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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was merge to TechMission. Consensus is to merge to TechMission, including the nominator as of June 15. (non-admin closure) Atlantic306 (talk) 17:42, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

City Vision University

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City Vision University (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Notability? I could find zero independent references about this university on Google. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Christianity-related deletion discussions. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 17:37, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 18:22, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Missouri-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU(T) 18:22, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 18:41, 8 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep It is a legitimate institution - here is its entry in College Navigator, one of the U.S. government's websites for viewing college and university data collected by the government - but independent sources do seem to be quite scant. The best I've found is this blog post by the Pioneer Institute. There are a few other sources that mention the institution in passing (e.g., a Forbes.com "contributor" blog post) but they just mention the institution in passing. It's a very small (about 100 students) and very new institution so it's not surprising that media coverage is scant. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES indicates that we typically keep articles about accredited colleges and university that we have evidence actually exist even if there are very few independent sources; that seems to describe this situation perfectly. ElKevbo (talk) 13:37, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but if we keep schools because of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, it becomes a self-fulfilling piece of non-policy. --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:43, 9 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not very well versed in Wikipedia policies and how to best respond in this section, but here are some outside references. City Vision is listed on the Distance Education Accrediting Commission's list of institutions[1]. City Vision mentioned in this Forbes article.[2]. There are read references to City Vision in the Christensen Institute blog [3][4]. You can find a case study on City Vision as a program of TechMission in the Case Research Journal.[5] You can find City Vision listed in the list of schools of the Missouri Department of Higher Education.[6] City Vision is listed as a partner with Saylor Academy here.[7]City Vision is listed on Peterson's Guide here.[8]. City Vision was a finalist in the Pioneer Institute's Better Government Competition.[9] City Vision University was selected as a one of 25 finalists out of 164 entries in the US Department of Education's "Reimagining the Higher Education Ecosystem" competition."[10]Alsears (talk) 21:33, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
References
  1. ^ https://www.deac.org/Student-Center/Directory-Of-Accredited-Institutions.aspx
  2. ^ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ccap/2016/01/13/saylor-academy-sidesteps-the-evil-duo/#55627155c125
  3. ^ https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/unlocking-stackable-global-credentials/
  4. ^ https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/a-standards-strategy-for-stackable-global-credentials/
  5. ^ http://www.urbanministry.org/files/TechMissionCaseStudy.pdf
  6. ^ https://web.dhe.mo.gov/dhe/collegedegreesearch/collegesearch.faces
  7. ^ https://www.saylor.org/partners/credit-partners/city-vision-university/
  8. ^ https://www.petersons.com/college-search/city-vision-college-000_10058770.aspx
  9. ^ http://bgc.pioneerinstitute.org/2018-special-recognition-city-vision-university/
  10. ^ https://edu2030.agorize.com/en/juries/jMluUYzfcxSbRwxhzPhZhQ/participations/94/vote?order=random&hide_voted=false
I don't think any of these sources prove its notability- the closest one that does is the Forbes article, but it was written by someone unaffiliated with Forbes (in Forbes lingo, a contributor) who is not a reliable source (at least not in the Wikipedia meaning of the word). Instead of going through each of these sources one by one and telling you why they aren't suitable for notability, I think I'll give you a analogy instead. Imagine that Joe has a band. Joe wrote a article on his band on Forbes, but he is not a Forbes employee. When Joe tried to make a Wikipedia article, he cited sources that only proved that his band exists, not that it is notable. I think that this is a common trap that many people fall into, especially COI editors (that is, someone with some sort of interest, whether it be financial or otherwise in promoting a subject) fall into. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a compendium of all things that can be proven to exist, its a encyclopedia of what reliable sources say exist, and what our guidelines say is notability. I presume that you have already read our guidelines on notability and venerability but if not, please do as they are pretty much our most basic guidelines from which we build all others. P.S- I have put the sources you linked into a drop down menu, as the way you did it make it pretty difficult to reply without it looking really weird. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 23:51, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
P.P.S- If you have any other questions about Wikipedia's policies/culture, please feel free to ask me about it on my talk page! TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 23:55, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The Case Research Journal is a peer reviewed case study done by Northeastern professors that shows notability. There is another article in Christianity Today that is also relevant.[1]The other articles show that we have as much notability or more than many of the schools on the List of universities accredited by DEAC that have pages. See Harrison Middleton University as an example, but most DEAC-accredited schools are similar. Most of the schools have 80% to 90% or more of their references to either accreditation/government sources or the organization itself. I would suspect that the same is true for most of the schools under national and religious accreditors listed in Higher education accreditation in the United States. Because of my ignorance of Wikipedia's policies, I upset a very influential Wikipedia editor, so our Wikipedia page is under a level of scrutiny far beyond most comparable schools that have Wikipedia pages. Your standard for notability should be consistent between higher education institutions. It doesn't seem reasonable if our page is removed and the 1,000+ higher education pages that have similar or less notability. If you delete our page and uphold the same standard, you should delete 1,000 other similar pages, which I don't think you want to do.Alsears (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
A few things to say here. Firstly, see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS; just because other school articles similar to this one exist doesn't mean this one should exist. Secondly, who are you talking when you say "influential editor"? Thirdly, this is not your article; it is Wikipedia's article- you have no more power on it than anyone else. Fourthly, I have collapsed your new reference into a drop down menu for the same reason as before. Fifthly and finally, I haven't had enough time to type a further detailed reply- and I'm not sure if I will write one at all (not enough time!), sorry about that! Cheers! TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 03:57, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to TechMission. The best sources put forth so far discuss CVU as a smaller topic within the context of TechMission. While there will need to be a sentence or two on its pre-TM history, that looks to be the best place for it. --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:04, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge per Nat Gertler. This might be compared with a seminary, training pastors, as these are often also very small tertiary colleges, but may still be notable. A college with only 129 students would not normally be notable, but this appears to be about specialist training in a narrow field of work. On the other hand, I would be reluctant to see it deleted. The merger is a good outcome. I note that much of the training is "by extension", so that the number of residential students is perhaps even smaller. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:47, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As the President of City Vision University and the Executive Director of TechMission, it might be helpful for me to explain some current context. While historically CVU has been a smaller topic within the context of TechMission, now about 95% of the time we use the Doing Business As name of City Vision University. I say that because if you do decide to merge, I think it makes more sense to merge into City Vision University and then possibly add a section on TechMission's history to incorporate those elements. I agree with Nat Gertler in that I believe that we are at least medium-sized fish in "the small pond" of faith-base schools. My guess is that we probably have more notability than 70% of DEAC accredited-schools as well as more than 70% of ABHE schools (where we are an affiliate since our primary accreditation is with DEAC). It's worth looking at this List of schools accredited by the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada that shows we are about mid-sized among ABHE schools. We've also had some significant influence on the overall Christian higher education sector in co-founding the Christian Higher Education Innovation Alliance[1] and developing a MOOC on Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education on Udemy with 3,800+ students[2]. As an MIT grad, who did my doctorate analyzing the higher education industry, one common theme you see is that all the attention goes to the big and elite schools, but there is a long tail of thousands of smaller higher education institutions that together are very significant. The reality is that 90% of these smaller higher education institutions violate Wikipedia's guidelines by having their staff update their page (as I did not realizing it was a violation) and they do not get put in the penalty box for doing it nor do their pages get put up for deletion. I know many of these small institutions, and can tell that their staff are doing the edits.

I get TheAwesomeHwyh argument from WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. Having said that, my guess is if you removed all accredited higher education institutions that are less notable than us, then you might eliminate more than half the schools on Wikipedia. Of the 7,021 postsecondary Title IV institutions eligible for federal aid, there are 4,583 that are degree granting and 3,004 that are 4-year schools like City Vision[3]. So just by being a 4-year institution, that puts us at the 57% percentile (and that is out of Title IV federal aid eligible schools, so there are a lot more smaller ones that are not even included). I thought I saw someone on Wikipedia reference a standard for movies that if a movie was in IMDB then it justified having a Wikipedia page (am I wrong and remembering incorrectly). It seems like a similar such rough standard would be helpful, but it's worth recognizing that there is a lot of vetting that happens on who gets accredited, who gets financial aid, etc. It seems at minimum this should be considered. It's worth noting that a quote from WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is "As an example, generally speaking, any high school is very likely to be deemed sufficiently notable for an article, but lower-level schools are generally not. While not a hard-and-fast rule, this is the status quo for Wikipedia inclusion and is consistently maintained through discussions of various schools, school districts, and their creatability and keepability (or lack thereof)." It seems to me if high schools of which there are 24,040 (same reference above) are generally notable, then the 4,583 accredited 4 year institution would be notable. It's worth noting, that I'm sure most of those 24,040 high schools probably have staff make edits to their pages if they have them. Can students from those schools make edits according to Wikipedia's policies? If not, them I'm sure even more of those pages are in violation.

I don't say all this to say, "if they violated a policy, then it's OK for me to." I say it because I've spent much of my adult life thinking about technology policies and one of my degrees from MIT was in Technology and Policy. The reality is that Wikipedia has some significant policies that are extremely broken and dysfunctional when applied legalistically to higher educational institutions. It reminds me of the "everyone commits 3 felonies a day" problem[4], where anyone could be locked up arbitrarily . You have dysfunctional policies that when applied to educational institutions, they create a scenario where the vast majority of pages on educational institutions violate Wikipedia's policies. Then if someone out of ignorance makes an honest mistake and upsets an influential editor (like I have) they have to spend weeks fixing the mess. In other words, you've created a scenario where an influential editor could "lock up" the vast majority of pages on educational institutions. It's worth also noting that the intent of some of these policies is to prevent bias. A volunteer editing pages on Wikipedia about Wikipedia, would seem to have a similar conflict of interest as I do. I gave up a job as a dot com consultant making $200/hour and now make a very nominal fee that is 1/8th that, which essentially means that $175/hour of my time is as a volunteer to a nonprofit organization that helps addict. That doesn't mean that a volunteer wouldn't have a bias editing an organization they volunteered for, but it should mean that the level of protection against bias on a page like City Vision University by me is probably less than for the President of a large for profit like The University of Phoenix.

TheAwesomeHwyh, to answer your question, the editor I upset was ElKevbo. See the City Vision University history page on June 1. Honestly, it happened entirely out of my ignorance. I made the mistake of using the new visual editor on Wikipedia, which because of it's ease of use, I made quite a few updates not understanding Wikipedia's policies. The volumn of updates must have triggered a more significant review. When ElKevbo reverted nearly all my additions, plus a lot more making the page much less factually accurate, I had assumed it was vandalism and reverted his edit because I didn't realize that he was an editor on many university pages. Immediately after that, I had about 10 notifications slapped on me and the City Vision University page. I've tried to apologize and address the concerns as well as I can. Honestly now I'm afraid to even discuss it for fear of violating some Wikipedia policy unknown to me or making him even more upset. From my perspective, the main difference between City Vision University and a 1,000+ pages of schools that are less notable and have the same conflict of interest problems is that I upset an editor that did everything he could to ensure we were exposed to maximum scrutiny by as many people as possible. I'm working my ass off to try to help address the opoid and addiction epidemic, and the past two weeks this has taken up most of my energy. The time I spend on this (which is important) is time that I'm not working to help addicts. This is all incredibly frustrating because I'm trying to de-escelate, but this seems like a never-ending cycle. I'm afraid that even mentioning what happened will cause it to continue to escalate. I get that you all as experienced editors can't be biased in these decisions, but as volunteers, you can choose to invest your editing time on pages that have causes you believe in to make them high-quality objective pages. Assuming the page isn't deleted, if you believe in our cause, please consider using some of your expertise to help improve our page. Again, I apologize for my ignorance of Wikipedia's policies and culture. I'm just trying to navigate the best I canAlsears (talk) 00:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Alsears:, I'm going to try to respond to this in as little words as possible, so I don't spend anymore of your time than I need to. Firstly, I have no clue where you heard the thing about IMDb (it's a wiki, so we aren't even allowed to use it as a reference- let alone as a measure of notability). Secondly- as far as im aware, none of the statistics you've cited about your school have bearing on notability- we determine the notability of a subject based on reliable, secondary sources that are actually writing about it, and not just mentioning it in passing (i.e a refrence by the BBC about how Minecraft is the best thing to ever happen to humanity would help contribute to Minecraft's notability, but another reference by the BBC where they are talking about how a new band had formed and they mention that a member of the Minecraft development team is a member of that band would not contribute to Minecraft's notability). Thirdly, in regards to the second paragraph you wrote, keep in mind this is a deletion discussing, we aren't here to debate on the merit of Wikipedia's rules, but rather whether or not this article should exist based on our existing rules. Fourthly, with all due respect to @ElKevbo:, while I cant speak for anyone else, I didn't actually come to this article because of him, but because of his post on the Conflict of Interest Noticeboard (I didn't even notice he was the one who wrote that post until now, heh). Again, I have tried to keep this as short as possible so if any of this was a little vague let me know and I'll expand on that point. TheAwesomeHwyh (talk) 03:05, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
As the bulk of the attention has been given under the TechMission name, that is the name that we should have the article under (much as we have articles titled Cat Stevens and Shirley Temple, despite both taking on other names later.) However, when we do a merge, we do include a redirect for the article name we're eliminating, so if someone searches Wikipedia for City Vision University, they will end up on the TechMission page, possibly even directly to the subsection of that page focused on the University. (It's much like how someone searching for City Vision College now ends up at the CVU page.) If the larger organization later gets more attention under the CVU name, we can at that time move the page. --Nat Gertler (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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