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" (not necesarily including you) are not happy about the manner in which some of us are proposing to build that consensus (because they don't like the results), but that is just too bad.--Nicodemus75 03:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I appreciate you taking the time to give me a longer reply. I don't feel I'm trying to force any particular characterization on your statements. I am trying to honestly say what my interpretation is, though. My interpretation so far conflicts with my desire to assume good faith, which I don't like. I am asking for help in coming up with an understanding of assorted positions that lets me see the holders of them as trying to respect my opinions as much as I'm trying to respect theirs. Although I'm sure some people are arguing to argue, I'm not one of them. Part of my professional life is training teams to work together, and my understanding of consensus is a willingness to talk issues out. When talking stops in favor of unilateral action, that strikes me as a power play, and antithetical to the spirit of consensus. Thus, when you and Christopher talk about achieving consensus through ceasing to discuss and just doing your thing until the other side gives up, I can't reconcile that with my understanding of consensus. Does that make the problem I'm struggling with clearer? --William Pietri 20:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm disappointed to have come here with a serious suggestion about how to improve dialog only to be met with what feels like open contempt. This saddens me; I had no particular opinion about school inclusion before posting here, and asked for a way to learn more about why individual voters want particular articles kept. Is this really representative of the people pasting in the #Keep link? --William Pietri 22:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

You have run head on into a part of the problem. That is, positions that are so strong at this point that compromise does not appear to have any chance. Without compromise, you can not really reach concensus. Until that happens the school debate will not reach a conclusion. Vegaswikian 22:12, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Interesting. Do you think we can reach consensus that that's a problem? --William Pietri 23:08, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I don't believe that the current editors voting can reach a concensus for a guideline on what should be included. Vegaswikian 00:57, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant to ask whether you think we can get a consensus on the fact that positions are so strong "that compromise does not appear to have a chance." I'm thinking that the first step to solving a problem is agreeing that there's a problem. --William Pietri 02:11, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I believe that everyone knows there is a problem. Vegaswikian 03:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Why is this so difficult?

  1. Keep all universities, irrespective of length
  2. Keep all colleges, irrespective of length
  3. Keep high schools if not a subtstub, merge into the school district if a substub, which can be split off again later if information is forthcoming, also mention them in some form in the article on the town/district/county/whichever.
  4. Keep middle schools if not a stub or a substub, merge if a stub or worse.
  5. Merge elementary schoools and kindergartens into the article on the school district, also mention in the article on the local town or area.
  6. Merge info on school bands, mascots, sports teams, parts of a school into the main school article (or the section on the school district).
  7. Delete mascots, school bands etc if a suitable location for a merge cannot be verified.
  8. Delete individual teachers, classes, after-school clubs, day care centers (unless notable and can be merged)

Badda bing, badda boom, job done, everyone go back to making Wikipedia better.

Support Me. I've decided voting delete is just aggravating the inclusionistas, so I will vote as per the above guidelines from now on. This should totally just be the policy. Proto t c 10:00, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

As for #3, many schools are private or aren't part of a district article.
As for #4, that make it impossible to track lower-level schools from categories.
As for #3-5, many people feel not all instances of a certain class of schools are encyclopedic, in list or individual form.
That's why it's so difficult. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 10:13, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
Your first point: In that case, put them in the town/area/county article.
Second: OK, then I'll amend my suggestion. There is certainly nothing to stop them being mentioned in both articles (the town and the school district)
Third: I know, I'm one of them, but I'd rather see a compromise than this self-destructive bitching fiesta.
None of the three points were difficult, just minor adjustments to the model. Proto t c 10:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Support Easy way to solve the heavy conflect --JAranda | watz sup 21:49, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Don't support in the current form. As per below, I think elementary and middle schools are essentially the same animal, and should be given the same treatment. I personally favor merging both. However I would prefer keeping both, in the name of consistency, rather than treating them differently. flowersofnight (talk) 02:34, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Oppose obviously. This "proposal" ignores what consensus does exist on middle and elementary schools (wherever there is not a "no-consensus" closure on middle and elentary schools, there are "keep" closures, never "delete" or "merge" closures). This proposal also fails to deal with inherent problems of merging, most specifically the existence of private schools, the disruption of large existing categories, the fact that many city/town articles are already too large to accomodate merged school entries, the fact that most people have no bloody idea which school district (where even applicable) their schools was in, but they certainly do know the name of it, the fact that school districts often cross municipal boundaries and municipal boundaries often cross school districts.--Nicodemus75 09:17, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Just out of interest, if you think these are all strawman arguments why did you present them as reasons to oppose this idea? Note also that it has long been accepted on the Afd that a merge vote is the same as a keep vote by people who vote keep. You use that to your advantage on the Afd's but now slam those who would like to see merging of microstubs as deletionists. Quite bizarre.
Also note that your policy of one article for EVERY school was not mentioned here. Yet, below, you claim this has always been your stance. Further up you claimed you have always been willing to compromise. Well excuse us for having no clue what your real arguments are since they seem to be changing with the wind. As far as I'm concerned many here have bent over backwards to understand your position. One that has not been forthcoming. You have also flat out refused to discuss your position. Yet, we are some how acting in bad faith. Again quite bizarre. David D. (Talk) 02:42, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Support this is by far the best compromise. Obviously we need to discuss details but I don't see why this could not satisfy all parties. Specifically a merge does NOT entail a loss of information, especially if the microstub only has one or three lines. Obviously if a school article does have enough information, such that a merge would cause a loss of information, then that school would not be a candidate for merging. At the end of the day this is about organising the information. Microstubs that only exist as entries in categories are not as useful as a collection of microstubs with context. I see no reason that the pages that contain these microstubs cannot be itemised in the categories. In fact I would argue that a category that has lists such as List of high schools in Orange County, California is infintely more useful than a category such as Category:High_schools_in_California. David D. (Talk) 23:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Support, but I would make an addition to the "delete" categories to include preschools since they do not have districts and are infact nothing but glorified play groups.Gateman1997 19:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Limited Support. My big problem is that both #4 and #5 should really be treated the same and need something that sets them apart from all of the other cookie cutter schools in their class. Moving forward is better then the leaving the current mess. Vegaswikian 03:43, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Middle schools vs. elementary schools

I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of support for treating middle schools different from elementary schools. I'd like to open this up for discussion: why make a distinction? Are they really that different? Here's an example from my own school days: in my town, the elementary school used to be grades K-6, and the middle school was grades 7-8. Later, the split was changed to K-4 and 5-8. Does this mean that the elementary school was actually providing 2 years of encyclopedic middle-school level schooling in the past and deserved its own article? Honestly, as far as I'm concerned there's no difference between middle school and elementary school except for the building you go to, and that at least for us, middle school was the first time we had school intramural sports. The real change was between middle and high school. I propose that we treat elementary and middle schools the same. Any thoughts on this? flowersofnight (talk) 11:01, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I think the problem is that they are not the same everywhere. I'd be happy to agree with that, though, for practicality's sake (and note, that the suggestion doesn't suggest deleting or keeping anything, just treating elementary and middle schools the same in whatever decision is made) Proto t c 11:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
I treat all schools the same: inclusion if notable, deletion if not. Why should our standards for schools be any different than they are for people? Denni☯ 01:15, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Seconded. - brenneman(t)(c) 01:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree, but the hordes of non-notable schools surviving AFD indicate that the system has broken down and special consideration is being given to schools. Given that, I'd at least like to see some modicum of consistency in whatever standard is applied. (sadly I think the notion of treating schools just like any other article is a lost cause given the current makeup of AFD voters) Unfortunately I've been unsuccessful in determining exactly what criteria people apply to a non-notable school to deem it worthy of inclusion. I seem to be met with strong resistance when I bring it up. flowersofnight (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
The criteria is simply, it's a school so the article must be allowed to exist. Vegaswikian 03:11, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
If that's your point of view, I respect it. But no one has been able to explain to me exactly which articles are eligible for "must be allowed to exist" status, which are not, and why. Can you? Are schools and towns the only types of articles that merit auto-inclusion? Or are there others? flowersofnight (talk) 03:42, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
For the record, that is not his view, he is being snide and facetious by trying to imply that school inclusionists have no criteria other than the mere existence of a school. Vegaswikian is well known as one "who routinely nominates and/or votes to delete school articles." The argument is more subtle and complex than that. See Wikipedia:Schools/Arguments#Keep for starters.--Nicodemus75 09:21, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
Well no, it's not. I have lost count of the number of times I have seen the argument "Schools are inherently notable" being used to support a "keep" vote. I have yet to see a single argument presented by a hard-line inclusionist which states anything more than "All schools must be kept. " The inclusionist argument is utterly lacking in subtlety. Denni☯ 18:59, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Schools, cities, countries, countries, wars, heads of state, species, political subdivisions....IMO there's a fair number of things that in general always meet the standard of notability and deserve "auto-inclusion." Of course, there may by a few rare exceptions, like preschools are usually an exception to schools. But generally, you can count on me to vote keep on any of the above (keep votes of course not barring later merges), assuming the article isn't vandalism, OR, etc. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:23, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Cities, countries, etc all fall under political subdivisions, and I can see a case for automatically including them. They are organized by very large groups of people, govern themselves to some degree, exert the force of law over their members, and are a universally-recognized way of categorizing people. Wars and heads of state are matters of policy which can have profound effects on the course of history. And species form part of the natural world, which has a certain universal interest to it. Schools don't seem to fall neatly under any of these rationales though; they're the odd man out. It's true that they are organized by a fairly large group of people, but they don't have the same degree of autonomy or authority as a town, nor it is a common tradition for outsiders to group people by their school affiliation (that I know of) So it seems to me that if schools must be automatically kept, it must be for a different reason than cities, countries, etc, or that I'm citing the wrong reasons to keep cities. Can you explain further? flowersofnight (talk) 20:32, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

What are the arguments against mergers?

It seems to me that the Nicodemus75, and others who support him, are strongly against merging micro-stubs. Below are some of the comments he has made on this page.

From Perspective_of_David_D.
"As I have stated before, I (and others) are opposed to merging schools into lists or districts. Please see the myriads of comments on AfDs and elsewhere where I and others have voiced our objections to this "solution"."--Nicodemus75 16:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
From I say School Wiki:
"I do not regard merging schools into municipalities, lists or districts as an acceptable compromise (however well intentioned) to the problem before us.--Nicodemus75 16:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)"
"I think a good deal of further discussion and clarification must be fleshed out before we agree to a merge policy on "substubs". I will comment more on this below."--Nicodemus75 03:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
From Top and tail
" There are many, many problems with a simple merge compromise, and we can hammer them out once there are a few more participants in this discussion. I have a number of key objections and observations that need to be made about the merge proposals (many have been stated before) which I will try and summarize in the next couple of days." --Nicodemus75 04:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
From Linking to pre-made arguments
" Christopher, myself and others who are simply tired of repeating ourselves over and over, haven't "given up on trying to reach a consensus" "" -Nicodemus75 03:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

I have tried to argue a case on these pages that this is a possible compromise and Vegaswikian has made some very good points on this discussion page. Unfortunately, Nicodemus and others who know about these arguments have yet to reproduce them here.

Since his comments are out there somewhere " see the myriads of comments on AfDs and elsewhere" I have checked the archive of this talk page. But, the only reference I could find against merging was the following exchange between Tony Sidaway and CalJW.

This is exchange was from archive 1
"In two straight calender months, no school deletion listing was successful in deleting the article except the one case where the article was a copyright violation.
Only two deletion listings in April were successful.
In addition, there has been no discussion on this page for weeks. I've listed this page as "recently closed". I think we've taken it as far as we can; even quite stubby school articles seem to be virtually undeletable. If you encounter one just merge it." --Tony Sidaway 4 July 2005 23:59 (UTC)
"Objection Please do not merge school articles. This would be against the majority preference for keeping them which has been expressed time and time again. They are more likely to be expanded if people can find them. All that's required is a link in the article the school article might have been merged into". CalJW 5 July 2005 02:45 (UTC)

Is this what Nicodemus was referring too when he stated "Please see the myriads of comments on AfDs and elsewhere". I have looked for arguments on deletion pages but not seen anything. There are too many to look at all of them. Since it appears that Nicodemus75 has abandoned this discussion I wonder if someone else could layout the argument against mergers? Or suggest some Afd's where this issue was discussed in more detail. Thanks David D. (Talk) 06:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I noticed that Nicodemus has now posted a synopsis of the arguments against merging. They are in the section above, Why is this so difficult?. What do others think?

Existing categories disrupted

Redirects do not work with categories. Large existing categories such as Category:High_schools_in_California, Category:Middle_schools_in_California and Category:Elementary schools in California would be disrupted if schools are merged into towns or school districts. Categories are preferable since they allow users to pick a school, by knowing the approximate article name (but not typing it exactly). They needn't know which district it's in, or even if it has a district.

  • I don't know for sure if we want the various school categories to include every single school with Wikipedia coverage. If we look at Category:1960 births, it does not include every single person who was born in 1960, nor does it include every person born in 1960 which is mentioned in another article. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:37, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Town articles already too large

Some town articles are huge, such as Calgary, Alberta and schools would be lost in the noise.

I'm still learning about this issue, but is a possible solution to have a schools article that is referred to in the Calgary, Alberta article? I note that San Francisco, California has Culture of San Francisco, California, List of famous San Franciscans, List of San Francisco Municipal Railway lines, Maps of San Francisco, California, and even List of television shows set in San Francisco. Having Schools of San Francisco, Calfornia would seem quite reasonable. --William Pietri 22:16, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd bet that any towns that have large articles already have, or should have, an article on education or on the major school district so this should not be an issue. Vegaswikian
  • In the case of the town article already being huge, the schools could be covered in a school district article for that town. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Some school districts are huge

In Calgary (mentioned by Rob above) the largest district has 200 schools, which means it would be horrible if somebody ever listed them all in one article. These are not as easy to maintain as separate school articles that effectively split the work of maintenance. Nobody will update all the schools in a large district, but they might update one, or a few of interest.

School article are less likely to expand

There will be a barrier for the growth of school articles since editors will just maintain schools in the merged state and feel less inclined to expand beyond the limits of the list or table format. For instance, adding notable alumni for one school, in a list of many schools is very hard. Novice users, particularly, are intimidated by huge district articles listing many schools, and are unlikely to add relevant information about their school. Also, when a separate school article is necessitated, a novice is unlikely to know how to undo a redirect. A vicious circle is created: the merge prevents expansion, and the lack of expansion is used to justify the merge. Micro stubs, however, will be noticed by a novice user and grow organically.

  • School articles are not likely to expand in any case. It is my experience that only about half the articles ever progress much beyound where they were at creation. I see a massive push on to create school stubs, but no similar push to improve those which already exist. Denni☯ 19:07, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • That's an argument to create the latter, not to curtail the former. {sofixit} Jacqui★ 14:17, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Municipal and school districts are distinct

School districts often cross municipal boundaries and municipal boundaries often cross school districts. For example, Rob mentions above that he "I live inside the physical boundries of four school districts (each of the four contain the entire city-proper, and 3 include additional area)."

  • This is only an issue if we are trying to categorize each physical location into a unique school district, and assign each school district to a unique town. To my knowledge I don't think this is the case. Each school only belongs to one district, am I correct? That gives us a place to merge. If we make a higher level article like "Education in (city A)", we can still link that district there, with perhaps an explanatory note that the district also extends into City B. "Education in City B" can link to the same district as well.flowersofnight (talk) 22:53, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

School districts are obscure

Most people have no bloody idea which school district (where even applicable) their schools was in, but they certainly do know the name of it.

  • Redirects are cheap. There's nothing stopping us from having a redirect from the school name to the school district, or even disambig pages linking "John P. Smith School" to the various districts that contain a school by that name. flowersofnight (talk) 22:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Overly broad assumption. Unless things have changed, in New York you indicate your school district on your state personal income tax return. In some states there is a budget vote or a vote for the memebers of the school board. So a lot of people are well aware of the existence of the name for their district. It may also be included on many multiple listing overviews when you are buying a house since the district is a criteria that many buyers use. Vegaswikian 19:28, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Private schools

The existence of private schools is problematic since they cannot be merged into a school district article.

  • They can be merged geographically instead - say, "Private schools of Anytown, USA" (or by county, state, whichever we decide is most appropriate). As I mentioned earlier, an idea might be to have a "Education in (state/county)" page which lists all school districts and private schools. There are ways to fit private schools in if we use a little ingenuity. flowersofnight (talk) 22:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
    • There are plenty of places where there's only one private school in town. (Note that this is not an argument against including private schools.) Jacqui★ 14:15, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment from Nicodemus

  • Comment. Despite the effort David D. has put it into this section, I question it's purpose. It is clear that you have dismissed a priori the concerns of school inclusionists about merging (as I always suspected you would). No inclusionists have commented further on these points, and yet you have already dismissed them as "baseless" [1] (no real surpise to me). The continued commentary on this page is largely a small group of "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles" and a neutral editor or two pretending to create a "compromise". This section is clearly created for the purposes of creating a summary of objections to merging, in order to find creative ways of underminig or cutting down those objections. Here is the principal reason that 95% of school inclusionists are opposed to merging school articles: We believe, as a fundamental principle, that educational institutions possess an encylopaedic noteworthiness due to the very characteristic of being an institution of learning - thusly such institutions warrant and deserve inclusion within Wikipedia, having their own articles as distinct institutions important and relevant to their own communities and societies and beyond. Frankly, while there are a series of specific reasons beyond this central tenet as to why procedurally we think that merging school articles is an improper solution, many of them pale in comparison to the fundamental principle stated above.
  • We're all listening. But until these arguments are presented you will not be gaining allies.David D. (Talk) 15:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Collecting specific arguments against merging in order to treat them as straw men and undercut each of them is a pointless exercise because it fails to deal with the underlying reason many school inclusionists oppose these "compromises".
  • No they are not strawmen. They are your own arguments. Do you deny they are your arguments?David D. (Talk) 15:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Even without the statement of principle I have elucidated above, it is the aggregate of these arguments against merging that defines procedural objection, not each individual argument against merging. I am unwilling to pursue these straw man "discussions" that exist only for the purpose of knocking down the supporting arguments around the fundamental principle of why schools deserve distinct articles.--Nicodemus75 08:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • No wonder there is no consensus. You are not willing to defend your own arguments against merging. If none of the above arguments have merit then your whole argument has no merit, despite your "aggregate" effect. If you can defend only one of these arguments I might consider merging a problem, such as the categories argument, that seems to be your strongest one on the eight. But instead you leave the discussion accusing all of being deletionists? Where is the logic in your approach? David D. (Talk) 15:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I find the whole thing bizarre. Nicodemus said earlier that he was up ofr a compromise, but he has by now absolutely ruled out merging, separate namespace, and any solution that involves removing a single separate school article. Which leaves me wondering as to what definition of compromise he is using...

As far as I'm concerned the issue is primarily onew of utility. Of what conceivable use is it to a reader to have a separate article on every school, saying, in effect, nothign more than that it is a school in a certain location (which is, often as not, obvious from the name)? Much more useful to have an article on a school district or geographical area which discusses each school. No parent will use Wikipedia as a primary source, but many might be interested in at least a comprehensive list of the schools which are there. I ask again: who is actually going to be informed by the vast majority of these school articles? - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 18:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi! I have no idea what other people are up to, but I resent the apparent claim that I am "pretending" anything, or the notion that I'm looking for a scare-quoted "compromise" rather than an actual workable solution that ends this acrimony. I am not discussing things as any sort of straw man; I'm seeking to figure out what the best answer is, and how to build a consensus. I understand that you're frustrated with some people, but I feel you're failing to assume good faith and are taking your frustrations out on people who don't warrant it. I do appreciate your clear statement of your position, though. --William Pietri 11:41, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

  • As above, earlier, you are missing my point and assuming that everything I say is somehow directed at you (a self-admitted newcomer to this debate). This discussion has been going on for years, to get a better grasp of what is going on, try reading through all of the AfD debates on schools in the past year (there's only about 400 or so). When I state that the "compromise" being discussed here is "pretended", what I am saying is that there is no real compromise to be affected by the participants in this discussion. The preponderance of both sides need to be represented here in order for there to be a compromise. That is something that is plainly not occurring, especially given that as the (currently) most active school inclusionist on this page, I basically reject most of these proceedings. Any discussion of this nature (especially one with this much verbage) must include principal participants from both sides. Most school inclusionists have either effectively boycotted these discussions, and those who have engaged have either abandoned it (such as rob, who in fact has abandoned Wikipedia altogether because of the treatment received at the hands of "those who routinely nomminate and/or vote to delete school articles), or like myself basically continue to contribute here to express my rejection of and objection to many of these proceedings which will undoubtedly feign to represent consensus without a vigourous opposition. Gateman1997, A Man In Black, Denni, Vegaswikian, Just zis  Guy, you know?,brenneman and Proto are all well-known as editors who "routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles". David D., while claiming to be "neutral" and "not a deletionist" has voted (when he has voted) rather consistently to delete school articles and has been highly critical of school inclusionist positions, while not being conversely criticial of "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete school articles". Yourself and flowersofnight are relative newcomers (as far as I can tell) to this "discussion" who claim to have not completely formulated opinions on this question. My point in summarizing this, is that there can be no compromise unless school inclusionists are adequately and proportionally engaged in this "discussion". For the present, this pages appears to be a one-sided series of commentaries from those opposed to the flourishing of school articles, along with a couple of "neutral" editors, with precious little current involvement from school inclusionists (excepting my afore-mentioned continued participation to largely object to most of what is discussed here). To rephrase my above point, any true compromise, must take into account that a majority of active school inclusionists believe schools to be inherently noteworthy and deserving of articles on the basis of their being institutions of learning.--Nicodemus75 13:27, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • There is no doubt that i think the arguments against merging are baseless. That is my starting point. It is your job to convince us that these are valid reasons not to merge. I had not considered the categories argument before now and that does seem valid. I had not realised that redirects could not be categorised. But, then I discovered that most categories for schools in wikipedia are ridiculously broad and most newbies don't know how to use categories. The role of this discussion is to find out where common ground lies.
As far as me being a deletionist, a claim you often throw out, that is ridiculous. True, I have only voted delete on school (may be three times?). Who wouldn't when they first see the content? Then I read the comments from inclusionists and have abstained from votes since. My opinion is now to merge with no loss of information, primarily so the school content is in context and orgainised. In no way or form is that a deletionist agenda. Please explain to me how this could be viewed as deletionist? The fact is that despite many enquiries to your objections to merging you have always skirted around the subject. Finaly, I have found all the arguments and put them in one place. Now you are not willing to defend these arguments? David D. (Talk) 15:24, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Nicodemus, you appear to think that everybody who ever brought a school to AfD or voted to delete did so after having read this page, and on the grounds of hating schools. The reason I've voted delete on some schools is that the information in the articles is negligible. "A flower is more valuable than a field of scattered petals", as they say. Frankly, given the intransigence of the inclusionists, and precedent in other areas, I say let the merging and redirecting commence. It requires no vote, only [{WP:Be bold|boldness]]. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 22:01, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I really am through with these "discussions" in the present form and narrow band of participants, however I simply cannot let this go unanswered. There is absolutely no consensus to "let the merging and redirecting commence" and I would implore you and others for the sake ever being able to create a consensus not to begin any mass campaign of merging and redirecting. Many, many, many school inclusionists (including myself) will violently oppose any such mass-merge, mass-redirection action and it will surely be met by an equally wide-spread mass-reversion of any articles unjudiciously treated in such a fashion. If nothing else, (irrespective of my dissatisfaction with the discussions on this page) I again implore you not to commence any such action as it will be only a (possibly irretrievable) escalation of the existing conflict and acrimonious nature of debate. While I do not think that we are ready to reach any compromise at present, any unilateral action such as you are proposing will make any resolution to these issues almost impossible and lead inevitably to revert-wars over the articles in question. No one (including me) wishes to see the status of this fight over school articles escalated any further than it already is. I am not interested in debating the question any further, but such an action as proposed is the same as if school inclusionists were to propose a unilateral action to create a minimum of 250 school stubs per day to try to overwhelm the system to achieve our desired result. I am sure that many other editors on the other side of the debate will agree that unilateral action such as this can only make matters worse.--Nicodemus75 23:22, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Then it is important for you and a few other inclusionists who understand what the word "compromise" means to sit down. I for one am not prepared to accept any article, any time, on any school. I have refrained from bringing substubs to speedy delete. I have refrained from bringing schools to AfD. I have refrained from merging without consensus. My patience is wearing thin. Denni☯ 03:39, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
      • You put quotes round the word "discussions" - that is unfair. I know you are intransigent and refuse to even consider any option other than the status quo, but most of the rest of the participants in the discussion seem prepared to consider any one of a number of workable compromises. As to there being "no consensus" for merging, perhaps you are confusing consensus with unanimity. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 12:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This "discussion" is really absurd. You accuse me of "skirting" the subject, when it is clearly you that fails to deal with the central tenet I elucidated above. All of the assembled arguments against merging are a bloody sideshow, and your obssessing about them doesn't change a thing. The main reason why I and others object to merging has been stated above: We believe, as a fundamental principle, that educational institutions possess an encylopaedic noteworthiness due to the very characteristic of being an institution of learning - thusly such institutions warrant and deserve inclusion within Wikipedia, having their own distinct articles as distinct institutions important and relevant to their own communities, societies and beyond. All the other arguments are merely supporting arguments to the main philosophical position. Further, your claim that somehow it is my "job to convince us that these are valid reasons not to merge" is balderdash. The overwhleming precedent and (where applicable) consensus is to keep school articles as they are - not merge or delete them. It is not "my job" to do anything other than follow what the exisiting processes dictate. It is not my fault that "those who routinely nominate and/or vote to delete schools articles" continue to prosecute a war against the articles which will clearly not be deleted through the existing processes. As for the rest of your straw men, I see no need to respond to them. There is no consensus to delete (or merge) school articles on the basis of their either being stubs (or sub-stubs) or on the basis of lack of notability. According to deletion policy, when there is no consensus to delete an article, it is kept.--Nicodemus75 15:53, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • You've written a lot, so I'm going to address the most salient points down here. First of all, I'm very disappointed that you've essentially accused all of us who don't happen to agree with you of debating in bad faith. A lot of us have put a good deal of time into dialogue, constructing arguments, and trying to figure out new ways around this problem. Meanwhile you have been content to sit back and repeat that you reject the very existence of this discussion and that it's not "your job" to actually make an argument that advances your principles or respond to criticism. Well, you happen to be mistaken. As long as you are posting in this discussion page, it IS "your job" to actually engage in constructive debate on the issues at hand, to make points, respond to criticism, and make criticism of your own, and to assume good faith on the part of all participants here. It is NOT "your job" to post kilobytes of text that simply put up your ideas as unassailable dogma, reject the proceedings, and generally accomplish nothing. If you are unable or unwilling to do your job as a good-faith participant in this discussion, maybe this isn't the right forum to advance your views. We are all provided with user pages if we want to engage in one-sided talk. flowersofnight (talk) 17:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Moving along, let's address the heart of the matter. You say: "We believe, as a fundamental principle, that educational institutions possess an encylopaedic noteworthiness due to the very characteristic of being an institution of learning - thusly such institutions warrant and deserve inclusion within Wikipedia, having their own distinct articles as distinct institutions important and relevant to their own communities, societies and beyond." But why? Why does being an institution of learning confer encyclopedic noteworthiness? What about schools gives them that noteworthiness? Is it the education they give? Their other community functions? For that matter, how do you even define an "educational institution"? Is Smallville Senior Center that offers weekly afternoon classes on basket-weaving an "educational institution"? How about an annual anime convention that holds different educational panels each year? How about some fellows who emulate Socrates and hold occasional open group discussions of philosophy on the lawn? How about a one-time teach-in about the Iraq War? Which of these qualify as educational institutions? If you want your positions to be taken seriously, these are questions you'll have to address. Your current statement is very grand and sweeping, but impossibly vague. It needs to be underpinned with sound, detailed reasoning and specifics. Will you provide them? flowersofnight (talk) 17:37, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for a nice list of more straw men about basket weaving and other irrelevancies. You're right when you say "as long as you are posting... (blah blah blah)", so like most other school inclusionists, I will no longer participate in this conversation until such time as I see some evidence that our position is at least paid at least the same respect that you obviously pay to those who wish to delete schools. I see no equivalent inquisition of their position that schools do not have a legitimate place in Wikipedia. The lack of critical approach belies the claim of neutrality, and also ignores the implications of deletion policy. Where there is no consensus to delete verifiable articles from WP, they are kept - that is policy. Since that is the policy, it is not my job to defend school articles any further than the policies and procedures provide. Schools are kept on WP as a defacto practice. No verifiable school has been deleted in months - there is no consensus to delete verifiable articles about schools - therefore they stay. Congradulations in convincing yet another school inclusionist not to participate in these inquisitions.--Nicodemus75 18:04, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Once again we have the straw man about "deleting" schools. Merging is not deleting, transwiki is not deleting. You have yet to address the fundamental question of why a stub or sub-stub article about a school is in some way better or more useful than a wider article carrying equivalent information about a number of schools linked by geoigraphical area or some other criterion. The irony of your accusing others of not listening would be amusing if the problem wasn't so frustrating! I was all for deleting these nugatory articles, I now see the benefit of merging them. You are still arguing against a position which few, if any, remaining in this discussion adhere to. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 12:23, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Proposal for proposal for voting pact

I note with interest the proposals above for a temporary agree-to-disagree voting pact, and personally would be exicited to back anything that could make this less acrimonious. But there seems to be a lot of discussion around the proposals, so I am making this space available to sort out the kind of pact a large number of people would agree to. --William Pietri 21:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Potential Proposal Elements

Here are some things that seemed like potential elements:

  1. a statement of the problem - e.g., "the undersigned feel that the discussion over which schools to include is..."
  2. an acknowledgement of principles - perhaps by reference to WP:FAITH, WP:CON, WP:CIVIL, etc.
  3. linking all school AfDs to the pact - to help draw people into the consensus
  4. an agreement to a temporary standard - whatever temporary standard would gain mass appeal
  5. agreement that this does not prove consensus - except a consensus that the most important thing is working together
  6. agreement that this does not establish precedent - so that this really stops the clock
  7. a time limit - e.g., 15 days, 30 days, hopefully w/a renewal procedure.
  8. agreement not to AfD - signatories will refrain from AfDing schools that meet the temporary standard
  9. a place to track schools that would have gone up for AfD - as a similar clock-stopping measure
  10. a close-on-sight policy - so that any AfD meets the temporary standard is preemptively closed to forestall debate
  11. a description of what comes next e.g., that during the cooling-off period energies normally directed into AfD will be instead directed toward finding a permanent policy
  12. agreement to encourage civility from your "side" - It's easier to hear suggestions on tone and style from somebody you agree with on the issues. Perhaps we can take advantage of that.

For the record, I'm just trying to collect ideas, so please don't take my mention of these as endorsements. Feel free to add in additional items above. For discussion of the elements, see the next subsection. For discussion about which elements you think would make the best voting pact, see the section after that. Hopefully once we've all talked about what we like, someone can put together a voting pact that will get wide support from people on all sides of this. --William Pietri 21:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm feeling this is a bit of a waste of time. The inclusionist half of this discussion has chosen not to come to the table, which leaves the rest of us talking among ourselves. Denni☯ 20:31, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for saying so. I was hoping to get some response from people here. My next step would be to go through recent School AfDs and ask people there to participate. I'm also very open to other approaches; this was just the best one I could think of. --William Pietri 04:54, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I've been checking each day for school AfDs, and when I find one I leave a comment directing people here. Unfortunately (and this is a general comment on AfD discussions), I don't think many people take the time to read through the discussion to get a feel for what other people think. All too often I see comments where it is clear they've scrolled right to the bottom of the discussion, dropped their comment, and then left. Denni☯ 03:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Individual Proposal Element Discussion

first commenter, please replace this with your comment

What Elements You Want In A Proposed Pact

First commenter, please replace this with your comment. Suggested form is something like, "I'd support A, B, C, would tolerate D, E, and refuse to sign any pact with F".

This is not about schools. If we followed the rules we have already, we would not have a problem

You've heard this from me before, but we already have all the guidelines we need to deal with this. An article has to contain verifiable material and it must not contain original research ("The phrase "original research" in this context refers to untested theories; data, statements, concepts and ideas that have not been published in a reputable publication", and it should not contain raw source data. Articles that are sub-stubs can be merged into higher order articles and redirected until they get large enough for a full length article to make sense. If we enforced these rules, I don't believe that we would have any practical problems.

All objections to this that I have heard before stem from a misreading of the policies we have ("Q. Doesn't this mean I can have an article about me eating a sausage, because I can verify it" A. No, because it is your original research. Q. Doesn't this mean I can have an article about every building on my block, since I can verify it on the map?" A. No, copying down lists of things from a map is just reproducing source data, if it belongs anywhere, it's a wikisource.)

Application of these rules would result in a couple of practical benefits: We would not have to make a decision about what is important for our readers. The availability of third party verifiable sources would make that decision automatic. The question of whether to include an elementary school as an article in its own right would be resolved by whether or not there was sufficient verifiable information available to write a non-stub article. If there is, then it stays, if not, it gets redirected and merged to the next layer up in the article hierarchy (yes, we can argue about what that is, but it's a simpler problem, I think!). We then end up with a rigorously sourced and verified article, contextualized in a series about related things, and we don't have to decide for people what is important and what is not. Anyone not wanting to read about that elementary school just has to not look it up! Trollderella 20:19, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

  • You make valid points here, certainly. Most of us agree that encyclopedic articles should be rigorously sourced by reputable publications, and not just reproduce schools' self-promotion or original source material. However, I think it's universally acknowledged that following this approach strictly would result in nothing but school microstubs. You say "If we followed the rules we have already, we would not have a problem", and rightly so, but there is a vocal contingent claiming that schools have "inherent notability" that gives them an exception to the rules. So far, debate on this topic has been fruitless. The other main bone of contention is whether to merge school stubs, and if so how. If you take a look at the (rather large and unwieldy) discussion above, you'll see that some people don't even agree that merging stubs is a good idea. So that's the approximate state of things; hopefully you'll stick around and continue to add to the discussion! flowersofnight (talk) 23:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Well, I'm glad that we agree broadly on the nature of material that we do want, re the stubs, I was not aware of anyone opposing merging of stubs that fail to flourish - they can always be split out again if and when there becomes enough material to write a full article on the school. I am not sure that all schools would only have microstubs, there would be many schools that have something verifiable to say about them that is not simply reproducing source material or representing promotional material, and many that probably would not. For those that do not, redirecting a merging seems a good solution. If many people oppose this though, I fail to see the harm in a lot of school stubs, so long as what is in them is verifiable and factual, and they are placed within some kind of article structure that makes navigation possible. After all, the only people who find them will be the ones who go looking. Trollderella 04:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree 100%. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 16:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for taking the time to post this. I'm still trying to formulate my opinions on this topic, and it's nice to see a temperate post explaining someone's viewpoint and how it flows from a broader vision for Wikipedia. I'm tempted to ask further what-if-X and how-do-you-feel-about-Y questions, but I'm leaning toward withdrawing for now from the particulars of the schools debate so that I can focus on tone and process. But I hope to drop by your talk page at some point in the future to better understand your views. --William Pietri 05:16, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm very concerned with the proliferation of stubs and substubs for a couple of reasons. First, it looks bad when you click on ABC High School and all you get is "ABC High School is located in ABCville." Many stubs are not much more comprehensive than that. Second, not only is this information of extremely limited use, but the sad fact is it is not likely to grow much beyond that (I did a small study recently which led me to this conclusion. If you want to know the details, I'd be happy to share them.) Third, the sheer bulk of titles makes search engines less efficient. You are not quite right when you say that the only ones who will find those are those who go looking for them. If I'm searching on ABC, that search will bring up ABC School, ABC Civic Centre, the province of ABC, and Prime Minister ABC. The less I have to sort through in a search, the better, and if school information can remain enclosed within a more general article until such time as there is sufficient important information to break it out, so much the better. Denni☯ 03:45, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I appreciate your concern on the search engine thing, but actually, if you type in 'Louisville', you get just that. I don't think it's a real issue. Trollderella 04:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)=
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