Talk:Nottingham High School

message: I have added a ref to the adams book which I founbd via Google. Also try "Google Books" as that may include more substantive evidence. Ties do seem to be an interesting aspect. I was only making the point that without refs then stuff may get deleted. For instance it is likely that every school that has included a slang session will get it deleted .... because as you point out, you cannot find a ref and if you can't prove it then ultimately its out. Hope this helps, if not then come back for more. NHS should be in the top UK articles. Oh I noticed that Mellers started the school and then "starred" in DHL's book. Is that a coincidence? Victuallers 21:43, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'd assumed that Dr Thomas' book was a private publication and hence effectively impossible to get hold of, but ABEBooks turned up several second-hand copies so I bought one, along with a pamphlet (an offprint of an article in the Transactions of the Thoroton Society) by Cedric Reynolds on the history of the school buildings.  I'll read through both of them and add some proper references to the article. Thanks to Victuallers for inspiring me to hunt down a copy (of both). -- Nicholas Jackson 22:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ties and refs

message: Has no one got around to making a full page on this? Come on ONs of the world, surely we can do better than this? Does someone have  copy of that old history of the school?
--Evil Capitalist 12:43, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The carving is still in the Player Hall and is the full coat of arms however recently (2007), the school has come to using just the shield with the motto at the bottom. This is mostly the case on all the letterheads.Bthebest 
I'm a little distressed that the name 'Djanogly' does not appear a single time on the page, it really should be remedied - Chewwy 14:31, 01 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Interesting - thanks for that.  I'm fairly sure the Third XV, Officers and Junior School Centenary ties weren't around when I was there, either (1981-1991).  Do we know why the rugby third XV get a special tie all of their own?  Re prefects:  It used to be the case that sometime during the first year sixth form, about half to two-thirds of the year were appointed house (junior) prefects.  At the time, it seemed like an honour, but in retrospect it was primarily a mechanism for getting the older pupils to do various boring tasks (stopping first-fifth formers from loitering indoors during break and lunchtime, showing visitors round, etc) so that the teachers didn't have to. Then sometime during the second year sixth form, about fifteen or twenty of the house prefects were promoted to school (senior) prefects.  I gather from the article that now most of the junior prefects are promoted in due course - is this correct? Nicholas Jackson 12:40, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Never mind - the December 1987 Nottinghamian indicates it's Raymond. -- Nicholas Jackson 09:25, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

text: When I added the Head of Sixth Form, the list was of the "Senior Management Team", of which he is a member. And, arguably, he is as or more important than other members of staff mentioned on the list (university admissions and so on). But I'll leave it up to you to decide... Dafyd 22:12, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: I've reverted some recent changes to the section on the school's coat of arms, because I believe them to be incorrect.  The school arms are as described in the heraldic blazon in that section ("Ermine, a lozenge argent...") and may not legally be altered without permission from the College of Arms (who ultimately represent the Sovereign in English and Welsh heraldic matters).  To redesign it and claim it's ok because it's merely a new 'logo' (which the reverted edits seemed to be suggesting) is on decidedly shaky ground - certainly when the new 'logo' is to all intents and purposes a coat of arms.-- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coat of Arms 

message: Very little of this text seems notable in any way.  School pages suffer from endemic promotional text, text about non-notable teachers and pupils and are often filled with weasel words.  I'm going to have a scan through this and remove some parts which may be a little less contentious.  If nobody objects soon, I'll have a more thorough edit of it. Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:56, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I object, and have reverted all of your edits.  Yes, there's much in there that could certainly do with being pruned, but we should discuss it first.  Also, what happened to the image of the school's real coat of arms?  Someone seems to have deleted it recently. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 15:31, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability 

message: Some confusion here over the meaning of notability. Notability applies to the article as a whole. I cannot believe that anyone thinks a 500 year old school with a number of notable ex students including several people involved in the 1605 Gunpowder plot is not notable. What I think is being discussed is whether the stuff that is written is noteworthy. It is true that "School pages suffer from endemic promotional text, text about non-notable teachers and pupils and are often filled with weasel words".... but IMO this is not one of them/the worst offender. By all means debate a sentence here, an emphasis there, maybe even the occasional half para, but if we are looking for stuff to delete then there are richer and thicker seams of stuff to be deleted. Please discuss! Victuallers (talk) 14:31, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there's a load of stuff in this article that could be trimmed or made more concise, and even a fair amount that could probably be cut (the last ten years' Wheeler Cup results, for example).  But yesterday's edits were a bit overzealous, and I think we should discuss any major deletions before doing them, not least because it's easier to prune unnecessary material than it is to restore it. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 18:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  The section on ties could probably be shortened a bit, but it's an important part of the school's traditions, so I think it should stay. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 18:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Hopefully the two of you can make this a "Good Article". Find your consensus. The school deserves to have that accolade. Victuallers (talk) 19:17, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Notability applies to the article as a whole, yes, but that doesn't mean the content can be anything and everything. Policies such as WP:UNDUE, WP:V and so on come into play. It also doesn't matter if there are other articles in a worse condition. The trimmed version of the article is far better. There is no reason for the whole of the school hymn to be included or for 770 words on prefects, or the individuals who have won the Wheeler Cup for the last 10 years and so on. Quantpole (talk) 10:26, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: and the consensus/compromise you suggest is? Victuallers (talk) 11:18, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you can add me to the list of editors in favour of a sever pruning. As I mentioned in my post above, if my comments hadn't sparked off some reaction, I was going to come back and do some radical editing (read pruning) myself.--Kudpung (talk) 12:12, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I suggest that those who want to include such material have the burden to show that it should be included. Quantpole (talk) 13:14, 3 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: another view

message: I've been thinking a little bit about what the rewritten article should look like.  How about the following?
#Introduction. One, maybe two paragraphs containing just the most pertinent facts: what sort of school it is, where it is, when it was founded, mention of no more than three alumni (D H Lawrence, maybe Albert Ball, perhaps one of the more prominent current politicians), name of current headmaster, that sort of thing.
#History.  Two paragraphs (maybe three if warranted) about the school's history, plus a link to a separate, more detailed article, when written.
#Buildings.  Maybe a couple of paragraphs about the current layout of the school campus, the buildings and facilities, etc.
#Academic activities.  Curriculum, exam results, typical destination of leavers, etc.
#Extra-curricular activities. Sport, music, drama, tours and educational field trips, CCF and community service group, etc.
#Daily life.  (Possibly need a better title for this section?)  Stuff about day-to-day life at the school: assembly, pastoral tutor system, structure of school day, uniform (including concise description of ties), houses, prefect system, etc.
#Traditions. Brief section on some of the school's extant traditions: founder's day service, speech day, mention (but not full text) of school hymn, coat of arms, brief mention of major internal competitions (Wheeler cup, house sporting and music competitions, etc).
#Notable alumni.  Only those alumni who have an article of their own.  There are enough of these that we don't have to go hunting for others to make up the numbers.
Have I left anything out, or included anything that shouldn't be there?  -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 20:54, 11 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Apologies for the delay  in  getting  back  to  you  Nicholas. We have a useful  check list  on  our schools project  pages at WP:WPSCH/AG#S which  might  be a help. I'd be happy  to  work  with  you  on  improving  this article, but  don't  hesitate to  WP:BOLD and make the changes you  suggest -  we can always tweak  them  again  later. Alternatively, if your changes are sweeping ones, we can always make a sub  page somewhere for working  on  a much  revised article,  and publish  it  when we are ready. In  spite of its huge number of registered members, the schools project  has been largely  inactive for a long  time. I've been discussing  the possibility  of organising  a task  force to  clean up  UK schools articles, as I've been doing  it  practically alone for several  months. Would you be interested in  helping  out? Some examples of reasonably  good school  articles of different  kinds of articles include Malvern College and HCGS both of which which  I  will  shortly  be proposing for GAN. --Kudpung (talk) 03:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be disinclined to include a section about the 'day to day' life at a school, this surely can only be of internal interest as can things like 'houses' (which looking across Wikipedia pages seem to be common place amongst independent schools, so a house system can't be particularly unique or notable) and the prefect system.    The school hymn again has to be only of internal interest, furthermore if anything other than brief exerts are printed it could be in breach of copyright.  Ultimately I agree with the proposals largely, however I would not include a section about 'daily life' and I would keep the section about 'traditions' very brief.  Perhaps we could have a rudimentary trim of the page in the meantime, while we argue about the finer points of it.  Regards, Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that sounds fine to me (you and the others convinced me) - I now think we should trim whatever we think most needs to go, and if we later decide bits of it should be restored in some form, we can trawl through the page's edit history to recover it.  Regarding the daily life and traditions stuff - I agree that whatever we do include should be concise and relevant, but I don't think we should necessarily exclude details that aren't unique to NHS.  Obviously any such material shouldn't be allowed to ramble, but I don't think we can seriously get away without mentioning, for example, the names of the houses, the fact that lots of the sixth form are appointed prefects of some form (and what that actually means), and so forth.  I don't think that sort of stuff is just of internal interest, whereas things like the Wheeler Cup list clearly shouldn't be in a proper encyclopaedia article. -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 16:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

text: I'm going to be bold and remove some parts there seems to be consensus that it should go. Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:38, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I have cut out non-notable alumni and lists of winners of competitions. Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Looks fine to me.  -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 16:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting 

message: On the advice of a former pupil (see above) that the hymn dates back to the middle of the twentieth century it has to be assumed that it is not in the public domain.  For the time being I am removing it, if it's agreed exerts are warranted then they can be inserted later. Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:44, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe it only dates back to the middle of the twentieth century for the following reason: the copy glued inside the front cover of my hymn book (which I think I still have somewhere in the attic) had the credit "Duddell–Whitehorn" at the end.  I'm assuming here (and I think it's at least halfway reasonable to do so) that the Duddell in question is the same Mr A G Duddell who was head of history at the school during the 1950s.  Quoting a couple of lines (or perhaps even an entire verse) would, I'm sure, qualify under "fair use", but copying out the whole thing would be both unnecessary (there are far more relevant and interesting things we can put in this article) and a possible copyright violation.  -- Nicholas Jackson (talk) 16:21, 18 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I can see no reason why a brief quotation would contravene fair use.  Printing large exerts or the whole lot is of course a violation.  I see no reason why the hymn cannot be mentioned, very few schools have a hymn of their own so it could be of interest to someone reading this page.  While the school having a hymn could be of interest, the hymn itself is not. Mtaylor848 (talk) 16:14, 19 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Potential copyright violation

message: Far too many of the references on this page are unclear, or even unrelated. It isn't usually necessary to have more than one (two at a push) references for each fact. This can be easily resolved. 
Also, avoid using smart quotes. See MOS:STRAIGHT. --Sb2001 (talk) 00:21, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: Just keep the article neutral and free of unnecessary detail (see my earlier posts on this page). Use whatever font is convenient from the keyboard of your computer or mobile device. We have users who are authorised to use special programmes that regularly sweep the ecyclopedia to automatically correct minor errors of punctuation and formatting. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:38, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't be afraid to edit

message: Please avoid using exact numbers and cite approximations instead. School rolls are volatile and Wikipedia school articles are not always kept up to date. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:31, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  School roll 

message: This article helps with definitions. --ClemRutter (talk) 20:35, 19 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Independent not private