Will Beback wrote:
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 5/22/07, Angela Anuszewski
<angela.anuszewski(a)gmail.com> wrote:
My earlier reading made me consider whether or not
school districts
are notable simply because they exist, or some more significant event
or achievement should be required to create or retain an article on the
subject.
If a wealth of verifiable information about a school or district...
If information exists, somebody will add it. Try not to be too quick
in completely writing off certain topics. Stub templates exist for a
reason.
The inclusion of non-notable schools is not, by itself, the problem.
I'm glad you see that.
The real problem we have on Wikipedia with school
articles, in my
opinion, is the amount of vandalism they receive relative to the number
of editors repairing them. Since school-aged kids are a main source of
vandalism this isn't a surprise. However since this vandalism often
takes the form of derogatory remarks about living people it's a serious
matter. Reducing the number of school articles which aren't being
watched would help.
Vandalism is vandalism, so let's not quibble over which kinds are worse
than others. When you let the vandals effectively dictate the policies
that will be applied to the large majority of conscientious editors,
including those of school age you have effectively lost track of the
purpose of the project: to build an encyclopedia. Those with that kind
of siege mentality are as much a part of the problem as the vandals they
purport to combat. It means that the honest contributors have to watch
out not only for the vandals, but to the paranoid clique that is
constantly undermining their efforts to start new articles.
Perhaps the school articles aren't being watched enough. If so then
time would be better spent finding ways to watch them instead of arguing
with people who want such articles.
I tried "prodding" a vandalized article about
a junior high school and
found that there are editors who watch the PROD category just to remove
school articles. While I appreciate that the matter of school notability
is hotly debated, I don't think anyone likes having hundreds or
thousands of school articles that are unattended targets of libelous
vandalism. Other than reducing the number of school articles I don't see
a good solution. Perhaps a compromise would be to favor merging school
articles into school district articles.
What evidence do you have that there is such a huge proportion of school
articles being vandalized? You are using completely unfounded
hypotheses, and believing them because they suit your purposes.
Ec