Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Archive 24

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Tips for reviewers & patrolers

If you are interested in maintaining the quality of school articles, you will be doing us a great service. We have over 400 signatories to this schools project but most of them came here only to write about their own school.

Tip

If you are reviewing and/or controlling edits to school articles and they are showing on your watchlist, bear in mind that all IP edits to school articles are most likely vandalism, and if not, they are probablyadditions of totally irrelevant content or unsourced alumni. Check the geolocation of the IP and if it is obviously the IP of the school, its district, or other school authority, add the {{shared IP}} template and let me or one of the other admins who are coords here check it out in case it needs to be blocked. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:09, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, very useful information. EyeTripleE (talk) 07:18, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Request for edit - Infobox motto

A request for edit has been posted at Template_talk:Infobox_school#Display_motto_under_logo, regarding the motto placement in different image/logo parameter settings. Just notifying here, if anyone wants to offer additional feedback and opinions. GermanJoe (talk) 11:11, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Merge Infobox school and Infobox UK school?

Please offer your input at Template talk:Infobox UK school#Merge with Infobox School?. Last merge discussion was in 2007. EyeTripleE (talk) 03:44, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Remove assistant and vice principal positions from infobox

Please also offer input at Template talk:Infobox school#Remove assistant and vice principal parameters EyeTripleE (talk) 03:57, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Discussion that may be of interest to this project

There is an ongoing discussion here on the use of Template:Infobox school district in settlement articles. Your input would be appreciated. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 17:47, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

An example of what a school article should not be

(Moved from article guidelines talk page) I just ran across the article for Waxahachie High School during a recent editing session. I would be interested in everyone's thoughts on how this can become a better article. Indyjrg1762 (talk) 14:54, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

May be better topic for the project talk page. Just deleted the blatant WP:COPYVIO. Everything below the state level should be removed from the lists of accomplishments. EyeTripleE (talk) 17:27, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

I was once told that a Good Article should not have many lists, and that lists should be rewritten as prose. I would not use the "yearbook" parameter in any school infobox (and I think it should be removed as a school infobox parameter, but haven't raised the issue). In this specific article, the marching band program is given undue weight. In the absence of any state or national band championships, I would list one or two of the highest honors earned, or characterize long-term success (i.e. "has placed in the top ten at state competition at every opportunity since 1990"). I would try to add photos, citations that prove alumni attended the school, and historical information (opening date, check for events that received national-level press coverage, etc). --Hebisddave (talk) 16:32, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Please ignore my comments if they upset any local taboos- I normally only put comments on US article talkpages and refrain from editing- but as the EyeTripleE has a name based on such an illustrious organisation I hope he will protect me from incoming flak. Can I turn the question- Do we have examples of what a school article should be? Who is the _target reader? I would assess some of these articles in the backlog if someone asked me - and gave me a list of what points to look for when assessing an article and some model articles at stub- start- C- B- GA and above. Anyone who has ever marked for a national examination board (most teachers) understand that those are the requirements. There is a hell of a backlog? Can't we establish a consensus on at least that. What subheadings are we looking for? What are criteria for a German Hauptshule, Realschule, Gymnasium- a French College, Lycée (publique et Privé). How do we assess a UK state school without adding political bias? we then need to UNDUE criteria that are only available to one particular social class? And now I can ask a few silly questions about the article?

Where is it? No location map. What is the local authority that advises it? Governance- who are the governors, annual budget etc. What are the ages of the intake- what is their social makeup. Indicators of poverty, % of intake who do not have the teaching language as their home language? Is the teaching language Spanish or English or bilingual? What is the academic value added- how is this assessed? What % of the graduates continue in education? What % of graduates are proficient in 2 or more foreign languages? What routes do they follow? What is the school day, teaching philosophy the expected homework commitment? What does the school offer in addition to that found in neighbouring schools? How large is the staff, how many of those ate qualified teachers, classroom assistants. How many are on permanent contracts, part-time contracts? What is the pastoral structure? What is the management structure? What is the special needs provision? What % of pupils partake in the sports program? How is that structured to promote inclusion? Is there a programme of overseas visits? How are they financed? What financial assistance is available to ensure inclusion? Are there sponsoring companies and individuals?

Where do you advise the newby editor to go to find a well-written equivalent article. Where is the advice note we can give to an enthusiastic thirteen year old who wants to improve his own schools article. When we have discussed and answered all these meta questions perhaps we could put together a navbov that could be linked to the- I have multiple concerns hat-note.-- Clem Rutter (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I suppose Category:FA-Class school articles and Category:GA-Class school articles would be a good places to start looking for well written equivalent articles. WP:WikiProject Schools/Assessment has criteria for quality and importance classification and some examples of articles at each quality level. Category:WikiProject Schools articles by quality has all subclasses for all the different quality levels if you're looking for more articles to compare against. WP:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines has some pointers and a basic article structure. Is this what you are looking for. EyeTripleE (talk) 19:10, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Yes and no. I will check them all out again but just looking at the FAs give a three or four US high schools that have received a lot of tender loving care. But one school is mentioned twice, and I have asked for La Martiniere Calcutta to be reassessed. There are no references- so it doesn't even achieve Start class on verification. Thats what editors are up against. We are left with only 4 proper schools! The UK examples Judd- a private company, RNIB is not a school but an FE college (post 18). Yes those 4 schools when you have found them are good articles - but even they need to be internationalised terms like Grade X, doesn't translate to the age of the child. Uk we speak of Year R, Year 1... Year 13. All based on the childs age on 1st September. When we move to Infobox all the terms need to checked. School Number is a synonym for the number of students on roll- I think stateside it is a reference number, similar to the DESNumber.

GA bring in another load of rabbits.God's Choice is a book! UK side I struggle to find one normal stateschools- all are private companies who only accept the rich. How does this provide the necessary model for say All Saints Catholic High School, Sheffield? We have 4000 unassessed- 21000 stubs- no newby editor is going to wade through all those GA to find one that similar to his in order to find a model.

One of Wikipedias problems is that its policies and guidelines cover every conceivable case what we need is concise guidelines for particular school systems. A human can only hold a limited number of facts in their brain concurrently- which I verify decreases rapidly with age. However Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines is incomplete- eg- where do you grab US statistics and inspection reports? Large chunks seem inappropriate for this age group. eg Student Unions. UK side there is a tremendous bias in language towards the minority private school sector- which smells to me of subtle advertising copy! Incidentally the structure proposed does not match that used in all the US school FAs.

WP:WikiProject Schools/Assessment that was always my starting point- but have you looked at it recently- the examples are from 2008, and for example FA Plano High School is now considered a B. Using the Criteria, ad the users experience columns it is easy to differentiate Stub/Start/C but the C/B borderline is harder- and above that the criteria become vaguer and more subjective when they should be becoming more prescriptive.

I have no intention of personalising this debate but there must be a reason why so few of these articles are of a high standard while all of our editors have experienced schools and many have had to make hard choices on behalf of their children. Above all we have to _target the advice at inexperienced editors. -- Clem Rutter (talk) 21:33, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Looks like there is a lot of work to do in the WikiProject! From what other editors have told me there aren't that many people working in the School space. This accounts for the dated and poorer shape of the project compared to more active WikiProjects. I have been attempting to clean up the infobox over the last several weeks but it is slow going since input is sparse and the template is locked. I also don't know much about schools across the pond so I don't know how to deal with |student_union= and the like. I agree, we should have articles internationally that can serve as examples to base other articles on. I think part of the problem is the nature of schools. We are really only familiar with the ones we attend so it is hard to improve other school articles beyond C-class. EyeTripleE (talk) 21:52, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem in the US is that about the only thing that gets press about schools is athletics. Budgets here are a function of the district, not the individual schools. Realistically, except for a very few, anything above a C for a public school is nigh on impossible. Private schools are a different story, as many of them have had histories written on them. John from Idegon (talk) 07:19, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

It has always irked me that the writers of US school articles seem to feel that American schools are only interested in preparing their students for college sports. Inter-school sports do seem to be a big thing in America so I suppose we can do little about it. That said, I'm obviously biased having gone through the traditional UK school system followed by a 40-year career in teaching in Europe. Without bragging, some examples of GA schools are HCGS and Malvern College. Withoiut looking, I can't remember if any US schools have reached GA. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:27, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

Most of the editors who edit US school articles seem to be those who are either current students at the school or went there. In many cases, alumni of a given school are connected to their high school only because of athletics (usually attending football and basketball games). I've actually found histories of many schools by doing a little bit of searching online, but most editors either don't know where to find that and/or are simply not interested in it. I got Theodore Roosevelt High School (Kent, Ohio) to GA status in 2010, but it could probably use some revisions and fine-tuning. It's my alma mater so I have a built-in interest in all aspects of the school and I have access to and know where to find aspects of history, curriculum, get photos, etc. (and I'm a teacher, though not at the school, so that helps too...). The article has a sizable section on extracurricular activities, including athletics, but US schools tend to have a larger emphasis and offering for those events than schools outside the US, at least in my experience. But yeah, a LOT of US school articles have little more than athletics mentioned. I try to trim back athletics whenever possible, such as on Woodridge High School, which had individuals, state record holders, and more listed. It included a bit of discussion with a well-meaning editor, but gives us an idea of what we're dealing with in editing US school articles. --JonRidinger (talk) 14:05, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

campus_bound parameter in infobox

Can someone tell me what |campus_bound= means in {{Infobox school}}? The description on the doc page isn't too informative. EyeTripleE (talk) 17:45, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

Another editor asked was the meaning was back in 2012 (see Template talk:Infobox school/Archive 4#campus_Bound meaning) with no reply. If nobody knows I am going to request this parameter be removed since it doesn't really serve a purpose. EyeTripleE (talk) 06:57, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

This 2007 edit by Philip Stevens added the parameter along with a bunch of other parameters. The edit summary was "matched code to other school templates". The parameter would display as College Bound, strongly suggesting it has to do something with whether the school prepares students for college. Several uses (such as here) agree with that use. Other school entries use it in a completely different way (such as here). In February 2014, Frietjes changed the label from "College Bound" to "Campus Bound" (diff).

Since most high schools, even those that are not Prep schools, prepare students for admission to college to some degree and since prep schools will very likely say they are prep schools either in their name or in the body of the article, and because of the confusion caused by the name (it could be read as "Campus bounded by...") I recommend removal of this parameter. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:55, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

@Nick Levinson: you may be interested in this conversation, you asked a similar question back in 2012. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 19:56, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

removing it is fine with me. I just think that parameter names should match labels. otherwise, you add something and the label isn't what you expected. Frietjes (talk) 14:21, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for investigating this davidwr! I agree in the U.S. pretty much every secondary school is college preparatory to some extent so it doesn't make sense to use it for U.S. schools. Is this as straightforward internationally though? Would there be a benefit to keeping this parameter (and potentially renaming it) for schools outside the U.S? EyeTripleE (talk) 20:00, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

There are high-school-level programs that are vocational for students who have no desire to go to college, but I wonder if more than a scarce few high schools describe themselves as mostly vocational. If the latter is rare, then that's better left out of the infobox, since the article could explain it more clearly. On the other hand, infoboxes are not mainly for schools' self-descriptions, and maybe many more schools are described in secondary sources as mainly vocational, in which case the infobox parameter, if renamed, would be useful, but, even so, it won't be consistently used.

The parameter in that sense might also be used for schools that may intend for students to go to college but that are so bad that most students never qualify for college. I understand several U.S. cities have high schools from which on average nearly half of students drop out and that doesn't count students who graduate but don't go to college within a couple of years, perhaps marrying or enlisting for military service before or after their high school conclusion.

Matching a name to a label is a good idea, but, of the two, "college bound" is the clearer match.

Maybe "college prep" is even clearer, for both the name and the label.

My guess is that internationally, especially in nations or communities that dispute whether education beyond the eighth grade or girls' being educated is a good idea, many more schools would be designed for non-college-bound students.

Is it feasible to find how many pages have nonblank values for the parameter? If so, I'll leave that research to someone else, lacking time myself.

I was going to have no objection to removal but now I'm not sure.

Thanks for the clarification and for pinging me.

Nick Levinson (talk) 01:52, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like this parameter is leading us into murky waters. There might be schools that could claim to be college preparatory but really aren't and vice versa. This is probably better content for the article. It also occurs to me that this information could be put in the |school_type= parameter, e.g. |school_type=college preparatory, so this parameter is redundant. I would support removal of this parameter. EyeTripleE (talk) 18:34, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Merger idea: American Indian Model Schools

I think American Indian Model Schools, American Indian Public High School and American Indian Public Charter School should be consolidated. Even though they are separate schools and one school system on paper, they all seem to be the same school with different campuses. With traditional 9-12 high schools each one has its own identity and history, but they all share the same history, curriculum, and controversies. Merging may also prevent POV forking. WhisperToMe (talk) 03:58, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

• Keep the high school article separate per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. No objection to merging American Indian Public Charter School (which is now known as AIPCS I, serving grades 6-8) into an expanded American Indian Model Schools article and making sure that AIPCS II (serving grades K-8) also gets "due weight"-level coverage in that article. A summary of the high school can be added to that article as well, with a {{main}} template pointing readers to the high school's article. By the way, these articles are out of date. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:10, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Is the middle school notable by itself? Otherwise merging it with the charter school system article is probably best. EyeTripleE (talk) 03:32, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

Adding Redirect class

I think this project should include Redirect class here. It would help separate all the redirects out of Category:NA-Class school articles and if there's a change in consensus regarding the notability of different types of schools, it would be useful to see all the redirects. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 02:00, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

• Endorse, simply common sense. Not enough of a wonk to do the deed however. :) John from Idegon (talk) 05:18, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

I put in an edit request at Template talk:WikiProject Schools. EyeTripleE (talk) 08:46, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Finished. See Category:Redirect-Class school articles. Use |class=redirect in {{WikiProject Schools}} to assign an article to the redirect class. EyeTripleE (talk) 21:06, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Talk:Atlantic High School (Iowa)#Title confusion

Hi, there is a discussion on a page of interest to your project regarding a page split and titling issue. Please add your knowledge to the discussion. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 08:48, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Association of Trust Schools

This Zimbabwean organization appears to function similarly to a school district. My concern is that articles are being generated for the primary schools in the association (see the blue links to the primary schools in the article) which may be against to our article guidelines. Should the primary schools be redirected to this organization? EyeTripleE (talk) 18:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I support redirecting these primary school articles. I looked at several and the primary schools do not seem to be notable. (If there is a very noteworthy quality or historical event, it might justify keeping a primary school article, as usual.) The sources all seem to point to the schools' own websites; I checked one (the "About the Prep" reference for St. John's Preparatory School (Harare)) and found copy-paste problems. It seems like one editor has put many (or all) of these articles together, so it would probably be good to reach out to that editor. --Hebisddave (talk) 16:42, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

AFD of interest

There is an ongoing discussion at here on the use of wp:SCHOOLOUTCOMES on school/college articles. Your input would be appreciated. Thanks. --doncram 06:52, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

St. Mary's School, Melrose and Wilfred Hoare

Could someone please review these articles for me. Many thanks.Gomach (talk) 14:16, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

RfC: Address

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Kennedy High School
Address
6325 West 56th Street. Chicago , Illinois 60638 United States
Information
School district	Chicago Public Schools
CEEB code	140897

The University of Chicago

Latin: Universitas Chicaginiensis
Type	Private nondenominational coeducational
Established	1890
Location	Chicago , Illinois , U.S.
Campus	Urban 217 acres (87.8 ha) (Main Campus)

Is the physical address of a school a viable parameter? On the right are two shortened examples for the question. Kennedy High School using Infobox: School shows the address, University of Chicago using Inbox University does not and inserting address information results in error messages. Trackinfo (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes-As nominator I think this is a no-brainer. We have thousands of school articles that list the physical address. The datafield is an active and often used parameter in Template:Infobox school and others. I noted its absence in Template:Infobox university at this discussion and was shocked to see the opposition. One of commenters suggested the parameter be removed from Template:Infobox UK school. We need a broader based decision. My first concern is if we have that broader discussion here that it will be closed in the negative based on a very small number of actual commenters. That is how wikipedia has made some (in my opinion) bad decisions in the past. My second concern is the historical inability for ANY consensus to occur in major decisions at WikiProject Schools. One of the commenters expected this to be a snowball close in their favor. I guess this discussion is walking into an unknown minefield of active editors who do not like this information to be public. So to the closer in advance, I suggest you seriously have that really broad based snowball before deciding to delete the parameter everywhere.

As I started, this is a commonly used parameter. I've edited on probably thousands of school articles and the physical address is one of the first, usually the first item mentioned in virtually every article I can remember. It is so important in Template:Infobox school that it resolved below the name of the school. I think that makes it obvious users have thought that to be an important piece of information. It answers one of the famous Five Ws of journalism; Where? And in the case of a school, unless we are referring to a virtual school, it is common information almost every school will have. Its absence even defines the virtual school, clarifying the definition. In Infobox terms, it is a universal key fact about a school. An opponent brought up that the information is commonly available on the school's website. 1) not all schools have websites 2) if it is on their website, it is not always in an easy to find location 3) it is not wikipedia's mission as the worldwide virtual encyclopedia to send users away to an external link to find out basic facts about any subject. It is our mission to "edit" the mass of information about any subject into a manageable size. WP:NOTDIRECTORY was mentioned as an argument, but while "phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses" are specified, a physical address IS NOT. Throughout wikipedia, physical addresses are used to identify all manner of business locations. The physical address frequently feeds wikidata and the geographic location parameters. I cannot understand why we would not want to put this basic information into an article. I think the deliberate move to not display the physical address, in effect to hide that common information is equivalent to censorship, and Wikipedia is not censored. Trackinfo (talk) 18:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• No. WP:NOTYELLOW/WP:NOTTRAVEL. Location is important, but should be limited to city/town/neighborhood/etc. Unless the street address is notable in and of itself, it doesn't serve encyclopedic value (value in a directory, yes, but as you noted, Wikipedia is not a directory). --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 22:02, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Also, although it doesn't directly apply here, WP:ITSUSEFUL makes some important points about useful versus encyclopedic information. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

• No - My arguments are in the preceding discussion (permalink) and can't be summarized here without losing something. They were partially paraphrased by the OP. Also noting that this is not an RfC without the {{rfc}} template, despite the heading. ―Mandruss ☎ 22:12, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. Of course. In what possible way does it help the reader to leave out a piece of information so clear-cut, definitive, and objective? Ideally, every school article should also have geographical coordinates as a link at the top of the article and/or in the infobox, and you need the address for that as well. --Arxiloxos (talk) 22:47, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. Well known, objective information should not be forbidden. It will be nonsensical to editors and users to have longitude and latitude but forbid address - for all locations. The pedia serves best that covers things in multiple well known, established ways for multiple audiences. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:56, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. From the UK perspective, the street is the neighbourhood, and it will be a search field in official listings.Ofsted search. Ofsted pages all start by giving the full address of the school An Ofsted Report- in fact the school address is often the only thing they get right. The street address often the only thing that will confirm that you have found the right schools as the schools name is regularly changing. Swan Valley Community School, became Swanscombe Academy- which morphed into Ebbsfleet Academy. Some context (but for that matter even typing the address in Southfleet Road does not trigger the ofsted site!) Even the URN will change Chaucer Technology College was forceably closed and mothballed- but phoenix like will arise and goodness only knows what it will be called. At least we know it is in Spring Lane. Clem Rutter (talk) 23:36, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
• No This is an encyclopedia, not a directory. Moreover, many institutions - especially colleges and universities which is where this discussion started - will have many street addresses so we'll have to create guidance about what address should be used. Presumably that will default to some official address used by the institution which would be some central mail location that is not "representative" of the institution in the sense that it wouldn't be very helpful for anyone who wants to use one of our encyclopedia articles to plan a visit to the institution or locate it on a map. (Yes, I acknowledge that there could be similar objections to geographic coordinates but I assume that those are generally some kind of center of mass useful in a broad sense for locating the institution on a large scale map and not - like an address - meant to indicate a very specific location.) ElKevbo (talk) 00:14, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Incidentally, I think that WP:NOTDIR is a very powerful and direct argument against this proposal so I would appreciate if editors who support it could specifically address it. Thanks! ElKevbo (talk) 00:16, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• No, it is very similar to our policy on what Wikipedia is not. It does not go as far as mentioning, but there have been plenty of discussions just like this in the past. Here is one from June 2009, which seemed to have no consensus on the matter (I still think we should have a better go at it now though!). In my opinion, the only reason an address would be needed is for someone to find out how to go there or where to send post. This is not inline with how an encyclopedia is used. A point raised from the archive was that addresses may be notable for buildings, but not for organizations. I agree with this and think we shouldn't rule out the possibility that an address may be important for a building, because this may be used as their name. When we have articles on schools, however, it isn't. Jolly Ω Janner 00:58, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes WP:NOTDIR doesn't explicitly state anything about street addresses. If we're going to pursue this route we should have a separate RFC discussing whether street addresses should be added to WP:NOTDIR. It is rather non-sensical, in my view, that coordinates would be considered encyclopedic but addresses would not. The location of the school gives the school article context. It may not make sense for colleges to have a specific street address since they typically have multiple buildings. However, lower level schools typically have a single address. EyeTripleE (talk) 03:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes and no. For schools which have a single building at a single address, the address should be included. However, many colleges and universities don't have a single street address and so there would be no point in trying to select a single address to be used in the infobox. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• • This RfC is pretty poorly constructed. What are we deciding? If the question is "Should we include street address in infobox school?", my vote is a resounding yes. As EyeTripleE expressed above, addresses help contextualize any social geography article, which all articles on schools are. Contrary to the opinion expressed above, we list addresses on buildings (which secondary schools almost universally are) for that contextual reason, not just for ID. Just in case anyone here isn't aware, comparing infobox school with infobox university is quite apples and oranges. This project only monitors secondary and below school articles. Institutions of higher learning are the bailwick of project university. And as my colleague above stated, nearly all universities are multibuilding, multiaddress facilities. Secondary schools, even those that have open campuses, are generally on one large contiguous lot with one address. Listing school addresses in a settlement or school district article would be a NOTDIR issue. I know of very few directories that have one entry. Listings are what NOTDIR and YELLOW are aimed at. I do not think they were ever intended to prevent us from providing location information on structures. John from Idegon (talk) 07:07, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes when there is a single address - I don't see any reason to distinguish schools from other structures. If we place addresses on railway stations (e.g Tel Aviv Savidor Central Railway Station), hospitals (Massachusetts General Hospital), museums (Rockefeller Museum), places of worship (Great Synagogue (Tel Aviv), Allston Congregational Church) and so on, why not schools? The only reason I can come up with is that some schools don't have a single address; any school which does, though, should have it listed here, as long as we do the same with other structures. עוד מישהו Od Mishehu 11:28, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes. I would prefer both an address and a telephone number. I am opposed to WP:NOTDIR because of the low regard in which it holds users and the extent to which it wastes readers' time. Do proponents of WP:NOTDIR think the website field should be removed, too? EllenCT (talk) 13:54, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
• No Provide the latitude and longitude with the links to mapping services, which is far more useful than an address. And, as mentioned above, the issues with schools with multiple addresses, and complicating things, schools that have moved and whose old address may be more notable than the new one (such as historic buildings). Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

The relationship between the school and the school building is complicated. I don't see how a mostly non-human readable string of numbers is better than a human readable address. EyeTripleE (talk) 08:07, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes - Personally I think it's actually helpful to have the address especially if you want to know the surrounding area or whatever (There are some people in the world that are literally clueless and perhaps wouldn't use the schools website...), Plus I think NOTDIR has no relevance here as it's nothing like a directory as such. –Davey2010^Talk 03:13, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes it is viable. Whether it should be used is a matter of editorial judgement at each article. Personally I would be fine with it used as a location when a school is mainly located at one address, but share others concerns about spread out campuses. AIRcorn (talk) 08:29, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes. Most schools are on a single site, and the address is an obvious piece of information to provide for any article on an organisation with a physical location, unless there is a strong specific reason not to. This doesn't turn Wikipedia into a directory, it is not indiscriminate and we won't be listing schools by their address. If a school changes address, note that in a History section. Fences&Windows 23:10, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

1. A functional address parameter in the basic template is fine. It should not be filled if an institution has more than one address. The University of Chicago is actually a good example of an info box that should NOT include an address, actually, a link to their official website is sufficient. Carrite (talk) 12:41, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• No I work and communicate with many universities in the course of my job. Many if not most of these institutions are not on a single site and do have more than one physical address, as well as multiple mailing addresses which may or may not reflect the physical address. Furthermore, the physical addresses of both universities and private companies I work with have been known to change, for example in the case of building moves, street renames, and the like. The best source for this sort of information is the institution's official page, and it's also indexed to some degree on services like Google Maps and Mapquest. For the level of "where" appropriate for an encyclopedia, I agree that a lat/ long to the general area of the main campus is more appropriate than trying to pinpoint one physical address, and avoids all the confusion that would come with trying to keep up with correct physical addresses and differentiating them from mailing addresses. With respect to schools below college/ university level, while it's probably easier to come up with a physical address for those due to high schools generally being more compact, smaller and less spread around between campuses, I would like to see the convention be consistent for all schools, and just use a lat/ long. TheBlinkster (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

• "the physical addresses of both universities and private companies I work with have been known to change". Facts relevant to articles change all the time, and we respond by updating the articles. And there is no need to remove school addresses because universities have more than one campus - "a foolish consistency". Fences&Windows 21:50, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Facts relevant to articles change all the time, and we respond by updating the articles. - But how many of those facts, if incorrect, risk mailing something potentially important and/or time-sensitive to a bad address? This is one of the points I made in the preceding discussion, which I linked from my !vote above. In hindsight, I probably should have made the attempt to summarize here.
If it were crystal clear to the reader that this should not be used as a mailing address, I would have less of a problem with it, but I can't imagine how that would be made so clear. It would have to be done by the template, occupying that much more space in the infobox. I don't see that as a good solution, so I oppose the address, which is easy enough to find on most schools' websites (usually, both street address and one or more mailing addresses). ―Mandruss ☎ 22:52, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Street address information is not a necessary component of an encyclopedia article on a school. Like many older Wikipedia editors, I grew up reading hardcopy encyclopedias for pleasure, and I also do not recall articles on universities including exact street addresses beyond city and state/province, and perhaps a reference to a sub-area of a city such as an established neighborhood. No doubt some of that was due to the concern about addresses going out of date while people were still using an existing print edition that would be hard to replace. You could make the argument that online addresses are much easier to just jump in there and update, but with all the work there is to do on Wikipedia at any one time, and the limited number of volunteers to address it, is this really something we want to have to worry about? We also don't want the pages to be showing wrong information as that detracts from Wikipedia's credibility, particularly if some student somewhere would actually use the address to try to contact a college and it wasn't there any more. I am not seeing the benefit from the inclusion of a physical street address as opposed to a lat/ long coupled with a city/ state or city/ province. TheBlinkster (talk) 03:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Good arguments, in my opinion, but there is no way for a closer to objectively weigh arguments that cannot be policy-based (without a ton of very subjective interpretation), and people very rarely are swayed by opposing arguments. So an issue like this ultimately comes down to voting, not !voting. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but we should call it what it is. The only real purpose of giving an argument is to qualify one to cast his or her ballot; it's the price of admission. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:01, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

This seems like there are potential situations where an address might not be appropriate, or multiple addresses for multiple locations. It is clearly something that needs the human judgement of an editor, rather than (as the Inbox University is constructed) a deliberate prohibition on the inclusion of the address; the source of this original discussion and Mandruss' objection. Trackinfo (talk) 18:42, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

• No - I have worked in university administration. Many universities have a complicated set of addresses and postcodes, with the postal address that of a postroom or admin block, not where someone should turn up to for (say) an interview or open day. It's also not unknown to have a complicated sign-in system for visitors, where a visitor will go to one location to be issued with a badge if then being given a tour. And often visitors will be coming by car, so they need to know where the visitors' car park is. For specific departments in unusual cases (say a biochemistry department, which will rarely move because it is in a set of purpose-built labs, or a department whose building is in itself historic) this might be acceptable, but not in general. We should link to the university website and they should tell visitors where to park their car, arrive and sign in. Wikipedia shouldn't host information that's likely to become out-of-date and confuse people. It's an institution's responsibility to host information and keep it up-to-date, and we shouldn't pre-empt that. Blythwood (talk) 05:38, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Won't all educational establishments have a registered legal address? For universities, for example, searching HEFCE's site gives a result with a legal address. To me this is the generic bricks and mortar place someone would send mail to and where all correspondence (should) be addressed. What's wrong with putting that address in the infobox? And this statement "Wikipedia shouldn't host information that's likely to become out-of-date and confuse people" can be applied to the 5 million articles on WP. If an address of X changes, we change it here. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:22, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Not sure how it works in UK, but in USA and in some other countries, the official "legal address" may be located somewhere other than the main campus, may be a special address just for legal purposes (possibly going to an official "legal representative" of the uni in certain countries), or may even be a non-physical address like a mail drop. If the idea is to communicate the physical location of the university, then lat/ long is better since it's likely to have many mailing addresses - some for legal, some for business, some for admissions, etc. This is probably less of a problem for high schools and small colleges but a bigger problem for larger universities. TheBlinkster (talk) 00:33, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes when practical. But it should be the principal physical address, to the degree it can be specified. (Some universities with widely dispersed campuses within a city may not be able to be specified in a useful way beyond the city) Registered legal addresses are not useful to the reader of an encyclopedia ,who is typically looking for information, rathe than searching for an address to send legal process--that would be the function of a directory . Where in a city a school is located is useful information sometimes necessary to avoid ambiguity. DGG ( talk ) 16:23, 13 March 2016 (UTC)
• No per Mandruss. They state here that "Wikipedia is not the one-stop source for all information one might want to know about anything" and they're probably wrong because Wikipedia is becoming exactly that. For that reason, we need to resist becoming a directory and this is where to start. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:40, 17 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes - absolutely, in the case of mainstream primary and secondary education. The vast majority of schools are not-for-profit state run institutions so including the address can hardly be construed as advertising. Geo-coordinates are fine for IT freaks, but who generally needs sat nav to find their way to school every morning? As another editor mentioned most schools occupy a single campus and are easy enough to find from a traditional address, Universities on the other hand usually do have several campuses, some of which might not even be in the same city; therefore with respect to tertiary education, this part of the debate should be held at Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 22:10, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

"Not-for-profit" is a red herring. Charities and other non-profit institutions are just as capable of spam, promotion, and advertising as profit making companies. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:23, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

• Comment We seem to have a bipolar understanding of what a school is- one one side we have the UK understanding that a school is an institute of education for pupils between the age of 5 and 18, and the other faction that use school to describe a higher education establishment, who talk about multiple campus universities. We are talking here solely about 5 and 18 establishments- the university argument belongs elsewhere, and all the comments about that sector seem very applicable to them. There is a very easy fix- take the infobox UK schools template, and conditionally add the address to all when the {{{upper_age}}} field is less than 20, and omit it when {{{upper_age}}} is greater than 19. This would filter out all the higher education strays. Meanwhile anyone fancy writing an article on Bleasdale Church of England Primary, Bleasdale notable for being the smallest school in England Bleasdale on SWNS newswire --ClemRutter (talk) 09:37, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
• Comment If we are to include addresses then can we get some clarity as to what exactly the address should be? Currently the UK infobox is generating an address based on individual entries but this can create problems when postal and administrative geography are out of alignment, especially with the postal counties. Have a look at the schools linked from Template:Schools and colleges in the London Borough of Sutton and you'll find just about every possible entry for the county field in use, including Sutton High School, London which comes with footnotes about local government, Royal Mail and the school! Timrollpickering (talk) 12:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)
  • (Additional for those not familiar with the chaos of UK addresses. Traditionally an address includes a post town and a postal county, though the latter wasn't needed in the biggest towns and is now optional everywhere. Both can throw up anomalies either because the postal geography doesn't align to local government boundaries or because the post town includes places that feel distinct settlements in their own right. The London Borough of Sutton experiences both problems - it's administratively in London/Greater London but postally was in Surrey, whilst Cheam, one of the main settlements in the borough, is in the Sutton post town whereas other settlements like Carshalton and Wallington are post towns in their own right. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC))
• Comment. Personally, I feel the WP:NOTDIR and WP:NOTTRAVEL rationales are sound. But to those for whom they are not, I ask: What then is the encyclopedic value of including an address if not for the purpose of establishing a directory? (actual question, not being rhetorical) Tpdwkouaa (talk) 06:00, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Simple answer, so you can find the thing. In the UK schools change there names frequently for many reasons. You cannot predict that Upbury Manor School, in Gillingham is now called the Brompton Academy, the address differentiates- as it is on Marlborough Road- it has also been the Great Lines School, and New Brompton College. For your information it is not in Brompton, but you can see down on Brompton, Medway from part of the playing field. New Brompton did exist on 19th C railway maps. The second example is distinguishing in the same town between St Mary's CoE Junior School and St Mary's RC School- There were so many St Marys that some have started renaming themselves- our local one is now called All Faiths Mixed Primary. Looking at it from an editors point of view I need the location to sort out that tangle before I post- and watching parents trying to find a school for their child it is only WP that is provided the detail- and they too use the address to confirm. The street name is of particular important as that survives redevelopment, and the switching of local government districts. Go back to Brompton, Medway- though that is the correct the article redirects to Brompton, Kent !(the ceremonial county). I think you need to 'assume good faith' and accept that the reason that the address field is there and populated is that it is needed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClemRutter (talk • contribs) 13:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

• comment (don't care much, leaning on no). For encyclopaedic knowledge about, e.g, the University of Lisbon it is more than enough to know which city / state / region it is located. The actual street address provides no useful context or insight to the institutions. One interesting question is the fact that we have coordinates and little complaint about them, so why complain about addresses. Interesting question... I note I like the geographical coordinates, but thinking about them now, they are as needed on this kind of articles (I mean, non-geographical, non-topological articles) as addresses, that is, not needed. For the question on large schools/colleges not having a clear address, I find it hard to believe in that. It feels illogical,should we have them, to have addresses on small schools but not for large ones. Large ones certainly have a "main" building" or the "dean office", or whatever they list first in their contacts. - Nabla (talk) 11:16, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes. This is simple (and in this context, encyclopedic) information which the average reader of these variety of articles might reasonably have use for. As a side note for those wondering what address to use for larger campuses composed of many buildings, most larger institutions have a mailing center, generally connected to the main administrative building or else fronting the school along a major thoroughfare, which serves as the kind of nominal address for most correspondence and formal purposes for which an address is required. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:07, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

However, CRITICAL CAVEAT: Everyone should also remember WP:Advice pages in a context like this. It's one thing to try to generate a notion of how to proceed here, but policy, community consensus and ArbCom rulings are all clear that it is unambiguously WP:Disruptive behaviour to come up with a general concept on a WikiProject and then try to strong-arm it into every article that might fall under the Project's self-perceived purview. You will still need to forge a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS on every last article wherever even as single editor challenges this approach. So do bear that in mind however the vote turns out. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:12, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes, per Trackinfo and Arxiloxos. Like any landmark readers should be able to have an idea of its precise location when available/possible. We must try and be practical. There are cases where this might not be achievable, but that's not a good enough reason to remove this parameter in my mind. Best, FoCuS contribs; talk to me! 23:14, 19 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes., an address saves the user from having to make a further search and in most cases a single address will suffice, despite there being "many" schools which are in several locations. Don't restrict the information provided since we are many who can provide this service. kk (talk) 23:33, 20 March 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. When we created Wikipedia we at the same time created a framework for what Wikipedia should be and also for what it should not be. We also created the means to continually discuss and assess that framework of what Wikipedia is and is not. The way that WP:NOT evolved indicates the concerns we had at the start, and how they have been borne out. One of the early concerns was that Wikipedia might be used for advertising or business listing. This concern has grown rather than diminished. In order to separate the encyclopaedic nature of Wikipedia from advertising it was decided that material which is generally not thought of as "encyclopedic" but which is associated with advertising and business listings, such as contact details, would not be part of the project. Addresses and phone numbers are seen as contact details. Unless there is something notable about the address of a business or organisation, its inclusion in an article would generally be seen as a contact detail. Would such a contact detail be useful? Yes. Would admission details and costs be useful? Yes. Would a discount for Wikipedia readers be useful? Hell, yes! Would a button on the bottom of Beer that dispensed free samples from your laptop be useful? Wow, yes!! Indeed, every product page on Wikipedia could be sponsored by the manufacturer to deliver free samples on demand to every reader. Readers could do business directly from Wikipedia, and get discounts. All this would be very useful to readers, and get us extra sponsorship.... Hmm. On my talkpage I have this: "We are not the internet, we are an encyclopaedia. The difference being: we select, organise, and explain." The internet is useful. It contains many things, including the addresses of schools. Wikipedia is not the internet, it's an encyclopedia which aims to provide every single person on the planet with free access to the sum of all human knowledge. To reach that goal we need to focus on presenting a summary of that knowledge, and not get lost in trying to replicate the entire internet because "it's useful". Should we forbid addresses on Wikipedia? No, there are occasions when the mention of an address is encyclopaedic. But should we forbid a default inclusion of the address of every school or business? Yes. Instead, we can put a link to the school website, or - per WP:ELMAYBE#3 - a link to a directory. The Kennedy High School (Chicago) mentioned at the start of the RfC already has a link to a directory for Chicago Public Schools which lists all the schools addresses. And when you look at the Kennedy school entry it gives you all the "useful" information that we don't give such as school hours and public transport. We don't aim to replace or replicate such information. We aim to compliment it. The directory gives the basic useful information, and we provide the encylopedic information. We are not the internet. We don't aim to include everything - just the sum of human knowledge. Not trivia or timetables or menus or contact address. Just knowledge. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 03:09, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Exactly. As an example of this, I know a major company's headquarters that has to put messages at the top of every email to someone visiting their facility telling them to ignore Google Maps. And often where the post goes to will not be where visitors go to. It's better not to host such information, very much subject to change that can be better covered on the organisation's website, than to host it and to get it wrong. For the same reason, we don't host a list of branches of McDonald's. Blythwood (talk) 23:23, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Hey! I want a free-gin-button! - Nabla (talk) 17:59, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

• No OK, SilkTork, point taken and change of mind now herewith confirmed. WP is not to be a directory, other sites can fulfill that function. kk (talk) 15:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
• 'Yes WP:NOTDIR doesn't explicitly ban addresses. If representing exact geographic location through Coordinates is allowed then addresses should be too. On occasion the street that an institution is on itself may be notable.--Prisencolin (talk) 05:19, 21 March 2016 (UTC)
• No, per WP:NODIR / WP:NOTINDISCRIMINATE. See also WP:WIKILAWYER, WP:BUREUACRACY, and WP:GAMING: It is not required that a policy like WP:NOT specifically list every imaginable thing that WP is not and every single possible kind of information we don't include; the purpose of the page is to provide examples from which we extrapolate, and this is a very obvious extrapolation. Otherwise, all of our articles on organizations of any kind would include addresses. We have been over this many time before.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:52, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR very clearly enumerates Contact information such as phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses are not encyclopedic. Physical address would be perhaps the most obvious form of information to mention in such a list, but 1) its omission is clear that the all knowing writers of that document chose NOT to include it and 2) they probably did so knowing that a physical address is such a common means of identification. Those of you who wish to quote that section are expanding beyond the written text. A double negative here: WP:NOTDIR does NOT mention address. Trackinfo (talk) 08:15, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

The reason the policy doesn't state physical addresses is that there are some cases when an address may have encyclopedic value (Category:Canary Wharf buildings in which many buildings' common names are its addresses). In the case of listing a school's address in an infobox, this is clearly being used in the way that a directory would, not an encyclopedia. Jolly Ω Janner 08:37, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

WP:NOTDIR also deliberately uses the term "such as", meaning that the following is a list of examples, not limiting cases. If the mailing address is non-notable, it is just contact information and has no encyclopedia value. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

• No Schools should follow the same rule as for any organization. Right now Wikidata is the place for this kind of information. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:14, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

• Location (beyond city and country) is often not a significant attribute for companies, but the address of the company headquarters can be included in Template:Infobox company, under "hq_location, hq_location_city, hq_location_country" and "coordinates". Peter James (talk) 23:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• {{Infobox company}}'s documentation page has a disclaimer saying "only include/link more specific elements such as road or street addresses if they as themselves are notable." Jolly Ω Janner 23:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• For an organisation with one location (or one main location) it would often be impossible to separate the notability - also if one organisation (such as an education authority or private equivalent) has several schools, the schools' articles are about the locations (and are notable); address is less relevant in the organisation's article. Peter James (talk) 23:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• Anything that has geographical coordinates in the article should also have the address at that location, if one exists - as coordinates are not always present on printed maps, addresses would be more useful in a printed version of an article, and there's no reason to hide them in the online version. Peter James (talk) 23:14, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• My understanding of coordinates is that they are used more as an external link rather than a directory. Admittedly, the actual displaying of the coordinate rarely aids a readers understanding from an encyclopedic perspective. I guess it's better than just saying "click here for a map". Jolly Ω Janner 23:34, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• If coordinates are an "external link" maps are "further reading", whether online (and accessible via coordinates) or not. Peter James (talk) 23:59, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• {{coord}}'s documentation clarify it a lot better than myself: "{{Coord}} provides a standard notation for encoding locations by their latitude and longitude coordinates. It is primarily for specifying the WGS84 geographic coordinates of locations on Earth, at the same time emitting a machine-readable Geo microformat" The addresses in this infobox (or anywhere for that matter) have no encoding capabilities on Wikipedia. Therefore I don't think comparing it to coordinates is the best route to discuss. Jolly Ω Janner 00:25, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

• If they are there to provide a link to the map, they are not only there to be part of a machine-readable microformat (which is the encoding capability referred to). The template may currently be unable to convert addresses but it could be changed (or a bot could be created that does this externally) if formatted correctly. Peter James (talk) 01:03, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

• It is the "primary" function, not the only function of coordinates. As it stands, the hypothesised primary function of an address is very different to that of the coordinates. Jolly Ω Janner 01:16, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

• Both are for the same purpose - location - but in different situations. Peter James (talk) 01:52, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes when the address is singular and simple per Od Mishehu - Most of arguments against point to complexity, hence my suggestion which is basically "when it is simple". WP:NOTDIR doesn't cover addresses, rather "phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses" which are bit more fluid. We already include coordinates which could be argued against in the same manner (i.e. WP:NOTDIR) as an address.—Godsy^(TALK_CONT) 07:42, 24 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes physical location is permissibale encyclopedic content. A great many articles contain geo-coordinates and/or address. Note that NOTDIR/NOTYELLOW) and NOTTRAVEL do not list location-of-the-article-subject as something to exclude. I can understand why some people see physical address as similar to "phone numbers, fax numbers and e-mail addresses are not encyclopedic", but I do not believe leaving out location was an oversight. For places we routinely list country, state (or other subdivision), city, and we often do list street address. As for the argument that this information may change, physical buildings rarely move very far (grin). When there is some sort of change of address, that sort of update is routine business around here.

Some people noted universities or whatnot having potentially messy multiple locations. No problem if it's messy then use common sense to deal with it reasonably, that easily includes leaving it out. Address is not mandatory. Alsee (talk) 04:45, 26 March 2016 (UTC)

• Yes. Physical location is not just permissible: it's a significant datum for any organisation. Treat schools like other organisations and provide the address of the headquarters. Or if the school occupies a single building, or a group of buildings with a single address, just provide the location as we would for any other building. Nyttend (talk) 21:43, 29 March 2016 (UTC)
• Yes – I've been on the fence with this one for a while but I've now reached the conclusion that they can serve a useful purpose in an encyclopedic article and there isn't a strong case for getting rid of them altogether. For the vast majority of schools, the address is a simple and non-contentious piece of information that clarifies the school's location. Providing geographical co-ordinates is helpful, but they have their own advantages and disadvantages and so should complement addresses, not replace them. The association of addresses with directories does not in itself mean their inclusion in Wikipedia is banned under WP:NOTDIR and we do already draw the line with information solely useful for contacting the school such as e-mail addresses and phone numbers. I think the right approach with addresses is to use good judgement and determine inclusion on a case-by-case basis. For example, many universities (which aren't under the jurisdiction of this project anyway) have multiple campuses with many street addresses, and so for those articles the infobox should just give the general location. The inclusion of addresses which are only used for legal purposes or as a general place to send post would be misleading and a potential WP:NOTDIR issue. CT Cooper · talk 22:12, 4 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes Go to their website and you will usually find their stated official address. Even huge US midwestern universities sprawling over thousands of acres give their address, although some give a street address (Michigan State at 220 Trowbridge Rd, East Lansing, MI 48824 ) while others give the town (Ohio State, Columbus Ohio, 43210). In some cases the "university" exists as a coordinating office for a number of distinct campuses, such as "The University of California" where the addresses are properly those of UCLA, Berkeley, etc. If they state an address, it belongs in their infobox. Edison (talk) 15:11, 6 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes The physical address of a school is above the level of directory information; it's basic location information that I'd expect in the description of where a place is. In some cases, it's even part of the school's culture (for instance, the high school I went to has an alumni group named after its street number). We can of course make exceptions for sprawling campuses that don't have a practical address, but we shouldn't throw out every school with a sensible address in the process. TheCatalyst31 ^{Reaction•Creation} 02:28, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes provided that the address would not be too long. 103.6.159.82 (talk) 04:20, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Comment : Just in case anyone has missed it, and where the RfC statement may have mislead participamts, this here is WT:WPSCH - the talk page of WikiProject Schools, and has nothing to do with universities or other tertiary establishments however one might wish to play with Engvar or lexicograpohy. Universities is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Universities, different project, different people, different readers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:02, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
  • You have a point. Scope. Some of the most erudite comments, validate their comments by refering to their work in the university sector. This is obviously a case of linguistic spaghetti, and the focus needs to be better defined, WP:WPSCH. Displaying {{infobox university}} for comparison adds to the confusion.--ClemRutter (talk) 08:37, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
    • • The issue started over a couple of editors blocking the address parameter in Inbox University. That initial discussion quickly expanded into Inbox UK school I tried to find a location for a wholesome discussion of the entire concept universally. If anyone feels another project should be heard from, by all means, post a link directing them to this discussion. Perhaps another discussion needs to take place as to where a good location for any RfC should be posted to get an active discussion of me than a handful of editors. At least we have a few dozen here already, but realistically that is microscopic compared to the number of active editors, much less readers. Trackinfo (talk) 18:05, 9 April 2016 (UTC)
• Yes In my experience, it is not unusual for schools to change their address – I can immediately think of Great Ealing School, Williston School and Holy Rosary College, Enugu, for example. Such location changes can cause confusion in understanding and documenting their history and so listing the exact street addresses can help in clarifying this. Andrew D. (talk) 08:21, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

add a schools Portal for schools article

Hello ... I manage JarBot and I would to put Portal for schools article, are there any objections?!.--جار الله (talk) 01:17, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

External links

There is a discussion at Talk:Stow-Munroe Falls High School#Links involving the inclusion of external links that may be of interest to editors here. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts. --JonRidinger (talk) 11:46, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

Your input requested at Talk:Penn Hills High School#List of Alumni

There is disagreement as to whether a sourced list of alumni should exist at this article. I would like to see some clarity on this subject as obviously any standard would apply to the hundreds of high school articles out there. Thanks. Rikster2 (talk) 21:38, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Infobox university address

Template:Infobox university address has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes (talk) 13:00, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Merger proposal: W.T. Sampson Elementary/High School and W.T. Sampson High School

I started a discussion on a merger proposal at Talk:W.T. Sampson Elementary/High School WhisperToMe (talk) 05:09, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

LGBT issue at Catholic school

Multiple users in different places have requested review of information about LGBT issues at a Catholic school. I am asking for comment from the following places -

• Wikipedia:WikiProject LGBT studies
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools
• Wikipedia:WikiProject Catholicism
• Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard

The article is Marian High School (Bloomfield Township, Michigan). Not all users have found their way to the talk page, but there are requests for comment from multiple people. Diverse perspectives would be welcome. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:31, 27 May 2016 (UTC)

Secondary schools in Nigeria

I really want to work on creating articles for public secondary schools in Lagos State. I noticed many of the popular government owed schools do not have articles. I have read Wikipedia:Notability (high schools), and am glad the drafters recognized the fact that you might not easily get in-depth independent articles centered on high schools from Africa and Asia. Nonetheless, I recognize that everything on Wikipedia must be verifiable. There are independent sources for the schools I want to create, it's just that they might not cover the schools in significant detail. I plan on starting with the model colleges in Lagos State. My first articles should be Lagos State Junior Model College Badore and Lagos State Senior Model College Badore. I am saying all these because I don't want my articles to be nominated for deletion. If there is anything I need to know before venturing into this, I will really appreciate it. Regards. Darreg (talk) 04:17, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

As long as you have independent sources attesting to the existence of the secondary schools, they will almost certainly not be deleted. You may want to read Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines if you haven't already. EyeTripleE (talk) 20:42, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. I just discovered this was probably not the right place to get information on creating school articles. I want to apologize for that. Darreg (talk) 23:39, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Darreg, no need to apologize! This is where to come for help on school articles and thanks for stopping. The guideline EyeTripleE mentioned has much info on how to construct a good article, but if you are looking for help on school articles, this be the place. You may want to consider joining our little project by adding your name at this page. Thanks for wanting to improve an under-covered area. John from Idegon (talk) 00:21, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks sir. I was actually referring to WP:WPSCH/H, it pops up each time I want to edit this page with a brief description on what I intended to do here. I have joined the Wikiproject team. I look forward to contributing my own quota to the movement. Darreg (talk) 08:13, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Please comment, RfC: Is being a finalist in a major championship notable for school articles

Please add your input to this RfC regarding this project's article guidelines. Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Schools/Article_guidelines#RfC: Is being a finalist in a major championship notable for school articles? EyeTripleE (talk) 20:30, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

This RfC is still open. Please contribute. EyeTripleE (talk) 17:23, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Cheadle Hulme School Crest/Logo

Following up on a discussion with RaphaelQS regarding the crest/coat of arms on the Cheadle Hulme School page, I wish to suggest that it would be more accurate and encyclopaedic to upload the School's full logo for the article, as per the School's Brand Guidelines. The Schools Project page says "Do include...The school's crest, logo, seal, emblem and/or coat of arms (generally not larger than about 150 pixels)." For this reason, I think it is appropriate that the School's full crest could be used. I have opened a discussion about this also on the article's Talk Page.Timhudsonchs (talk) 10:33, 15 June 2016 (UTC)

UPDATE: Further discussion has been had about this on the Talk Page. It is my belief that for encyclopaedic accuracy, to remove ambiguity and to maintain a correct online presence overall, the School's logo could be used for this particular page. Since not all school's have coats of arms anyway, the 'rule' which @RaphaelQS: mentions in the discussion can't be a catch-all for all schools therefore I'd like for Cheadle Hulme School's page to be able to use the correct, full and accurate logo.Timhudsonchs (talk) 09:12, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

What is the problem, Tim because of his professional position has authority to release an instance (particular rendition) of the coat of arms for use in the article and for general usages on commons. The full 'coa' is a text description that must, by definition be free to use. --ClemRutter (talk) 10:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Sorry @ClemRutter: I'm not sure I understand your message. Are you saying that because I have the authority to 'release' our logo for use on Wikipedia then, therefore, it should be used instead of the artist's impression?Timhudsonchs (talk) 10:42, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

I support your decision --ClemRutter (talk) 11:49, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

The discussion on article talk page did not result in any action, so this edit request has been marked as declined. Altamel (talk) 03:15, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Auto-assessment of article classes

Following a recent discussion at WP:VPR, there is consensus for an opt-in bot task that automatically assesses the class of articles based on classes listed for other project templates on the same page. In other words, if WikiProject A has evaluated an article to be C-class and WikiProject B hasn't evaluated the article at all, such a bot task would automatically evaluate the article as C-class for WikiProject B.

If you think auto-assessment might benefit this project, consider discussing it with other members here. For more information or to request an auto-assessment run, please visit User:BU RoBOT/autoassess. This is a one-time message to alert projects with over 1,000 unassessed articles to this possibility. ~ Rob^Talk 01:23, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

I think this could be useful. We have quite a backlog at the moment. EyeTripleE (talk) 17:07, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

• After a few days, there appears to be some support and no opposition to opting in. You may want to consider listing this project at User:BU RoBOT/autoassess to opt-in. I'm unfollowing this project page, so please ping me if anyone has any questions that require the bot operator's response. ~ Rob^Talk 17:01, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

Autoassessment fine. Commonsense tells me I should walk on by and keep what few friends I have left- but there is a serious problem here: Teachers assess in their sleep- so why is it not happening? I have often stumbled on the backlog are been put off before I did a single edit. So can I make a few comments on how refining the task you can attract more Wikipedia obsessives. Some of this is going to sound critical- its not intended to be but my caffeine levels are low!

The questions are what needs to be assessed, where are the criteria- and who else is assessing? Imagine I saw the text above projects with over 1,000 unassessed articles

• Stage one - go to the Project Page. Look for the sub-heading Assessment. That draws a blank.

Recommendation:- New subheading and lower the the next two subheads to subsubheads.

You have to bore down into article grading-- I understand that grading is regional specific term for testing and assessment:

Recommendation:- change grading to assessment

Now look at the text- For further information, visit the Assessment department. That clearly says- Assessment is done by a established clique- click here to find out how clever we are. What is wrong with saying, the assessment team welcomes new editors, visit the Assessment department to find out more

Recommendation:- change the wording to be more welcoming.

• Stage two- how does one assess over to the Assessment department. What a teacher is looking for are the borderline criteria- but the specific borderline criteria for 2016 and particular school systems. In most cases gut instinct will tell you if it is a stub/ a start or a C which will always make up the bulk of the backlog. So specifically, what are the tickboxes you should fill before you rate at a Start- so you can just check if your instinct is correctly focuses. I am concerned at this point that these criteria are school system specific. In the UK, we suffer from a plethora of politically inspired loopy governance structures- freeschools(that are not)- academy chains- church controlled -church aided. We need to know what the current concensus is for necessary and optional criteria for each of these. Normally gut instinct will be enough- but it is comforting to have this on paper. Lets move onto the Assessment department page. But is as clear as mud on why link Release version Criteria goes to WikiProject priority assessments or why there is a link to a general assessment page, when in this context it is the subject specific advice that is required

Recommendation:- change the wording - stay on focus. The could be handled with a efn.

• Stage three. Wikipedia:WikiProject Schools/Assessment- and onto the FAQ. Who can assess articles? Any member of the Schools WikiProject is free to add—or change—the rating of an article.. This again is a limiting not a welcoming statement even if it was totally unintentional. It sounds like WP:OWN.

I have checked the examples and discover that all of them refer to assessments done 8 years ago. Gut instinct tells me that the stub is correct, the start is a little generous, the C class has no reference (save one for a sport) so should be Start and tagged as a copyvio I suspect! The Institut Le Rosey (B) example is where I would like advice, it has 91 references but probably 80 refer to a single, school published source. There are MOS issues but a lot of well written text (possible copyvio [1] [2] so is it a B- or more likely a C?. My English is too poor to write at GA standard- but lets take a look. Well there are broken links, red links- notes not linking to the references. And the infobox has been deprecated and erased. The A and GA have link problems and are now at B.

Recommendation:- all this 2008 work needs to be checked, and updated

Recommendation:- a batch of tutorial geographically system specific subpages with the borderline assessment criteria and modern examples need to be written by experienced assessors for the new junior assessors.

The {{WikiProject Schools}} code is confusing. To make sense it needs to be

{{WikiProject Schools
 |class=
 |importance=
 |info=
}}

So with those few change I am sure you will attract many more diligent assessors! The alternative is to organise an assess-a-thon round at my place and barbeque a couple of Ofsted inspectors.ClemRutter (talk) 20:08, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

• ClemRutter, there is a gadget that makes assessment a bunch easier. You can find it at User:Kephir/gadgets/rater. I would like to barbeque the politicians that keep messing with the education system here in the states, so I can relate to your last sentence. If you would like to start some project specific assessment guides in your userspace, I would be more than happy to chip in. I too have found a bunch of articles assessed pre 2010 that seem way off mark. Since with the little gadget it is simple to re-asses them, I just do so as I find them. John from Idegon (talk) 21:54, 8 June 2016 (UTC)

If there is no opposition, I think I'll list this project on the auto-assess page. Anyone else have thoughts? EyeTripleE (talk) 09:55, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Pakistani schools

Hi WPSCH members. Just wondering if all schools worldwide fall under the scope of this WikiProject. Would someone mind taking a look at Category:Montessori schools in Pakistan and Category:Private schools in Pakistan if they do? Some articles/stubs in these categories such as Meridian Academia School, Stars Grammar High School, The Smart Schools, Azm-e-Nau School & College, Connoisseur Grammar School, Esena Foundation High School, Heritage School System, International Campus for Advanced Studies, Karachi American School, Lahore Grammar School Multan, Laureate Group of Schools and Colleges, The Lavisher School, NED Foundation Higher Secondary School, Nixor College, Pimley School, Salamat School System and San Jose Grammar School are not supported by any at all or by only an official website. Also, a number of them are nothing more than one or two sentences and an infobox. I understand that WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is often cited when articles are discussed at AfD, but not sure how that comes into play here. Thanks in advance. -- Marchjuly (talk) 05:24, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing these articles out. I've had a look at them all and PRODed at least one of them as an example. We can't tag schools for deleting per WP:A7, but if the articles are particularly spammy (private schools) then they can fall under WP:G11 or be PRODed. These articles are mainly made by SPA so if PRODed they will quietly be deleted. Always check first though, that other sources are not available. Take a look at Template:R from school and ireasd what it says (I wrote it) and if you can find somewhere to redirect them to, lank the page, put the R from School template on them, and redirect them. If the PRODs do get removed without improving the articles, send them to AfD. Hope this helps. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:44, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for taking a look Kudpung and for the advice about these types of articles. Perhaps you can figure out what is going on with WP:AN#Duplicate articles about school. The two articles in question appear to be about the same school. -- Marchjuly (talk) 10:55, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

I've deleted Resource academia, its name was wrong and the other article is better, Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 11:17, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

@Kudpung: and @Marchjuly: I think that's why it's a good idea for those of us who know Wikipedia's standards and desire those standards to proactively create stubs on notable senior high schools in a region. That way the "default" is not a spammmy article but one that conforms to Wikipedia's standards. If someone tries to make it spammy you just revert and nobody cries about a high school article being deleted. Unfortunately it's more difficult to find info on schools in, say, Pakistan compared to the west. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:28, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

And that's why, WhisperToMe, we need to be flexible and support OUTCOMES when radical deletionists set about sending otherwise non toxic high school stubs to AfD.Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:51, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. I had to show the OUTCOMES with British International School Lagos in Nigeria. To a greater extent I've had to establish on the Spanish Wikipedia that school articles can be notable, and that is of great help to the Spanish-speaking populations in the United States, as they need to be able to write articles on their high schools in Spanish as well WhisperToMe (talk) 09:16, 27 August 2016 (UTC)

Should the private school and its international division be consolidated?

The program Notre-Dame International High School is the international division of the French private school École Notre-Dame les Oiseaux. When I create the latter article, should the two articles be consolidated with one another? WhisperToMe (talk) 15:44, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Are they substantially the same school or do they operate separately? EyeTripleE (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

The international program uses an American curriculum and has its own website. The profile says the head of the school is "Yves Le Saout, Notre-Dame Les Oiseaux, Proviseur" while the int'l division has its own principal - The French website indicates the head of that division is "Yves Le SAOUT, Chef d'Etablissement" WhisperToMe (talk) 08:22, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

It sounds to me like it is mostly a separate school, I wouldn't merge them. EyeTripleE (talk) 05:02, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I wouldn't merge it, but I'm very inclined to tag it for G11 unless it gets extremely cleaned up. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:34, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I cut out some non-encyclopedic stuff WhisperToMe (talk) 18:36, 31 August 2016 (UTC)

I cut out a lot more. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:39, 1 September 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Edgewood High School (Indiana)

There is a discussion occurring at the above page on the encyclopedic suitability of the listing of sports teams in this school article. Your participation is encouraged. John from Idegon (talk) 19:18, 2 September 2016 (UTC)

It's an interesting discussion and I would echo my namesake's suggestion to consider participating there. I would like to see as an outcome that members of this project are enjoined not to add long lists of sports offered or subjects taught, as these tend to be highly generic and can overwhelm many of the articles on run-of-the-mill schools. It is not useful, in my opinion, to state that a particular American high school has a football team, as most of them do. It might be more noteworthy if one did not. It is not useful, in my opinion, to state that a particular high school teaches Mathematics or English, as most high schools in the English-speaking world have these subjects. It might be more noteworthy if one did not. Perhaps links to useful overview articles like Scottish curriculum or California High School Exit Exam could be more usefully deployed, and these articles could be more systematically developed and curated? On the other hand, where a school is the only one in its area to have a particular sport or subject, or has won prizes or something else out of the ordinary, it will be easy to find non-generic, non-primary sources for it. I'd be interested to see what others with an interest in our coverage of schools think. --John (talk) 12:24, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

Ha! Anyone reading Wikipedia (like I have after many years as co-ord of this project) would quickly come to the conclusion, rightly or wrongly, that all the students do in American high schools is play sports. John hits the nail on the head with 'generic'. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:18, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

You would come to the same conclusion reading American newspapers. And, rightly or wrongly, don't we follow the sources? I couldn't agree with you more that US schools at all levels put way too much emphasis on sports. But the fact is they do. And it is not as generic as you indicate. Different states sanction different sports. Bass fishing is a sanctioned sport in some states. It is interesting from a perspective of social change how well schools comply with Title IX. For economic and size reasons, many schools don't offer football (it takes at least 35 boys big enough not to get killed and costs about $800 per player for equipment, not to mention a sizeable chunk of real estate). It's surprising that the school in question has it, as it is tiny. Again, right or wrong, it is information people want to know about a US school. To not include it would be to deny the US readers information they want from Wikipedia. Many say Wikipedia has a US-centric bias, and I tend to agree with that too. However, taking the position that including the sports offered is somehow promotional does not reflect the societal norms in the US. It represents an "everywhere but the US centric" position. Wikipedia is not going to change the societal norms, nor is it its job to try. We are here to provide encyclopedic information to our readers everywhere. To deny the significance of sports in US schools doesn't do that. No one is saying that we need to cover sports worldwide in the detail we do for US schools. But right or wrong, the single biggest thing that happens in Bean Blossom, Indiana every week from September to May is the high school varsity game. John from Idegon (talk) 17:17, 3 September 2016 (UTC)

I don't doubt it, although I think the Bill Monroe Music Park and the Covered Bridge must be fun, not to mention the Mennonite Church and American Door Controls. The fact is though, that not everything real and true is considered worthy of mention here. To change my mind, you would need to provide significant third-party coverage. This would not look like the school's own website or a listing in a directory. It would look like the American Educational Research Journal reporting how their English scores had doubled after they instituted a new program of early reading, or ESPN discussing how their school football system had provided 17 NFL stars in the past two years. Provide sources like these and I will be happy. I assure you this is nothing to do with the school being American; I would feel just the same if the school was in Wales or Zimbabwe. --John (talk) 11:28, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Local news sources usually can attest to the existence of high school sports. If these sources are not "significant" then we would have to reject them for information about small communities in general which would eviscerate our coverage of them. EyeTripleE (talk) 18:00, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

The normal standard would be some kind of source discussing a sport (not just mentioning that it exists), and something making it, even locally, noteworthy. Even a local source would be better than no source at all, just the school website and a listing. If we were to go down this road, we would need to include things like The school has windows and doors; 77 and 3, respectively. The school is fitted with a water supply and has fully flushing toilets for faculty and students, divided by gender. This satire isn't far off many offerings I have seen and trimmed. We assume a school has windows, doors, a water supply, toilets, and sports teams and the existence of an English department seem to me to be at that level of generic obviousness. But as I say, a local source would be better than no real secondary source at all, which is what we have at present. --John (talk) 20:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Perhaps, John, you might wish to direct your efforts at some overblown US settlement articles. Like Framingham, Massachusetts, which along with a fair amount of pertinent info, includes an unreferenced discussion on the ownership of telephone poles. You're looking at the downside of automatic notability for schools. As EyeTripleE alluded, isn't better to provide some useful (sorry you don't grasp why this info has utility to US readers, but it does) content? Finding coverage of anything meaningful other than sports isn't possible in most cases. The US media just doesn't cover it. The third party coverage the automatic notability hinges on is NCES, GNIS (which is going away I believe) some coverage of budgetary things that are out of date the week after they are published, and sports. It is sadly the American way. John from Idegon (talk) 04:02, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Also, I agree completely with my co-coordinator's sentiment expressed at the article talk. Don't you think it's time to drop this pleasant discussion about the school serving the smallest community in Indiana and go get some work done? Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 04:11, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree that this is a downside of automatic notability for schools. Horrible though it may be for you to contemplate, some schools just aren't very interesting and there is really very little to say about them. Indeed, the majority of schools may fall into this category. Where we differ I think is that you seem to want to lower the bar for inclusion to include material that you believe (without demonstrable evidence apparently) is "useful" to "US readers", even in the absence of any proper sourcing. I would rather accept some articles being very short, where there is genuinely little to say about them, than inflate a weak article by dredging up the generic and the obvious. I spend my time on this project more or less how I like, and I agree it's an enjoyable discussion we are having. As I said, a useful endpoint for me would be a shared understanding that our school articles are not for promotional lists of generic information; indeed, that Wikipedia policies apply even to schools articles. If we have reached that point, perhaps it is time to discuss updating the project guidelines. If we can achieve the goal of clarifying that lists of sports teams sourced to the school website aren't an asset to a school article, then all this will not have been in vain. --John (talk) 06:02, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

Notability of schools

I'm a bit out of touch. What's the latest on the notability of schools? No inherent? Common AfD outcomes for articles with few/poor sources? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 06:01, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

As far as I am aware, high schools and school districts are still considered inherently notable. We were discussing some of the unfortunate downsides of this in the thread above. Middle schools and primary schools are not notable unless they independently pass WP:GNG. Does that make sense? --John (talk) 19:17, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

This is a subject of nearly annual RfC, and the last one was just a few months ago I believe at VP. Same outcome as always: high schools, inherently notable, lower schools default to non notable except when ORG is met. Don't think school districts were mentioned in the latest go around but the assumptions behind high school's notability would generally apply to them too. John from Idegon (talk) 19:29, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Thank you John and John from Idegon. You saved me a ton of reading. :) Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 19:49, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

• The other important thing, Anna, is what we do with non notable schools.

Well, we we don't PROD them, we don't CSD them for A7, we don't send them to AfD. Instead, we quietly blank the page, redirect the page to either the school district (USA) or the page about its locality (rest of the world), and put the R from school template on the redirect page. It hardly ever backfires and it saves a lot of endless bureaucracy. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 13:27, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. Ah, okay. I will remember that. Thank you. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:57, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Kudpung กุดผึ้ง. Thank you for adding the word "notability" to the main project page. That is exactly what I searched before posting here. Very helpful and needed. Best, 02:55, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

US School District pages

There are hundreds of such sub-substubs, many of them unsourced. They seem to have many supporters (Keep) but unfortunately only few contributors.Xx236 (talk) 07:22, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Point? John from Idegon (talk) 07:24, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Delete the ones no one cares, instead to vote Keep.Xx236 (talk) 07:26, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

• There are three reasons why we don't delete school districts:

1. We don't delete them
2. They don't need to be sourced
3. They are there when sooner or later a _target page is needed for a redirected nn elementary or middle school.

--Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 09:10, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

I think I remember reading somewhere that articles on notable topics should generally not be deleted due to poor sourcing within the article. The article is justified by simply showing sources establishing exist, not that they are necessarily in the article. The answer is to improve the article, not delete it. EyeTripleE (talk) 21:14, 23 September 2016 (UTC)

Interesting edits to Virginia public schools

There's a dynamic IP editor who, among other things, is going around to articles about public high schools in Virginia and adding logos of incorrect schools to their infoboxes (example). A few of their edits are good, but most are either trivial or detrimental. I've spent the last few hours trying to clean up after them. I've range-blocked them as 97.32.64.0/19, but other IP ranges have done these sorts of edits before, so I have a feeling they may be back later. These edits are worth keeping an eye on, in any case. Graham87 14:56, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh dear, there are over 300 schools in Virginia. Perhaps find a way to semi protect them all for a short while. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:02, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

That could be done using Twinkle, I guess, but I'll keep an eye on the related changes to the category every now and then. Graham87 02:49, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

User:CT Cooper retires

Chris Cooper has has not been so active lately and has now announced his semi-retirement. I would just like to thank him here on behalf of the schools project for all the hard work he put into it over the years as its coordinator and a major contributor to its development. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 00:38, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Cleanup needed at Joseph Eastham High School

This article was and still is a mess. It had 27 images, most of them trivial; I removed 10 of them. I also removed non-notable alumni.

It's still a mess text-wise -- written in a rambling conversational style, with no headers, etc. Inadequate citations. If anyone would like to clean that up, and do any other sorts of fixes, that would be great. I just happened to run into the article at FFD. Softlavender (talk) 08:26, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Sweetwater High School (National City, California)

Probably a very good school but a dreadful article. Doug Weller talk 18:46, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Agree. It needs to be stubbed. Normally I'd be glad to take that on, but I'm suffering from some "connectivity" issues until this weekend. John from Idegon (talk) 23:05, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Talk:Peters Township High School#Link to guideline

There is a discussion taking place at the above linked talk page regarding the use of piped wikilinks in the lede of the article that may be of interest to this project. Your participation is invited. John from Idegon (talk) 04:55, 31 October 2016 (UTC)

J.E.J Moore Middle School has an WP:AFD nom

I nominated this article for deletion since it does not have any evidence that shows it should have its own Wikipedia article. I would have redirected it but there is no page at this time for Prince George County Public Schools in Virginia, in fact it was deleted a few years ago for similar reasons. Please take a look at the page in question and if necessary foment on the AfD nomination. --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Edits) 22:21, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Schools project

Seven years ago I joined Chris Cooper who has now retired, as one of the coordinators of this project. I've also probably done more regular New Page Patrolling than most editors in that time.(Don't worry guys and girls, this is not a valedictory, in fact I'm ramping up my work here). In that time, apart from blocking nearly 900 school page vandals, I've seen some changes in the profile of not only the daily influx of around 1,000 new articles our encyclopedia receives every day, but also some significant trends in the kind of school articles we're getting now.

I've spent all day today going through the project membership lists I created way back in 2010, updated them, thrown out some dead wood and created a modern mailing list. I've also taken a long hard look at how we can possibly do some minor but important changes to the project in order to better address today's situation. One of the main things I found was that of the 400 members that we are left with who are still more or less active on Wikipedia, either very few of them really had much to do with schools, or many of them thought they had to join the project in order to write a school article.

It's probably time too, all these years down the line, to consider trying to put an end to the bickering that goes on at AfD about the notability of school articles. Admittedly we nearly always get our own way in the end based on the famous unwritten but thousands of times respected consensus, but my experience with NPP shows that people will continue to ignore it and apply what they 'think' is a deletion policy while refusing to read the instructions for patrolling.

'Schools' might not be as big as MilHist or Bios but it's still one of the larger projects. What I believe we need now is a core of people who will work together actively to address these and other issues. School articles are just too many now to expect the three coordinators to do all the heavy lifting, defend all the AfDs, repair the stubs, add the project banner to talk pages, move the misspelled page names, welcome new members, and do the GAC and FAC etc. Perhaps one first suggestions, just to cite an example, would be to get teams for each of the regions such as USA, UK/Europe/Australia, and Asia/Indian sub continent.

I'm therefore shortly going to send out a newsletter to those 400 users, so if anyone has any ideas, suggestions, or cntent for it, please let us know here. In the future, we may even have a group that is keen enough to produce an editorial team for a regular newsletter. Thanks. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:29, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

College of the Holy Spirit CDES

Greetings to all Editors. I am quite new on Wikipedia, and I wrote an article, wich has been nominated for deletion. Maybe some skilled editor, may help me to improve or correct my first publication, to comply to Wikipedia Policy. Any edition or suggestion may be welcome. Bear in mind English is a second language for me, so there may be also some typo. thanks in advance Taesulkim (talk) 22:05, 17 November 2016 (UTC)

Regular editors can not see it as it has been deleted. Just a suggestion: If you wish to attempt to recreate it, do so as a Draft and avail yourself if the help available at Articles for Creation. From the comments at AfD, it sounds as if it was promotional, poorly sourced and possibly falsified. Perhaps you should attempt to create it on your native tounge Wikipedia first. John from Idegon (talk) 02:00, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

I can see it. The article that was deleted following Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/College of the Holy Spirit CDES was a blatant piece of propaganda. I can't really see any new version of it being accepted for Wikipedia any time soon and I would decline any request to resurrect it even as a Draft for AfC. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 14:37, 4 December 2016 (UTC)

Lafayette County School District

Would someone from WPSCHOOLS mind taking a look at Lafayette County School District? It reads more like a directory with the school addresses and principal's email addresses added than something suitable for Wikipedia. I think that info was added in good faith and some of it may be usable, but I'm not sure . Also, it's not clear if WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES applies to school districts or if they fall under WP:NORG. -- Marchjuly (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with it. I've cleaned it up a little. There are no rules against very short articles. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 17:43, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Kudpung. Actually, what John from Idegon did is what I was thinking about doing. My concern wasn't about the length of the article per se, but rather whether it was acceptable to add email addresses and school email addresses to such article like had been done. Finally, I wasn't sure how the notability of school districts is determined. Are they treated the same way as independently accredited degree-awarding institutions/high schools are or are they treated as school-related organizations are? -- Marchjuly (talk) 22:15, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

US school districts are generally presumed notable. Generally, because some extremely small districts that consist of a single school are best covered in the article on the school. The presumption of notability arises from the same place as secondary schools. There are certain secondary sources that exist as a given (NCES notably). Their governance is by boards elected or appointed by the local government for fixed terms which will have in depth coverage. Budgeting and tax assessment will garner coverage. Etc, etc. Hope this clarifies things. If you have more questions, you're welcome to drop a note on my talk. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 00:02, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Thank you for the info John from Idegon. Just was curious how the notability guidelines are applied in such cases. -- Marchjuly (talk) 00:51, 10 December 2016 (UTC)

Template talk:Infobox_school#Suggestion_for_edit_-_brother_school

There's a discussion there about adding a parameter for "brother school" in addition to "sister school" or generalizing to something like "affiliated schools". EyeTripleE (talk) 09:11, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

Alternative to |sister_school= for referencing single-sex schools of the male gender

I started a discussion over at Infobox_school asking for input about adding to or adapting |sister_school= for the case when the school referenced is a single-sex school of the male gender. I wasn't aware of this WT when I started the topic and it was suggested that the dialog move here. So, here we are. Please have a look at the dialog over on Infobox_school and join the discussion by commenting in this topic. TheCrazedBeast (talk) 14:55, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Alumni lists should include victims of highly/widely publicized crimes (people known for a single event)

@John from Idegon: I noticed that Michaela Petit, one of the victims of the Cheshire, Connecticut, home invasion murders, "possibly the most widely publicized crime in the state's history," was removed from the alumni list ofhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Watchlist Chase Collegiate School on the grounds that she herself isn't notable. I have restored her name.

Alumni lists should be carefully checked for people who are truly notable, inbut people known for being involved in "a single event" where there are relatively few people involved should be included in alumni lists. This includes criminal perpetrators and/or their victims if the case receives a large amount of publicity.

A victim of an ordinary, bog-standard murder (one that wouldn't get a Wikipedia article) should not be included, but a victim of a highly publicized case like the Cheshire murders should be. WhisperToMe (talk) 05:01, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@John from Idegon:} The next edit summary: "It's off topic. simply because there is an association with this school and a non notable figure in this case dies not connect it the school. read WP:NLIST and WP:ALUMNI." - I'm going to respond here:

When broad pages are cited, I prefer to go to the specific relevant sections and comment on them to support my assertions. Consider: Wikipedia:NLIST#People_notable_for_only_one_event: "When the role played by an individual in the event is less significant, an independent article may not be needed, and a redirect is appropriate." - While she does not need her own article, she did have a role in the event, and therefore her name redirects to that of the event. Therefore she is "notable for only one event". Next:

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Schools/Article_guidelines#Alumni says: "Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria. All alumni meeting these criteria are to be included on an alumni list, regardless of how much time they have spent on a school roll, from one day to several years, and whether or not they graduated." - I feel she does meet the criteria to have her name redirect to that of a single event, and that should count towards this requirement.

Also in her case her father established a scholarship in her name for Chase Collegiate - This means it is in fact on topic.

WhisperToMe (talk) 05:30, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Why is this here? If you are trying to start an RfC you haven't. If you are not the proper venue would be the article talk page. But whatever. ALUMNI says people must be notable. Notability equates with qualifying for an article. The existence of a redirect under her name indicates that she is in fact not notable. If she were, the page under her name would be an article, not a redirect. I've participated in a few AfDs for perpetrators or victims of crimes. When they are found not notable, the usual procedure is to redirect the page to the article on the crime. In other words, the existence of a redirect is strong evidence she's not notable. The thing about the scholarship is a non - starter. We don't discuss specific scholarships in high school articles, and that is a typical behavior in situations like this. I see no reason to IAR here and I'm sorry but your interpretation of NLIST is simply incorrect. John from Idegon (talk) 06:05, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It is permissible to deal with Wikipedia:Dispute resolutions by notifying a Wikiproject in this matter and asking all participants to post. A formal RFC doesn't have to immediately happen. I did not have the intention of (initially) starting a formal RFC. I like to first notify relevant Wikiprojects. Considering this WikiProject is crucial in maintaining these school alumni lists, I feel that for now this is an appropriate venue for dispute resolution. (DRN lists using a WikiProject as one method of dispute resolution: Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution#Subject-specific help)

I strongly strongly disagree with the interpretation that, for the purposes of alumni lists, people whose names redirect should never count as notable (yes, I am aware Wikipedia:Notability starts by saying: "On Wikipedia, notability is a test used by editors to decide whether a given topic warrants its own article."). Consider Ashley Benton, Death of Gabriel Granillo. She is clearly a central figure in that case as she is the one who killed Granillo. She has no article of her own, but she is such a highly important/central figure in that case that she should count as notable. Consider the section Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#People_notable_for_only_one_event: "Another issue arises when an individual plays a major role in a minor event. In this case, it is not generally appropriate to have an article on both the person and the event. Generally in this case, the name of the person should redirect to the article on the incident, especially if the individual is only notable for that incident and it is all that the person is associated with in the source coverage."

Even with people with lesser roles in the incident (for example, Michaela Petit), people have such a strong interest in the case that they expect to see their names on "notable" lists of people.

In regards to scholarships: - May I see previous discussions/instances of this? I think especially if the scholarships are discussed/brought up in the media that high school articles should discuss them.

WhisperToMe (talk) 06:20, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I'm afraid I have to concur with John from Idegon here, and not simply because he is a fellow coordinator of this project. We don't accord pages to the victims of even the most horrific crimes in the UK such as the Moors Murders or the Gloucester murders or the victims of the regular mass shootings in American schools. Ergo, this is not a school specific notability issue; rather, it is one for Project Biographies, whose dead or BLP rules have simply been embedded in the advice for creating school articles. It's not even a school related crime. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:30, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I am aware that they don't receive their own pages (unless they are previously famous and/or there is published commentary on what they did: Examples: Rachel Scott and Cassie Bernall) - But for the purposes of alumni lists I have been treating victims of crimes as "notable for a single event" especially when they are a single victim or only one of a few victims. Usually victims of plane crashes/large scale massacres aren't because their redirects are often deleted (I previously redirected names of ordinary plane crash victims to their respective crashes, but these redirects have been deleted). This is a WP:School issue as it's not about changing the classification/statuses of victims in trying to get articles for them, but on how they should be counted on alumni lists.

There's also the issue of people who are highly central to a single (minor) event to the point where they shouldn't have a separate article about them: Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#People_notable_for_only_one_event: "Another issue arises when an individual plays a major role in a minor event. In this case, it is not generally appropriate to have an article on both the person and the event. Generally in this case, the name of the person should redirect to the article on the incident, especially if the individual is only notable for that incident and it is all that the person is associated with in the source coverage." - What about them?

• Murder of Tracie Joy McBride and not "Tracie Joy McBride" nor "Louis Jones" - I don't know where Jones went to school but I added McBride's name to her high school article

WhisperToMe (talk) 06:34, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I know you're not a noob, but the way I explain notable lists to noob explains my position well. "To qualify to be on a notable list, you must either have an existing bio, or it must be shown with references that you could". The people you are adding definitively do NOT qualify for a bio. I don't see any wiggle room in NLIST and even less in ALUMNI. Interestingly enough, it appears your argument would prevail on articles covered by WP:USCITY. However, we have stronger privacy concerns at WPSCH, where we discourage the use of any NN names (with a very few exceptions) due to privacy concerns. John from Idegon (talk) 06:54, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Are these privacy concerns strictly WP:BLP-related? Do they also apply to deceased persons (recently dead or long dead)? Is it in regards to living family members?

This means linking to a highly-publicized murder of a single person (say Murder of Dru Sjodin, Murder of Tracie McBride, etc) would not count as a "bio" and would be excluded, right?

WhisperToMe (talk) 07:03, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: (1) If the person does not have a Wikipedia article, they should not be on an alumni list. (2) Even if they do have a Wikipedia article, if their sole notability is their murder, they should not be on an alumni list (for various reasons, most of which are common sense). Softlavender (talk) 07:12, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll follow whatever consensus is reached, but my opinion is that we should not start including victims of crimes on notable alumni lists simply because the crime is notable. We have rules that cover this and we apply them consistently. We often have the same problem with, for example, members of notable musical groups that formed while the members were students. The groups are notable and would not exist without those particular members, but if the individual musicians are not themselves notable they don't belong on the alumni lists. Notability is not inherited.

I have to say that I'm not impressed that User:WhisperToMe unilaterally decided to change the way this was being handled, to the point where an edit of mine from 2015 was undone and a comment was left on my talk page, but it was left to another editor to inform me of this thread. It would have been more appropriate to suggest such a fundamental change and inform concerned editors so that consensus could be reached before any edits were undone. Meters (talk) 09:37, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

@Meters: To my knowledge this particular particular scenario hadn't been address/raised before on broad/projectwide/RFCwide level (correct me if I'm wrong). My revert of the edit of Cypress Creek High School from 2015 (04:53, 17 December 2016) came before I reverted (04:57, 17 December 2016‎) the edit at Chase Collegiate School. I was focused on addressing the Chase Collegiate School issue at the time John from Idegon notified you about the discussion: the discussion specifically arose from Chase Collegiate, not Cypress Creek. It's okay to also discuss Cypress Creek here, but I was occupied at the time John from Idegon notified you.

Any edit made a long time ago can be changed/reverted especially if there isn't past discussion of it/a particular scenario which someone has to read. Nobody ever raised the issue specifically about the inclusion of Benton on the talk pages to my knowledge. If there is past discussion/consensus of something and someone changes it, it would be one thing, but if the specific scenario was never addressed, I don't see a problem.

WhisperToMe (talk) 09:46, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Whatever. You went back and undid me from last year, attempted to justify your edit on my talk page, and started a thread here on exactly the same issue. The least you could have done was inform me of this thread. You were obviously aware that your position on exempting crime victims from the usual rule swe follow for alumni lists was controversial or you would not have started this thread. I've undone your edit pending a new consensus. Meters (talk) 09:56, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Again, I was occupied at the time. I thanked John of Idegon for him notifying you: I agreed this was the right thing to do, and didn't think of doing so until John already did anyway. I was not "obviously aware" that this would be controversial. I started the thread because I wanted to ensure the issue was resolved after the edits were already challenged; this is a normal practice that I do in the event of dispute resolutions. WhisperToMe (talk) 10:08, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

There is no reason to create such an exception to ALUMNI, for the reasons given above, and because there is no connection between their attendance at the school and the crime. Kanguole 13:02, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: "Notability equates with qualifying for an article." This doesn't mean the article must actually exist. WP:NOPAGE suggests there are instances when it is not worthwhile for a notable subject to have its own article. So having its own page implies notability but not having its own page doesn't imply non-notability. EyeTripleE (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The question here is not whether they are notable without a page. That comes up frequently too and I wholly endorse adding a redlink and appropriate references. The people in question here are either victims or perpetrators of crimes, and we have policy which states they are not notable. It's beyond the scope of this discussion, but I can see a quite valid argument for deletion of the redirects he's linking to. John from Idegon (talk) 02:00, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

January 2017 at Women in Red

January 2017
	Women Philosophers & Women in Education online editathons Faciliated by Women in Red

(To subscribe, Women in Red/Invite list. Unsubscribe, Women in Red/Opt-out list) --Ipigott (talk) 17:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Groups of students as alumni (thread moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines

The issue of the suitability of including notable groups of alumni (and non-notable members of such groups) on school alumni lists has come up again. See [3] for the discussion. If this issue has been definitively dealt with somewhere could someone please link to the discussion. If not, I suggest that any interested parties deal with it at Monsignor Farrell High School and then clarify the point in Schools/Article guidelines (whichever way we decide). Meters (talk) 06:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

And now that I'm in the right place I'm looking through the archives to see if it has been dealt with. Meters (talk) 06:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• Serious essays, which in their regular observance have stood the test of time, can be regarded as guidelines established through tacit consensus. Only hard-nosed Wikilawyers who happen on them from time to time will make an issue of them and usually such editors appear to pursue a personal agenda rather than an interest for the greater good of Wikipedia. At WPWPSCH we generally admit as alumni people who have a Wikipedia page or if they don't, if a page were to be written about them it would undoubtedly be kept. In the latter case, the entry must be supported by third party reliable sources just as any bio, and even more so if thy are still alive. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:33, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I am in complete agreement with that. An article or sufficient reliable sources to show notability is fine. The particular issue that raised this was the addition of a wikiarticle link for a notable group of students to an alumni list. The entry mentioned the members of the group but had no sources showing the individuals' notability. So, letting it stand seems to require that the group is considered an alumnus, or the individuals were xonsidered notable because they were members of the group. Meters (talk) 06:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

• I would say, if the group is restricted to alumni of a school, and if the group has a Wikipedia article, it qualifies to be listed in the "Alumni" (or "Notable alumni") of the school's Wikipedia article. -- Softlavender (talk) 06:52, 2 January 2017 (UTC)
• I think it depends how "the group itself" is related to the school. For example, if it's cited that the group was formed via some school-related activity (The Shirelles were a school talent show) then the group as a group is related to the school. If the group was formed by students during their school years but not otherwise related to the school, then I'm leaning against--I see it as "a group of school alums" not "an alum itself" (notability is not inherited, etc). And if the group were not formed until after the students left school and has no other relation to the school, then I'm totally against it. In the latter two situations (and especially the last), there's nothing defining about the group that makes them part of the school--a child's-child/child's-parent as the sole relationship is too far in my mind. DMacks (talk) 07:05, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't know what kind of 'group' is being discussed here. Essentially, alumini are responsible for being independently notable and are strictly individuals and not political or other interest groups. Notability is not inherited. To quote an example about notable music groups, for instance, one of the musicians would certainly not get an article unless he or she is notable for a solo career, and even that would not inherit notability from famous musicians he/she might have jammed or recorded with. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:10, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

The groups in question are listed in the link provided in the OP. Softlavender (talk) 07:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

They are comedy troupes, specifically made famous by an American cable TV show. Just like a band, their membership is subject to change at any time. I agree with DMacks that unless the group is in its entirety from the school and the formation of the group occured minimally while at the school and even better as a function of the school, they are not notable alumni. Unless you have that direct connection to the school, 10 years down the road you've got a group of nobodies going by that name where quite possibly none of them have any connection to the school at all. John from Idegon (talk) 07:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)