Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools

Help with high schools in Worcester County Public Schools

I would like to know if anyone is able/willing to help me out with editing on the high schools in Worcester County Maryland. I am hoping to one day be able to get them to B-Class Quality but would need some help from others. SkyeWolf369 (talk) 14:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Question about article guidelines

In WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI, there is a bullet point which states "Wikipedia articles about schools must be neutral. The purpose is not to bring shame to educational institutions...The fact that such activities may be reported in the press is no business of an encyclopedia." This guideline seems awfully vague to me; specifically, I'd like to know if it should be interpreted to mean that any mention of hazing or abuse at a school should be excluded from its article. The article that brought this question up is Army and Navy Academy. Hatman31 (talk) 19:46, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

It may be worthwhile to rephrase that particular section of the "article advice" to make its purpose clearer. This section cautions editors against incorporating every single news story related to a school, per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:BALASP. Whether or not an event such as hazing should be included depends on the significance of the event within the context of the school's history. Was the event covered in multiple reliable sources? Did newspapers outside the school's locale cover the event? Did the event have a lasting impact on the school? Does coverage of the event pass the WP:10YEARTEST? These are the questions I ask myself when deciding whether to include an event in the history section of a school's article. Stedil (talk) 22:39, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

That all makes sense, thank you for the reply! Hatman31 (talk) 15:13, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

Alumni inclusion criteria

It has been brought to my attention that there is some potential contradiction in Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article advice. "Inclusion in Lists of alumni included as part of a large article should be determined by WP:SOURCELIST and the same criteria used to determine the inclusion of other material in the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including Wikipedia:Trivia sections)." (that's also WP site-wide WP:LISTBIO) and "Alumni to be included should meet Wikipedia notability criteria," seem to be unclear with respect to embedded lists.

Those two statements are in separate sections at the same level within WP:ALUMNI, the latter is not within the "Separate alumni pages" section and does not state that it only applies to stand-alone lists. So the latter suggests we do want WP:BIO-like notability in order to include in an embedded alumni list, whereas the former sets a lower threshhold for inclusion. From my recollection, WPSCH had taken a fairly strict stance against redlinks in alumni lists (via WP:WTAF). Is that still the practice? Can the WPSCH guideline be made clearer, and practice brought in line (or is some wider discussion needed)? DMacks (talk) 22:12, 9 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm in favour of making the guideline clearer. This is a perennial problem, and has been raised here or on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article advice several times. I generally follow a no red links rule. The last discussion I'm aware of was Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Archive_28#Do_alumni_need_a_Wikipedia_article?. user:Donald Albury's comment is pretty much my approach, although I do allow for the possibility of the inclusion of a clearly notable person who does not have an article. If there are sufficient reliable sources to show that the person would clearly qualify for an article if one were written or that the person meets the presumed notability threshold of a specific notability guideline I would accept an entry without an article. However, I don't believe I have ever seen an alumni list entry with sufficient reliable sources to show that the person would clearly qualify for an article if one were written, and there are fewer applicable specific notability guidelines than there used. WP:SOLDIER has been deprecated, and simply participating in the Olympic Games or playing one professional sports game are no longer sufficient for example. WP:POLITICIAN is one of the more likely cases, with the possibility of a recently elected provincial/state or federal with no article as yet. Meters (talk) 01:07, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

In the days of yore when I was active and the janitor of the schools project, I deleted hundreds if not thousands of alumni entries not supported by a Wikipedia article or sufficient sources. Also, alumni lists are a target for childish vandalism. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:51, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Those who are advocating or practicing the removal of people in embedded lists solely because those entries are not independently notable are out of step with the project consensus that "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic may have its own article." Local consensus cannot override project-wide consensus so anyone who feels strongly about this will need to have that guideline changed.

Since a lack of notability cannot be the reason why material is removed from an embedded list, I strongly recommend focusing on other criteria and lines of thinking. We are not obligated to include all people associated with an institution in that institution's article regardless of their notability. So it may be more worthwhile to focus on ideas such as "Does having this person included in this embedded list provide critical information about this institution?" Similarly, WP:DUE may be a more appropriate and useful policy to focus on. I think that acting along these lines will let you accomplish your goals of keeping these articles from being cluttered with trivial information or vanity entries while remaining in line with larger project policies and practices. ElKevbo (talk) 17:36, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

That the notability guideline applies to whether a topic qualifies for an article is not the point. You cannot point to that guideline and claim that notability cannot be used as a criterion for inclusion in embedded lists (or in stand alone lists for that matter). You are conveniently ignoring that WP:NLISTITEM explicitly says the opposite. The full quote is "The notability guidelines do not apply to contents of articles or lists (with the exception of lists that restrict inclusion to notable items or people)."

Review of New Article

Hello all, would someone mind reviewing this article before it gets published? I'd like to know how I can improve it. Thanks! PokeRegi5 (talk) 23:00, 21 April 2022 (UTC)

User script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. Some of you may already be familiar with it, given it is currently the 39th most imported script on Wikipedia. The idea is that it takes something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

• John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14.

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is mostly based on WP:RSPSOURCES, WP:NPPSG and WP:CITEWATCH and a good dose of common sense. I'm always expanding coverage and tweaking the script's logic, so general feedback and suggestions to expand coverage to other unreliable sources are always welcomed.

Do note that this is not a script to be mindlessly used, and several caveats apply. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

- Headbomb {t · c · p · b}

This is a one time notice and can't be unsubscribed from. Delivered by: MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:02, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Overly aggressive deleting of school-related articles?

Over a period of 2012-18 an editor initially editing as IP 50.29.183.144 and later as Raindrop73, added literally millions of bytes of information to hundreds of school and school district articles - mostly in Pennsylvania - with references. Raindrop73 stopped editing in 2018. Over a period of March-April 2022, Graham87 (an Administator) went to every one of these articles and deleted roughly 90% of the content and references, leaving as an Edit summary "make proper school district article after extreme and sustained disruptin by IP user who became Raindrop73". An example is North Pocono School District. To me, this feels arbitrary. Should one person - Administrator or not - be empowered to radically shorten articles that were in existance for years, based on their own concept of what a school article should be? [I posed same question at Teahouse and was directed here.] David notMD (talk) 11:52, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with what the admin did. I have had to do similar removals for some districts in New York that had detailed bell schedules, lists of every admin for every school in the district's history, and more. That's how editors work; if we notice issues with a specific group of articles, we may systematically change them. There are general guidelines for school and school district articles as well as basic Wikipedia guidelines for what articles should cover and not cover (WP:NOT). Most of what was removed was what would easily be considered WP:FANCRUFT or excessive detail. Being "interesting" and even true and verifiable doesn't necessarily mean it's needed or appropriate in an article. The point of these school and school district articles is to give the reader a thorough, but still general, idea of the topic, not every little detail. Excessive details about testing, news events, bell schedules, administrators, and more are not appropriate for many reasons and info existing for many years isn't a valid reason to keep them since that's often just a matter of the article not getting a lot of traffic and the few editors who do see it either don't care or don't have the time to deal with the changes. --JonRidinger (talk) 13:24, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Not only that but when you add a lot of unnecessarily fine detail to an article such as a school or school district, it very rapidly goes out of date (and therefore almost certainly becomes inaccurate) unless it is maintained scrupulously. For example, the North Pocono School District article mentioned above contained population data that is 22 years old, family income data from 2009, (unsourced) funding data from 2010, a negative review of their transparency from 2012, academic achievement data from 2013, etc, etc. Even if this fine data is justified, you simply can't include data that is inevitably now going to be completely inaccurate. And that applies to pretty much all of the articles I have looked at that Graham87 has removed content from. Black Kite (talk) 14:04, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

This whole thing has revealed that we desperately need the school wiki project to come up with guidelines as to what is and isn't appropriate for a school district page. Myself and user:graham87 have wildly different opinions. I've seen wildly different opinions expressed from editors as well. If these guidelines exist, great, if not can we use this space to come to a consensus? Delphinium1 (talk) 17:28, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I think Frontier Central School District is a good place to start for our guidelines. Delphinium1 (talk) 17:29, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

pinging user:David notMD Delphinium1 (talk) 18:06, 6 May 2022 (UTC)