Talk:Parkway High School (Louisiana)

Discussion of Recent Tagging

In defense against the advertisement claim - The article contains no references to how "great" this school is, it merely outlines the achievements they have gained over the years just like how one might put on a page referencing the achievements of a celebrity or politician. No one marks a celebrity's page for advertisement if they write that they won an Emmy or an election. The article also outlines clubs that are offered at this school because it is useful information to know, and makes no reference as to how these clubs make this school an excellent place to attend. You don't flag a college's page for saying that they offer Greek Life/Music Clubs/Political Clubs, so why mark this? The article is written in a neutral tone, and makes no statements in favor of the school that were not directly based on pure fact.

In defense against the peacock claim - The article does not say anything to make it seem like the best school ever. The claims are purely factual and are written in a neutral tone.

In concurrence to the primary source claim - Yes, I am aware that this article may rely a bit on primary sources, but it's quite hard to find secondary/tertiary sources in reference to this school that wouldn't be flagged as bias. If you have any, please, add them in.

Until there is valid argument to apply the first two claims, I am removing them.

Thanks, Yelpet (talk) 05:05, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Page Update and Tag Removal

I have updated the page to include more information and have fixed the problem of the overuse of primary sources. Since I believe it to be adequately fixed, I am removing the primary source tag. If you disagree with the tag removal, feel free to discuss or add more sources in!

Thanks, Yelpet (talk) 05:20, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Reassesment: 12-24-2016

A request was made for reassessment at Wikiproject Schools recently. I have completed that reassessment. You are to be commended on incorporating secondary sources. However, the article is still sourced in majority to either the school itself, the district or web pages of school programs. Ideally, only the most basic info (think address) should be sourced to sources like that. I'm sorry to say, this is still a start article. Please don't be too disheartened. Very few schools have available sourcing to rise above a start-class article. Specific issues here:

1. The lede. Ideally, the first sentence or two should provide basic identifying information (name, city, state, district, school type). The remainder of the lede should briefly summarize the remainder of the article. References are not needed in the lede as anything mentioned there should be discussed in greater detail, with sources, elsewhere in the article. What we have here is the lede is being used to discuss the things that make the school sound the best, lending to the overall promotional tone of the article. The information on the physical plant doesn't need to be mentioned in the lede at all but could be put into a separate "Campus" section.
2. History. Basically, this section is lacking both detail and sourcing. Pretty much, all there is for history is the school opened and it moved. The remainder is taken up with a very overly detailed recitation of staff history. This is completely out of place here. A separate section listing a history of the names of the principals would be appropriate. Discussion of where they came from or went, or any mention of any staff other than principals is not encyclopedic per school article guidelines.
3. Activities and Student Life. For starters, the title is mis-capitalized. Only the first word should be capitalized. This section is all over the place. We do not discuss curricular offerings, with a few exceptions. A section on arts programs is appropriate. In it, you can list music, theatre and fine arts programs. The names the school has assigned to particular bands is really not relevant outside the school and should not be used, nor are the number of students participating (unless of course, there is something unique enough that it has received press coverage outside the local community). Any achievement needs independent sources and should be limited to ultimate achievement (generally, state or national championships. We never discuss the achievements of individual staff or students, nor do we ever use names). The AP courses and the bit from the lede about top gains school should go in a section on academics, as should discussion of any academic teams. The bit about the AFROTC is written in a WP:PEACOCK manner. Top 1% sounds much better than the true fact. They finished 5th. We don't discuss 5th. I see no place for a discussion of this program. And why is the Cross country team mentioned?
4. Athletics. This section is written in a very promotional tone also. The individual mentioned should be moved to the notable alumni section. Staff names need to go. A proper athletic section should discuss the school's nickname, the school colors, what conference it competes in and what sports it offers (for boys and girls and any coed teams). Ideally this should all be referenced to an independent source such as the state sanctioning organization. A discussion of any state championship achievements should be included, but this must have an independent source. Details of specific games or season results should be omitted. If the school has a long term rivalry with another school this can be mentioned, again without details on specific games or won/loss records (and of course an independent source is required).
5. The band section. Pretty much, that's covered above. The director's name is unencyclopedic. Again, promotional tone. Students making honor band is individual achievement and unencyclopedic. If the school has won state or national contests, say so and source it. If not, all the promotional language needs to go.
6. Notable alumni. I didn't check this thoroughly, but keep the following in mind. To be there, the individual must have a Wikipedia biography and there must be reliable sources in it linking them to this school. If there isn't sources in their bio for their attendance, you can add them here. Even if a person only went to school here one week, if that can be sourced, they can and should be listed. Alumni does not equal graduate.
7. What's missing. The school's most recent enrollment, teaching staff and student teacher ratio should be in the infobox. A section should be in the body of the article, titled "Demographics" that breaks down the demographic data by race sex and economic levels (the latter usually indicated by the percentage of students receiving assistance for lunch). This info is available from NCES.

It's obvious you are trying hard here. A tip: Take what you know, use that to find reliable independent sources, and then paraphrase what the sources say, forgetting about what you know. An encyclopedia article is not written about the title subject; it is written about what is written about the title subject. And please, leave the adjectives in English class. As I said it is obvious you are trying hard. And also as I've said, it is no shame to have a good start article for most schools. Lose the promo and the unencyclopedic content, improve further the independent sourcing and add detail to the history section and you probably have a C article. Higher quality ratings than that are generally only possible for much older schools, and generally, the larger the area the school is located in, the more media coverage it will get. Quality comes from sources. If I can be of any help, drop me a note on my talk. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 08:55, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for your reassessment. You pointed out issues I had no clue even existed, so that is much appreciated. Since I no longer live in the area this school is in, beyond making a few edits later to take your advice into account, I'm probably going to move on from making major edits to this article in the future to allow other editors to make their own contributions. Thank you again! Yelpet (talk) 21:31, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion on the U.S. national anthem protests (2016–present) issue

Today, Parkway High has garnered a good deal of news coverage over the principal's stance that athletes who protest the national anthem will lose playing time or their spot on the team entirely. I understand the WP:NOTNEWS argument against including it. I agree that discussion is warranted to determine if it should be included or not. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:07, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is not the place to record something that happened today. This is not a newspaper, or social media. We need to wait on this to see if this is something that will have lasting impact beyond the school, or whether it is just today's fodder for the talking heads. Further, with the exception of Muboshgu's attempt at adding content on this, it has all been fraught with WP:OR analysis of the event. That isn't what we do here. The relevant policies (both pillar policies, our most important policies, BTW) are WP:NOT and WP:NPOV. John from Idegon (talk) 00:34, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

NOTNEWS primarily concerns routine announcements and news stories unlikely to be of lasting significance. This appears to be neither of those. We can't be sure if there is lasting significance yet, but this does read from all of the news stories I'm seeing from many, many sources to be a part of the larger story, which has demonstrated its enduring notability. (I had not checked the article history so did not see the other attempts to add info on the story before I made my edit, but I always strive to avoid OR and maintain NPOV.) – Muboshgu (talk) 01:41, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Can we agree that there needs to be some inkling of enduring coverage of this? Which, obviously, we cannot know now. I am guessing that unless something drastic happens, this is just going to die out, like most stories of this type. The proclamation of the state athletic authority affects all the school's in the state, not just this one. This one's principal just offered up a tasty soundbite for the talking heads. In any case, speculation about the constitutionality of the proclamation, mention of Colin Kapernick, etc have no place in this article. Any content would need to be limited to strictly what happened directly at this school, with no discussion of the underlying issues. And as I said, per WP:NODEADLINE, there is no hurry to add anything. John from Idegon (talk) 02:10, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

Unless anyone wants to argue vigorously to include it now, we can wait and see how things play out. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:52, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

@Muboshgu: I am willing to wait, but it looks like there is, and will be, continued coverage which will warrant inclusion. --Onlyeko (talk) 01:41, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

@Onlyeko: You'll have to convince John from Idegon, not me. – Muboshgu (talk) 02:38, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

By ongoing coverage, I'm not meaning a matter of days; bare minimum I'm meaning enough time for the current and next issues of the national news magazines to be out. If coverage doesn't endure into the next news cycle, it's simply news. And the notion that coverage will continue is mere supposition. John from Idegon (talk) 04:16, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

I find it very disturbing that we are deferring whether or not to include this new material entirely to John from Idegon. Transcendence (talk) 06:56, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

@Transcendence: I would prefer to include it now, and perhaps so would Muboshgu, but I am willing to wait unless there is a strong desire to add the material forthwith from a clear majority. --Onlyeko (talk) 09:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

Please note that no one has made a case for inclusion here. If that's what you want, then you are going to need to posit some arguments based on sources and policies. What I want or what anyone else wants is really irrelevant. It's all about the strength of the arguments. John from Idegon (talk) 17:44, 2 October 2017 (UTC)

This is not a good decision (or lack of decision). I came to this page 2 weeks after the current events hit. I was hoping to find a reference to the school's current policy and whether the policies changed after the publicity died down. Certainly, the change (or even non-change) of a school's policy as a result of national exposure is an event worthy of note in the history of this high school.

That's not to say that politically motivated speech is appropriate in this article, but the appropriate response would be to leave relevant facts only, not remove everything IMHO. Rob.the.batman (talk) 02:16, 11 October 2017 (UTC)