User talk:The Banner/Notability of schools

Discussion not useful for building the set of rules to determine notability

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

As I've said elsewhere, my gut feeling is that this would go way beyond the GNG which requires coverage only at a regional level (and possibly not even that fwiw). If that can be shown, in conjunction with other reliable sources, then I'm happy that a school article can be built which will be verifiable and reliable - assuming someone watches it and pulls back and over enthusiastic editing from either the pro or anti side. Nationwide coverage is too far I think.

I have a particular problem with the age issue. I really don't believe this is a reasonable way to judge whether something is notable. As others have said, it opens the door to a whole load of articles about CofE primary schools, which concerns me as we'd be saying they were notable without them, in general, coming anywhere close to meeting the GNG. Age doesn't in this instance, infer notability imo - it might help to make it easier to show notability mind.

I also have issues with notability created from alumni - say that X famous people went to school at a village infants school 70 years ago - that makes it notable? But the 1,500 student secondary school up the road isn't?

In terms of listed buildings, I think the feeling tends to be that Grade I listed buildings are notable in themselves. I'm happy with that - I'm not sure that there's general consensus that anything below Grade I creates notability per se does it? For similar reasons to the above, I'd be unhappy about moving to a situation where a school with a Grade II notable annex becomes notable but is a lot smaller than one down the road which isn't.

The "first in the area" criteria will probably generate sufficient regional media coverage to suggest that the GNG may well be met.

I think the constant theme I'm on here is that creating fairly artificial hurdles for a school to meet will mean that some schools meet them through flukes of age, having had a fire, having three mass murderers having gone there or having won the national handball championship in 1954, and that other, much larger and, perhaps, more, well, notable schools might not. I don't think that's fundamentally sustainable.

Whilst recognising that there are always going to be borderline cases with the GNG, I'd be much happier to ask "is this school notable". If you want any guidance I think it's already there in the GNG (and, perhaps, WP:ORG. If I were going to apply that to schools I'd ask:

Has the school received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject

I'd qualify that by suggesting that I'd be expecting some significant media coverage, or detail from some other source, beyond standard promotional articles that schools produce in the local media. I'd probably expect that at a regional level - so the Eastern Daily Press would be reasonable imo whereas the Beccles and Bungay Journal might not be. Blue Square Thing (talk) 14:45, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please not that the alumni are not mentioned at the primary school section!! If you read WP:N and WP:V thoroughly, you will see that the sources has to proof the notability of a school. I severely doubt if the Little Town Herald is a reliable third party source to proof the notability of Little Town Primary School or Little Town Secondary School. Proving the mere existence of a school is not the same as proving the notability of a school. Night of the Big Wind _talk 21:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To be honest with you the same thing wrt alumni holds for secondaries - the 350 place secondary can be notable, the 2500 place one not? WP:ORG would argue that notability is not inherited as well btw

Wrt notability - it only has to have received "significant coverage in (independent) reliable sources" to have the presumption of notability. WP:ORG goes further and says clearly "Wikipedia bases its decision about whether an organization is notable enough to justify a separate article on the verifiable evidence that the organization or product has attracted the notice of reliable sources unrelated to the organization or product.". I would argue that I'm looking for a touch more than any old reliable source - and, perhaps, would question the very local sources in terms of reliability on school articles as well. But that's a lot less than the sorts of things you're proposing here which go way beyond anything required by the GNG. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Conform WP:N: "Sources",[2] for notability purposes, should be secondary sources, as those provide the most objective evidence of notability.. Imho it means that they have to proof notability, not existence. Night of the Big Wind _talk 22:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have any suggestions how to improve this? Night of the Big Wind _talk 21:42, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avoid arbitrary hurdles like this at all costs. They will end in tears and you'll find all attempts to enforce them will be related back to the GNG. Can they be improved? Frankly I think any attempt to go down a route with arbitrary criteria like this can't be improved on. I think it's reasonable to say that an organisation needs more than Ofsted and some league tables and a profile or two to make it notable, but if it's got much beyond that then I think it probably meets WP:ORG and the GNG. The arbitrary criteria aren't helpful in determining that or not - and, in many ways, will simply get in the way of trying to determine notability.

My suggestion would be to concentrate on coming to some consensus with regard to the level of sourcing required to meet WP:ORG and the GNG for a school. Blue Square Thing (talk) 21:56, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As your answer reads like "I do not agree, full stop.", it is of no use to me. Excuse me for ignoring this further. Night of the Big Wind _talk 22:47, 23 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think what you're trying to do here is incredibly flawed, yes. I really do think we'd be better off trying to work out what makes something notable from the perspective of sourcing, as your comment of 2011-12-23-22:47 suggests. Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:47, 24 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The rules proposed seem completely arbitrary and subjective which is contrary to core policies. The general notability guideline is quite adequate so adding superfluous rules would be contrary to WP:CREEP. Warden (talk) 18:47, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most guidelines are both subjective and, to a lesser extent, arbitrary. This is usually because they are the consensus interpretation of policy as applied to a specific area. That's in the nature of guidelines. You don't find guidelines on WP which are against policy, or which don't represent the consensus position of a particular point in time. There are many area specific interpretations of WP:GNG on the wider project. There is no good reason why schools should be any different. Fmph (talk)

The WP:GNG works because it based upon the objective and logical fact that we can't make articles without decent sources - we wouldn't have anything to base them upon. So, that guideline is not arbitrary — it is based upon functional necessity. Rules such as "at least 100 years ago" or "less then 12 months ago" are arbitrary because these numbers have no objective basis - they have been pulled from nowhere. This is original research and so forbidden. Warden (talk) 21:22, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The clue is in the name - General Notability Guideline - its a general guideline. But the subject specific guidelines - of which this proposal is one - all include varying degrees of arbitraryness. And they are all subjective. And WP:OR only applies to articles, not guidelines. Fmph (talk) 21:32, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editors are forever trying to push their personal ideas of what's important but those subject-specific guidelines are crumbling because they lack true consensus and logical basis. Editors have tried to develop one for schools before and they failed. This one is no better. Warden (talk) 22:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The GNG is the standard notability guideline however - it points us at the sidebar where WP:ORG might be applied as well. It doesn't specifically point us towards project-specific guidelines which, I would tend to agree, are inconsistent and, indeed, arbitrary at times. Any attempt to develop a new one would probably be well advised to go back to both the GNG and WP:ORG and work with them. Blue Square Thing (talk) 22:17, 27 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, at this moment they try to protect the self-invented rule "All secondary school are notable." I prefer that all schools have to satisfy WP:GNG. This proposal is a compromise. Arbitrary, but still beter then allowing every secondary school in. If you want to do something useful for this draft, come with suggestions how to improve it. Night of the Big Wind _talk 00:19, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so why not go back to the principles embodied in the GNG WP:ORG and say something along the lines of:

Schools (at all levels) exist. This does not make them notable. To be presumed notable we would expect:

coverage in official profiles, such as by government, local government, results summaries and regulatory bodies
significant coverage beyond this in the media at a regional level or higher or in published books. For the purposes of this criteria significant means more than passing references in league tables, local histories or summary reports. It should be expected that schools are the main subject of media articles of reasonable depth about the school itself rather than some other event or should receive more than passing mentions in books. Note that this coverage could be historical.

Note that this makes no distinction between schools at different levels. It is likely that all universities will meet these criteria, that many (if not most) secondary level schools will do and that some primary or middle schools might do.

Note also that schools are not necessarily notable simply because they have famous alumni.

I might have missed some stuff from WP:ORG etc... as I'm writing this from memory, but does that satisfy people? I know myself and Warden are probably coming at this from other ends of the spectrum in many ways, but it strikes me that this would allow us to delete some secondary school stubs and keep some good primary school articles without getting into the whole p/s is/isn't notable argument.

If it helps I have articles like Leiston Community High School in mind as one which would meet these criteria at present, whereas Stradbroke Business and Enterprise College and Thomas Mills High School would need some work to make it - although I would expect that sources could be found to support both cases. So? Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:16, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Significant coverage by government bodies, books, newspapers &c. is what the WP:GNG already says. This would add no value - just more WP:CREEP. Warden (talk) 10:24, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly... I'm not sure that WP:ORG doesn't want a little more than an Ofsted report or two mind - see the point I've made below and the specifics at WP:CORPDEPTH - which is the implementation of the GNG with respect to these sorts of entities.

I'm not arguing that the GNG isn't the place to come back to each time - just trying to be a little more specific about what we might look for in terms of schools when we consider whether or not they might meet the GNG. Sure, that's probably creep, but then every project specific set of criteria is as well. To be honest, I'm not unhappy about the old "secondary school is notable, primary school isn't" implementation we currently have - it certainly makes things simple. If we can improve on that by structuring a set of more open things to look for them that's grand - but otherwise that's what we'll be stuck with at AfD. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With most school funded directly or indirectly by the Government, I do not regard "coverage in official profiles, such as by government, local government, results summaries and regulatory bodies" as third party sources! Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Given that they aren't produced by the school - i.e. they are independent of the subject - I think they probably are. But I'm not looking at these as an either/or - I expect to see something like that to prove the place actually exists but I would want to see something else as well - that's the media or book bit. The section in WP:CORPDEPTH I'm thinking of here is: A company, corporation, organization, school, team, religion, group, product, or service is notable if it has been the subject of significant coverage in secondary sources. Such sources must be reliable, and independent of the subject. A single independent source is almost never sufficient for demonstrating the notability of an organization.

I would argue that such profiles are largely indendent of the subject - if we consider to be the subject as being the school rather than, say, the local education authority. I certainly consider that an Ofsted report would be independent of the subject - given the hassle schools have in even correcting basic factual errors in the darned things let alone influencing their tone or opinions. I think there's a realistic division between a DFE profile or an LEA profile of the school and the school itself (and certainly an Ofsted report and the school) Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, notability means that the subject of an article has something special of offer, good or bad. Doing just what you are supposed to do and nothing more, does not qualify a subject as notable. Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:07, 28 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

With respect, WP:ORG would define notability as meaning "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." Wikipedia bases its decision about whether an organization is notable enough to justify a separate article on the verifiable evidence that the organization or product has attracted the notice of reliable sources unrelated to the organization or product. (from WP:ORGIN) This is very clear and fits with the wording in the GNG clearly as well.

The use of unrelated here rather than independent of the source above is slightly trickier when it comes to things like profiles, but I think there's such a degree of separation that I'd consider a DFE or LEA profile to be a third party source for sure. I'm primarily interested in these to verify the existence of a new school or a very small tutoring organisation or similar. They're useful for certain factual information and may be useful to weed out some dodgy articles being used as promotional pushes.

None of which muddies the waters wrt what notability needs to be seen to be. Blue Square Thing (talk) 20:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And there was me thinking that I'd made some concrete alternative proposals? I'd say they'd be "useful". You can delete this once you've read it. Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, schools like Leiston Community High School still fail WP:GNG. They also fail my draft guidelines, because the school has absolutely nothing special to offer on the point of notability. They exist, they get mentioned in a report (just like every other school in the country) and thet amalgate. Anything special? Nope. Just a run of the mill school. Night of the Big Wind _talk 03:20, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You'd argue that LCHS hasn't "...attracted the notice of reliable sources unrelated to the organization or product"? Blue Square Thing (talk) 10:06, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is what I say. It plain fails WP:GNG. Ofsted is not a usefull source to prove notability due to it describing every school in the country. Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Topics don't need to be special - the notability guideline makes that fairly clear. That's why we have millions of articles and you can click random article a few times to confirm. For example, I just got Anomochilidae on my first click. This seems to be an obscure family of snakes. Fascinating to herpetologists, no doubt, but of very marginal interest to the rest of the world. Warden (talk) 10:44, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But I bet you won't find an article on the Grove Park Garter Snake, Frimley, so named so as to dab it from the Grove Park Garter Snake, Hepworth. Of course a class of snakes is of interest, just as a class of schools is of interest. What is not-notable is having an article about every school or every snake. Doh!Fmph (talk) 12:14, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A class of schools can be noteworthy if it satisfies WP:GNG or my (lower) draft proposal. But no school is notable for just being a school. Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:50, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Age of schools

You've added a section stating that a school is not notable if it's been open less than 12 months, yes? I'd argue that this contradicts the "first in kind" type of criteria you have. For example, I would challenge anyone to claim that Stour Valley Community School is not notable - the national press attention it's received makes it very clear, in my opinion, that it is - but it's only been open 4 months.

The 50 year/100 year/whatever criteria is potentially arguable, but, given the wave of new schools sweeping the UK just now, for example, I'm pretty certain that in many cases they're clearly going to be more than notable enough to merit their own article. Blue Square Thing (talk) 17:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The school has a predecessor, so only the rebranded school is a couple of months old. Night of the Big Wind _talk 06:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, no chitchat about the general topic of notability here. Only proposals to improve the draft guidelines are welcome here.

LonelyBeacon comments

Here are some thoughts about your proposal:

I personally don't care about your proposed use of teminology. Keep in mind that many US editors will probably change any edit back to "high school", and some issues may come up with that. I still don't think that this makes for a reason to not go in your direction, but I feel obliged to point out a minor pitfall.

1. You suggest the school (or is predecessors) is founded at least 100 years ago ... so if a school opened in 1849, and closed in 1850, it is notable? I have assessed several hundred schools articles, and some of the more troubling articles I have run into are stubs about schools that have long closed, and they really can only be confirmed as "they were once open". I'm not sure these schools should be encyclopedic unless they can otherwise be shown to meet notability with reliable sources, which I suspect will be very difficult.

2. You note the school has been awarded special honours for the quality of their teaching. This can apply to virtually any school, since virtually any school at sometime can "win" an award for great teaching (even if the teaching isn't so good). Many awards simply need to be applied for to be "won". I think it you want to go with a criterion like this, you will need to get very specific with the meaning or "honor" (perhaps as one earned from a state/provinicial/similar or higher government entity or college/university/degree granting entity)?

3. You note the school in founded less then 12 months ago, yet (at least in the US), these schools often have the easiest time meeting general notability because there is so much coverage over their budgeting, tax referenda (usually), construction, and opening. Maybe this is different in other parts of the world, and certainly not every new school may get this coverage, but I would at least add a tag saying "unless significant coverage to meet general notability is met" or something to that effect ... otherwise it gives the impression that this criterion is overriding the general notability policy.

4. You note third party sources can only proof the existence of the school. This seems murky to me. Any article will do little more than confirm the existence of the school. If the article is about a school event (the sports team won, a musical was performed, a hundred kids made the honor roll), then these articles are hardly what we want here. I think this needs to be expanded upon to make clear what you mean.

5. You note the school has only local news coverage. I am not 100% certain on this, but this seems to override the general notability guideline ... perhaps. GNG states that The number and nature of reliable sources needed varies depending on the depth of coverage and quality of the sources, but I am still nervous that your proposal puts an arbitrary determination on what can be acceptable sources for the establishment of notability.

6. I acknowledge your gray area ... the problem (especially with your "local news coverage" criterion, is that a huge bulk of the school articles have now become gray areas, and will require massive amounts of time by a large number of editors to review ... something that is likely going to keep a lot of questionable articles in the encyclopedia for a very long time.

With secondary schools, I add the following:

7. You note the school has been involved in notable events, sport events or incidents with nationwide media coverage. Especially with "sporting events", this needs to be made very clear. At least in the US, a vast majority of schools are involved at some point in a widely covered sporting event.

8. Schools can also be notable if they satisfy at least ... of the following conditions the school has at least ... notable alumni or current staff

It seems that you are waiting for some discussion to decide a number. Logically, I agree. Certainly 1 notable alum is not in and of itself worthy of granting notability to a school. Neither is 2. The problem I see with this part of the proposal is that whatever you come up with, some editors are going to see it as arbitrary (what if it is 2 alumni, but both are Nobel Laureates?). This becomes further compounded with the fact that the criteria for notable alumni is itself not as concrete as I would like to see it (I am jumping into this during self-imposed wikibreak because I was accused of edit warring when I continued to remove an alum from an article that didn't even come close to meeting any definition of notability). I think this criteria is going to lead to a lot of people adding alumni of whatever number is settled on here in order to keep an article, and then forcing legit editors to prove them wrong, since we seem unable to arbitrarily remove anyone lacking sources.

9. I am also confused with the idea of "listed building". Does this mean "listed on some historic register"?

I would very much like to see some more concrete and enforceable policies regarding this ... however I retain some reservations regarding at least parts of your proposal.

Back to wikibreak. LonelyBeacon (talk) 17:49, 3 January 2012 (UTC) added numbers and layout for ease of reply[reply]

.#1 I think that a discussion was held at WP:WPSCH at some point in the past about what to do with closed schools... I thought that the idea there was to merge what need be into subsequent schools (like Rose Bay Secondary College should be the target for the merge from Dover Heights Girls High School and Vaucluse High School)

.#2 Yeah... Maybe "notable awards" etc.? Or notable achievement in major assessments (like the HSC in NSW)?

.#3 I think that these schools should go into localities. Until a school has actually done something, I don't feel comfortable about it having an article. Maybe WP:GNG applies in this way, but it probably shouldn't because it's not about the core business of the school.

.#8 I don't think that schools inherit notability from their alumni... Makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe if there's something significant that an alumna/alumnus attributes to their former school? ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 13:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@1: Interesting, I did not read it this way. I was referring to existing schools, I will change that!

@2: I have changed that in "national special honours". The value of honours should be discussed if the articles notability is challenged. I am aware of the fact that not every prize is really a valuable reward refering to notability, but it goes too far for this draft to point out which ones are and which ones are not.

@3: Schools should be assessed on their teachings, not on opening day.

@4: You leave an essential word out of your quote: "if". If you can only proof that the school exist, then the school is not notable, else the school might be notable.

I go on later, sorry for the delay in answering. Night of the Big Wind _talk 13:35, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@6: Are you really afraid that freaks will suddenly nominate every school-article they come across? I guess they will get a block very soon for disruption!

@7: I have changed that in "multiple notable sport events with nationwide media coverage". I goes too far for this draft to explore every sporting event. I leave that open for discussion.

@8: You have a point. I remove it for the secondary schools.

@9: Indeed, a "listed building" is a building on some sort of heritage list or list of monuments.

@5: Sources should be independent. For local newspapers that can be a problem. As a single source of notability using the local newspaper is tricky. Night of the Big Wind _talk 14:47, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts

Change. I don't think that "the school was the first in the country (or state, if the country is a federation) to offer a special type of education, like Montessori education, Sudbury school, education for disabled people and so on." is worthwhile. Rather, it should be split, so one should be the school should be currently offering a substantially different type of program to usual, such as International Baccalaureate or Bilingual Education. The other should be that the school was (per RS) the first to introduce a revolutionary approach to education that then went on to be adopted elsewhere.

Change. Special status should be higher up the list, for example Opportunity Class [1] schools or sports-selective schools [2]. In fact, [3] gives a good list if you cut out the general schools.

Remove. "Sports events". There's a couple of kids at the school at which I currently teach who go on to national level events (and one may go to an international event next year), but I don't think we're especially notable.

Add. Enrolment size. I reckon a minimum enrolment of 400? In my state, that would mean that the school is of significant size to be involved in some significant educational measure or another.

Add. Speaking of which, add a bit more detail under special honours, i.e., being involved in some pilot academic program or another or some such similar program.

Add. Consistently high achievement in standardised tests (of some description) with the caveat that the article shouldn't explicitly mention ranks unless they're in, like, the top 10. i.e., Mac.Robertson Girls' High School OK, Carlingford High School (which still achieves quite well), not so much (to prevent WP:NOTNEWSPAPER situations).

Add. Heritage listed buildings.

Hmmm I think that Australian schools need the same exemption that you've given British government funded schools.

Otherwise... Hmmm... Needs a justification. Maybe per WP:ORG? Can we workshop that? Focusing on what I've mentioned over at village pump would be good? ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 10:55, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a draft, hopefully to become a proposal one day.

I have tweaked the sports section, changing it into "multiple sport events with nationwide coverage" as a team.
The listed building was already there at the secondary schools, but I forgot it on primary schools. Fixed that. I deliberately did not add it to the university-section. Many old universities are located in the inner cities of old cities. For them is in extremely difficult to avoid being housed in a heritage listed or otherwise notable building.
I do not understand what you mean with special status nor what you mean "should be higher on the list"

Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In response to #3, schools are primarily educational institutions, and I would hope that people should be able to write more on the educational characteristics and programs of a school rather than its other features. If you put this at the top, hopefully it'll catch people's attention that this should be first on their list of priorities for writing a school article. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 12:51, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Made these changes and a few more. Please check. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 10:58, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed your additions that significantly lowered the requirements. A condition as the school is the major provider of education to a particular community or locality is totally unacceptable. Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:40, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I actually think that your version is much more inclusionist than mine (!!!). For example, the condition I inserted that "the school is the major provider of education to a particular community or locality" had to be fulfilled jointly with "the school has a significant enrolment of over 400" (which you've changed to 500, but that's OK). If we were to accept the number of 500, without requiring a school to be the "major provider" (as I would suggest), then there'll be a lot of schools that will get by, including many larger suburban schools and schools where enrolment fluctuates (I can think of a couple that fluctuate up and down around the 500 mark but are definitely not the "major provider" of education to their communities. It's why I said "if they satisfy both" (emph. added) to soften the impact of the enrolment number. I don't particularly mind, as my personal position agrees with what you have written, but it was an area where I was prepared to compromise.

I also really want you to reconsider your stance on "a notable building designed by a notable architect"... There are many schools with buildings designed by notable architects in Australia (particularly relatively "new" private schools). Without the "historical" component going with it, these schools would have an easier time passing through.

The last point is in regards to "...was the first in the country..."; being an educational professional, I have seen teaching ideas come, then go for several years, then get piloted again as if they were something completely new. Phonics comes to mind, readily, as something which goes in and out of fashion every couple of decades with a new name. While I realise that you're talking much larger educational models, the pedagogical approaches are more interesting to education-concerned academics, teachers, parents, etc. (i.e., readers). In any case, the two parts of that sentence disagree (at least in regards to Montessori) - radically different whole curriculum approaches rarely have "significant" impact on the pedagogy for other schools. For the record, Blackfriars School, the first Montessori school in Australia didn't keep to the Montessori approach for more than 25 years and is now no longer existent (and so I would probably be inclined to think it's not notable).

I really think that the Universities section should be split off and sent over to WP:UNI for their consideration. 100 years for universities is fine for most countries, but would almost certainly exclude universities in Australia (UNSW, one of our major unis, was established in the 1950's and most of the universities established under Whitlam and Dawkins were established even later - Bond University for example would be problematic) and would definitely exclude universities in the Developing World. Also, in regards to enrolment number, I'd really like to head off any claims for English language schools, hairdressing colleges, and apprentice workshops (among other places); a minimum enrolment figure would achieve this relatively neatly.

For the record, I changed the faculty number (with regards to universities) from your 25 to my 40. :P Gods, does all this mean that I'm a deletionist now? ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 16:21, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) About notable alumni and staff: I have raised that from your 40 to the nice round number of 50.

2) "Being the major provider" is a tricky term. If you look at the countryside, every secondary school will be the major provider in a wide area. In cities, the situation is different. We should find another wording for it, but I have no clue at the moment.

3) Regarding to the buildings: in my opinion, the building itself should be of historical value OR, in case of modern buildings, be notable on its own. Maybe it should be reworded.

4) "Being the first" is also a case that needs more precision. Indeed, I do not want every teaching hype in it, but only the long established ones. But I do like things like Special education in it. How can we reword it so it makes clear that the school still should stick to that teaching approach? (eg. when nr. 1 changes colours, it also loses its claim to fame on that point)

Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:17, 4 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Addressed nr. 4 by adding that the school still should teach according to that system.

Tried to fix nr. 2, but how do you judge a school to be the major provider? Night of the Big Wind _talk 11:34, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd actually prefer to leave that open to interpretation. One way to do it could be the number of students, but that can sometimes be a bit arbitrary. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 12:38, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Universities

I think that tertiary institutions might be a bit too ambitious for this proposal. That might need to be worked out with WP:UNI. I'd also prefer the term "Tertiary Institutions" so that it'd include adult education places like TAFE's.

What about "College"? It'll at least make our American friends happy? ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 11:17, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed it back to University to keep it simple. But I also changed the explanation, that now includes a referal to vocational institutions and Institutes of Technology. Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:03, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Purplebackpack's take

I think that the bar for notability of primary schools set by this proposal is far too low. Point by point:

Any age is arbitrary. Age does not automatically convey notability; there's no indication that something found in 1911 is automatically notable.
That makes the event notable, not the school notable. Also, we have to remember that WP:NOTNEWS and WP:ONEEVENT have to be respected.
& 4: Those are far too broad. Thousands of schools have received some coverage or another; hundreds were the first to have some kind of special program. This needs to be tuned up so it only applies to a handful of schools.

And the also criteria...

That makes the building notable, not the school inside it

I think the non-notable sections are paramount, and need to be strengthed. I see that fleeting and local coverage not establishing notability are already covered, but there are three other types of coverage that I think must also be specified:

Routine coverage (The San Gabriel Valley Newspaper Group has a "School of the Week" feature where they have a half-page blurb in each of their papers about an area school. Since the feature is several years old, every school has been coveraged. That doesn't make any of them notable.)
Human interest stories that aren't really about the school (if there's a story about an 8-year-old who beat cancer and happens to goes to Spiro T. Agnew Elementary School, that article is attesting to the notability of the 8-year-old, not the school).
Random coverage (Many news stories pick a school, essentially at random, to illustrate some larger point about a district or state. They could've picked any number of schools to make the same point, therefore the article doesn't really establish the notability of the school they picked)

In general, I think the notability standards for schools need to be stronger Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 16:58, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The draft is ment to leave a grey area where keeping/deleting should be discussed. I try to define the upper limit (on or above this = notable) and the lower limit (on or under this = not-notable). Life is too creative with creating special cases that I don't even try to make a manual! Night of the Big Wind _talk 18:31, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think the upper limit (this or more = notable) is too low as written. Purpleback pack 89≈≈≈≈ 19:45, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting, Danjel thinks that my draft was not inclusive enough, you think that my draft was not exclusive enough. Guys, have mercy on me! I have removed a few items added by Danjel that significantly lowered the requirments and added a few things that upped the requirments (for example, 50 instead of 25 notable alumni or staff). Hope you guys can live with that. If not: throw in your proposals and I look what I can do. Night of the Big Wind _talk 12:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

DG preliminary view

My opposition to the entire draft on principle is probably pretty well known, and I'm not going to go to great lengths to discuss each of the proposed points, when I disagree with the entire approach being taken on a fundamental basis. The fundamental basis, is not inclusion/exclusion, but practicality. The problem is that having anything other than the simplest of rules (high schools in, elementary schools not) is an invitation to debate individually hundreds of thousands of articles.

Listed buildings

All listed buildings are notable, so if the article cannot be written about the school, it can always be written about the building and the school described as part of the article

size

A size of 500 includes almost all urban american high schools.===

honors

honors that fulfill notability requirements presumably means any honors that are worth an article describing the honor. Any honor or designation awarded on a national basis is worth an article, even if it is not the highest level.

Special systems

if it was the first in the area to use the method, it remains notable forever no matter what it snow does. It is the historical aspect that makes it notable. If it went out of existence it would still be notable This is a general principle applying to all articles on all subject, based on WP being an encyclopedia , not a current directory.

Nationwide coverage

nationwide media coverage is an extremely high bar. At present we use it only for BLP1E, because of the special factors involved. The usual compromise if one wishes to avoid local, is regional.

Existence

sources always prove more than existence of a school--they prove the existence of a school at a place, and they prove the name.

Recently founded

This again is in violation of a general principle--even planned schools can be notable under WP:Crystal if the sources are good enough that the planning itself is notable, though this is fairly unusual.

Sports

A school notable in a single sport is notable. I don't see the point of multiple. We also need to include non-athletic competitions: debate, chess, science--they count on the same level.

Universities & colleges

The criterion for 50 notable alumni or 50 staff is extremely limiting. Very few colleges will meet it--I'd suggest 5 as a much more rational level.(though personally I think that the presence of any one such person is sufficient) The criterion for being 100 years old is also ridiculously stringent for most countries. in 1911 there were maybe 5% of the number of colleges & universities that are now present.

But I foresee half the effort at AfD coming to be on schools, as we debate each one of them. and most will end up kept or deleted just as now, only with a great deal of added work, and the few that are different are less than the frequency of errors. Back when so much effort was spent on schools, lots of promotional copyvio got into the encyclopedia because we didn't have people to deal with it. DGG ( talk ) 18:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is still a personal draft and nothing more. I have added a clarification regarding to the existence. I don't think you have read the sports section correctly: "represented by teams in multiple notable sport events". An article in national newspaper X that school Y is the winner of the "Hammer Throw Competition for Teams 2011" is, in my opinion, not enough. If they manage to do that again in 2012, they meet the "multiple sport events". I don't really care which sport, as long as they get mentioned in national newspapers for more then one sport event for teams. BTW, a planned school is not in existence, so it does not fall under the 12-month condition. Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a misunderstanding, but the criteria are not as limiting as I think that you think. It is enough to satisfy one of the criteria, you don't have to satisfy all of them to be deemed notable. Night of the Big Wind _talk 21:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To use your own example, if it were the national championship, I see no reason why even once is not notable. Whats magical about doing it twice? And when we did use sports victories as a criterion, State championships were generally held sufficient, though I personally might not support that. You see, if we do as you suggest, we are going to find ourselves quibbling over these points for every successive school. I'm aware that you're saying any one is enough--myself, I think if we are going to judge this sort of thing, we must judge on the overall, or we'll have some very odd inclusions and exclusions. Even if we grandfather it, that'll be about 20 or 30 additional AfDs a day. Is the effort on that going to be worth it?

Now, there is one closely related subject where we do have complicated multiple criteria: WP:PROF, and it works very well. It works well because the criterion of being a recognized expert in one's field is actually the only important criterion, and the others are just shortcuts for saying that. The other reason is that there is a relatively small group of regular participants, and we have a roughly similar idea of what level we want to include--most AfDs go strongly one way or the other, unless some controversial field of work is involved, and the POV partisans get into it. For schools, everyone things they know about them, and thee is not general agreement on the level, nor is there like to be. DGG ( talk ) 17:04, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, but is your fear for 30 extra AfD's a day, not an acknowledgment for the fact that the present threshold is far too low? And that you should not blame me for raising the threshold up to WP:GNG but that you should blame the guys who lowered it to Common Outcomes? Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your question Is the effort on that going to be worth it? Yes, it is worth the effort because it raises the quality level of the encyclopedia. Night of the Big Wind _talk 20:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

UK

Education has been state funded in Britain since 1891. Or therabouts. Rather more than 50 years. The country is littered with schools that are more than 100 years old: they are a significant bulding type in the histoy of C19 architecture.TheLongTone (talk) 00:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Bilby's comments

Personally, I'd prefer to go with WP:ORG as providing a basic guideline that can be used against primary schools. That said, the main role I see with having a set specific criteria is that it can be used to evaluate whether or not sufficient reliable sources will exist to make creating an article possible, or (in some cases), a set of criteria based on which an article which would otherwise pass the GNG should be excluded.

Looking at the specific criteria:

the school has been awarded notable honours for the quality of their teaching (i.e., honours that fulfill notability requirements)

I can see value in this. Comparativly few schools will meet it, but you would expect that those who did meet it would have decent coverage elsewhere.

the school has been involved in notable events or incidents with nationwide media coverage

My concern with this is that it justifies artices about a school based on events which are not directly related to the school, creating unbalanced articles. For example, a primary shool at which a student was stabbed would have an article because of that event, but there may not be any sources about the school itself to balance that. If the event is significant enough to warrant its own article then it might be better to create one. Alternatively if the school is notable enough to have decent coverage, then mentioning the event is warranted. But the event itself shouldn't be assumed to confer notability.

the school has a special status, such as being a school that is part of statewide/nationwide efforts to cater to particular populations of students (i.e., gifted students, students with high athletic potential, etc.) or has continuing close ties to notable tertiary institutions as a demonstration school

I can't really see why this would guarentee coverage. These schools might be important, but they aren't necessarily notable.

the school has consistently attained a significant rank (top 10%) through standardised and/or significant nationwide testing structures

Is there any particular reason to assume that schools which sit in this rank (which are a lot of them) will have recieved sufficient coverage elsewhere? I'd lean towards no, but I'm happy to hear otherwise.

the school (or its predecessors) is founded at least 100 years ago

Only on the grounds that it has probably recieved coverage elsewhere based on age. But I don't think that it serves as a guarentee of coverage, so I'm not sure that it is worth listing.

the school was the first in the country (or state, if the country is a federation) to offer a (notable) special type of education, that resulted in a significant impact on the pedagogy or provisions of other schools within the educational community.

That will weigh things towards those schools, which will be a tad unbalanced. But generally I guess we can assume that the first to provide a particular style of education will have picked up some coverage,so it seems fair enough.

the school has been been represented by teams in multiple notable sport events with nationwide media coverage

I can't see any value in this, I'm afraid. Most schools compete at a national level in some events, and doing so won't guarantee any particular coverage of the school. The event, maybe, but not the school itself. It might warrant a mention about the school in the press, but not enough to build an article on.

the school is housed in a listed building

This, to me, only warrants coverage of the building, not the school it contains. It doesn't seem relevant in itself.

In regard to the exclusion criteria:

the school in founded less then 12 months ago

Disagree here. In my home state there has been a tendency to close small schools and build supershools. These are accompanied by considerable coverage and controversy. I don't really see why a new controversial school should be excluded.

third party sources can only proof the existence of the school

I'm not sure what is meant here. So I'm a tad confused with this. Wouldn't extensive third party coverage be valuable?

the school has only local news coverage, centered on routine or human interest stories

I generally agree, but it comes into conflict with a lot of the inclusion criteria, much of which would fall under this.

the school is only listed on government related websites or by government related organisations, like Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted) (United Kingdom) or MySchool (Australia).

How do we know that they are only covered there? I'd rather say that being listed on these sites does not confer notability, and leave it at that.

As mentioned elsewhere, I think the problem with this set of criteria is that it is tending to conflate notability with importance. Notability is about the coverage in reliable sources, but the list of criteria seems mostly to be based on what makes a school important, which is a very separate issue. Fundamentally, the role of Wikipedia is to include the sum of all human knowledge. The GNG is designed to focus not so much on importance, as we can't reliably judge that, but on whether there is the right sort of coverage to have a reasonable expectation that a verifiable NPOV article can be written. Most of the criteria listed above don't seem to be focused on that. - Bilby (talk) 03:12, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"WP:ORG [provides] a basic guideline that can be used against primary schools" - This is a problematic point of view. Ryde Bridge isn't a particularly interesting monument, yet, it stays because it's "important" enough to warrant a view separate to WP:N. Schools, including primary schools, are often the centres of their communities and are of significant enough importance that they are repeatedly covered in (at the very least) local media, and often beyond.

These guidelines differentiate between those schools which are important only on a local level, and those that are important beyond that. The guidelines provide the means for people to find sources that should satisfy WP:GNG, if we look past the perspective that primary schools are the bane of wikipedia. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 07:06, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have no problem with primary schools, and I can see a good argument that the current view, which leans towards deletion, is wrong. Certainly I'm not of the view that they can't be notable. My concern is that they still have to meet the GNG, so in the end any guideline either needs to be a) more restrictive than the GNG, which I assume isn't the intent, or b) has to be sufficient so that we can safely assume that if it passes the specific guideline, it is also very likely to pass the GNG. Part of the problem may be that the assumption was that high schools would pass the GNG by dint of being high schools, but that primary shcools need to prove their worth.

I guess for me I want to know why this proposal exists. Is the intent to get some criteria which will allow articles on Primary Schools to exist even if they fail the GNG (which is fine by me, but consensus is going to be tricky); to provide an easy means of evaluating if a Primary (or other) School would meet the GNG, even without actual sources to demonstrate this (which is the apparant role of a number of specific notability guidelines); or to provide a more restrictive guideline so that meeting the GNG is not necessarily considered enough to warrant an article (as per, for example, BLP1E)? Or, of course, a combination of the three is possible (in which case you might need to justify overriding the GNG in two directions). - Bilby (talk) 07:16, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict)To respond to specific things:

* the school has a special status, such as being a school that is part of statewide/nationwide efforts to cater to particular populations of students (i.e., gifted students, students with high athletic potential, etc.) or has continuing close ties to notable tertiary institutions as a demonstration school
I can't really see why this would guarentee coverage. These schools might be important, but they aren't necessarily notable.

In Australia, there are go-to schools for the media and the general public for various issues. If you're going to talk about dealing with gifted children, for example, you'd go to North Sydney Boys High School, North Sydney Girls High School or one of the OC schools (primary/elementary). If you're going to talk about sport, you'd go to Westfields Sports High School or Narrabeen Sports High School. If you're going to talk about schools dealing with refugees, you might go to South Sydney High School or the nearby primary schools (for modern day refugees), or Cabramatta High School and Cabramatta Public School (for successful refugee integration in the past). The status of these schools generates coverage. If you search for these schools at Google News or wherever else, you will almost certainly find mentions in connection with those issues.

* the school is housed in a listed building
This, to me, only warrants coverage of the building, not the school it contains. It doesn't seem relevant in itself.

What is more interesting to a reader of wikipedia? The school housed by a particular building or the building itself? The former, undoubtedly. This would create a really boring set of ultra-brief stubs on the buildings at Emanuel_School,_Australia.

I think that this is spelling out how GNG can be achieved, and the dot points are ways for it to be achieved. What we have at the moment is a bar to cross in terms of GNG that, arbitrarily, (a) is assumed to be crossed automagically by high schools; and (b) is almost impossible to cross for primary schools. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 07:41, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using those examples, though, in the latter, the issue isn't which is more interesting, but which can we write about? A heritage listed building we assume we can write about because it will have coverage in reliable independent sources (for example, the National Trust will have a document about it, and various books will cover the building), but is there any reason to assume that the school based in that building will also have sources that will allow us to write about it in its own right? In regard to the former, the go-to schools you mention will have coverage, and will pass the GNG. That's great, and will help. But will all schools that meet that criteria also be go-to schools with sufficient coverage by dint of having a special program? And will that coverage be about the school itself?

I'd like to see more coverage of primary schools too. My issue is that it seems that the criteria used should be shorthand for "coverage exists" as opposed to "this school is important". I mean no ill with this, but if there isn't sufficient coverage we can't write an article on the school. What we need is criteria which can be used to show that such coverage will exist, even if it isn't readily available online during the AfD. - Bilby (talk) 09:14, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

While you say that GNG-passing coverage will be found regarding the schools that have special programs of some sort or another, the unfortunate reality (thus far) is that they'd get caned at AfD, usually with justifications based on WP:ORG (which simply does not allow for notable schools of any sort, primary or secondary). I get your point that the focus should be on passing on coverage, rather than passing on importance (although I'm not inclined to care, but I'm probably a bit further down the inclusionist continuum than many are), how can we reword the NotBW's guidelines to suit your view? By saying that "in order to satisfy notability requirements, schools should supply sources that say that..."? ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 09:28, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

the school in founded less then 12 months ago; Disagree here. In my home state there has been a tendency to close small schools and build supershools. These are accompanied by considerable coverage and controversy. I don't really see why a new controversial school should be excluded.

To my opinion is an amalgated school not a new school, due to it have predecessors. Night of the Big Wind _talk 15:51, 26 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How's it going?

I know that you got blocked recently (on pretty shaky grounds, from my perspective), but how's this going?

Seems like at least one user has decided to move against low-hanging-fruit again by drive by tagging UK prep schools with merge tags (with no discussion on talk pages, seems like a set up to me ("Don't like my merge? fine! AfD it is then!")), so I'd like to keep this moving if possible. ˜danjel [ talk | contribs ] 13:45, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was extremely angry and disappointed after the RFC, realizing it was deliberately sabotaged by the late entry of the nay-sayers. Soon enough I will start again, but now without expecting other to be reasonable. So my new campaign will just offer the choices redirect or AfD. I would be reasonable to asked people to improve articles, but the proposed taskforce failed completely. No takers at all. They will see the consequences soon enough. Night of the Big Wind _talk 16:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]