Wikipedia talk:Notability (schools)/Archive 3

message: Hopefully, both sides can agree on something short of what they want, and here's some things for schools compromise, and general wikipedia improvement.  I'm sure I forget something, so add away (I don't pretend to properly summarize about discussion):
*Allow incomplete school articles to be speedied if they fall below a very objectively defined size/unwikification level (very narrow rule).  The micro-contents could be listed in a place where others could see, and make real articles if they wish (much more open than current speedy process).  Key points:  no data is lost, and this doesn't in anyway effect decisions about which schools will or won't have an article, when somebody wishes to actually make one.
*Tell new users, about to create an article, in a much more explicit clear manner, they're invited to make a request for a new article, if they aren't personally able yet to make a new article.
*Seek to restrict creation of new articles somehow to anons, and perhaps require edits before article creation.  We desperately need to be able to talk to article creators (we can't talk to anons) and politely tell them to please fix your their first one-line stub, before creating their hundreth.
*Give another shot at making an inclusion/exclusion guideline.  For the keepers, codify existing precident, and for the "deleters" draw a strong line against stuff like preschools/homeschools/classes/individual-teams.   Also, make explicit that non-verifiability is an absolute rule for exclusion (but not universal rule for inclusion of all things on Earth), and any AFD must first address verifiability, before the usual debating points.
*Look at how we can better communicate what articles are, and aren't wanted, with new contributers.  While we debate about which schools we wish to keep, we can agree some schools (larger and more famous high schools) generally should have their articles created first, when possible. 
--rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Summary of some ideas discussed above (with the odd addition)

message: Some thoughts on the above ideas. I feel some of the less-important points aren't practical, but there'sa very important proposal that has to be dealt with ASAP.
*Allow incomplete school articles to be speedied if they fall below a very objectively defined size/unwikification level (very narrow rule). --rob 10:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion of these or other ideas

message: Can someone archive the old discussion? This is topping 150K. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 21:49, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Done so. Perhaps I should split the archive in half... --Celestianpower háblame 21:59, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Archive

message: A little off topic, but I propose we have a vote on a final standard for school name qualification (tell me if I missed one somewhere else).   Some common options seem to be:
*Official School Name, City, State - Popular for schools in the US, less so elsewhere.  Consistent with most place names, particularly in North America.
*Official School Name (City, State) - Consistent with non-school non-geo article convention, which says that anything outside the official name goes inside parenthesis, so its clear its not part of the official name.  Many consider "Calgary, Alberta" to be long form for "Calgary".  But, "Example High School, Calgary, Alberta" wouldn't be long form for "Example High School".  Also, I've noticed a growing number of people outside North America dislike the "comma" approach, even for place names (example: Witten (Germany) not Witten, Germany)
I think all that's important is that we just pick a standard, and avoid reverting each other.  I try to avoid reverts of qualifiers, once put in place.  I think this is the kind of thing, a quick simple vote can settle.  I'm not sure this is the kind of thing you can "prove" through arguement.
In any event, I personally won't be reverting anybody's qualified school article name, as long as the redirects are dealt with properly (e.g. bypassed).  I brought this up, as I've noticed others changing each others name qualifiers, and I wish to avoid this, as what counts is there's a standard, more than which standard.  --rob 03:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Sidetrack:  School article names

message: Any general thoughts, or other options, besides what I said?  Maybe extended comments can go here, and short reasons with votes can go below.  --rob 04:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Discuss naming options

message: I guesse this is unofficial, since this hasn't been announced centrally, but its good to get a feeling where people stand.  Also, I don't even know where one is supposed to make an official proposal.  --rob 04:56, 7 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Straw poll

message: I saw your post at User talk:Daycd#The mergist view, and was interested in the study that you mentioned that included schools in California, since I am the person who started the California and Southern California WikiProjects. As an experiment, I've put as many SoCal school and school district articles as I can find on my watchlist and have been watching them for any changes, while doing no editing myself except for reverting spam and vandalism. In my sample, I've seen almost no change except for things that needed to be reverted. 
Both individually and collectively, school articles are some of the crappiest articles on the Wikipedia. If you compare them to most of the fancruft on the Wikipedia, for example, while I personally have doubts about the encyclopedic value of much of the fancruft, at least most of the articles are very well written. Many of the school articles, on the other hand, if they aren't some minimalist substub, are filled with mangled spelling and grammar, as well as trivia, gossip and rumor.
Someone could probably get away with merging a large number of the school articles into larger articles on school districts and cities without any problems, but if the School Inclusionists ever found out about the effor, they would still raise a firestorm even if no information was being deleted. BlankVerse 09:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My first impression for many of the spruced up school articles, after all the trivia, gossip and rumor had been removed, was yellow page entry. I quickly realised that they would never get deleted since they seem very popular with some people.  Merging was the obvious compromise since at present many of the schools are no more than two or three liners padding out a few pieces of information.  I think it is clear than fancruft is done so well since there are thousands of users who know about and follow such trivia.  Conversely the nature of a school means that very few, if any wikipedians take owner ship of an article. This appears to be born out by the observations you posted above. David D. (Talk) 04:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forward from my mailbox 

message: This discussion is difficult to have with the substantial number of ill-meaning individuals who vote on the AFDs out of pure frusteration. Would there be substantial disagreement from the users of this page if all school afds were IAR closed as no-consensus? If that fails, can we reach agreement on this page to not nominate schools and vote keep (even people on the far-deletion side of the debate) on all schools untill such a time that this proccess is declared stalled or successful?
====Premature No-Consensus====
Members of this discussion, untill it is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, have the support of this project to close all school deletion AFDs as no consensus on sight, and damned be the consequences of this IAR/BOLD action.
Accept:
#Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Non-admins can close as keep. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Comity and lessening the urgency/divisevness 

message: Members of this discussion, untill it is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, have the support of this project to close all school deletion AFDs as no consensus on sight, and damned be the consequences of this IAR/BOLD action.
Accept:
#Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Non-admins can close as keep. Hipocrite - «Talk» 19:41, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Premature No-Consensus

message: Until this process is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, I will vote keep or abstain on all school AFDs, and abstain from debate on AFD pages regardless of my personal view of the "right" vote for that article.
Join:
#Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Voting Pact

message: Until this process is declared stalled or successful, in the interest of comity, I will abstain on all school AFDs, and abstain from debate on school AFD pages.
Accept:
#flowersofnight (talk) 19:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternate Voting Pact