On 2/28/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Guy Chapman aka JzG wrote:
On Wed, 28 Feb 2007 16:06:48 -0500 (EST), "Jeff Raymond" jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Having subject specific notability guidelines which aim to act as exceptions to canonical policy was never a terribly good idea.
Not that they ever did that. Ever.
A school is notable if it is a school. Oh, right.
Okay, with one or two exceptions.
This is the problem with the existing policy. There will be multiple non-trivial independent publications describing any school in existence in the United States. There are school directories, school guides, every local newspaper has extensive school coverage, and for most schools, one of the many thousands of people they've graduated over the years has reached the level of national importance required to have a mainstream news article list "and they went to so-and-so grade school". For every student, there are 1 or 2 parents who care significantly about the school, and parents of prospective students, and many alumni.
"A school is notable if it's a school" is shorthand for "We're not going to make you dig for the specific example detailed citations for it", in the same sense that "If the band's released two major record label albums then we aren't going to make you dig for additional notability information".
There are alternate interpretations. The problem is, that the actual policy guidelines are weak enough that there's no definitive argument to be made from precedent or policy as to whether Guy's interpretation or my interpretation is more correct, if either.
If the guidelines don't establish enough framework for there to be a right answer to the "what are reliable independent sources" in a domain-specific sense, then they're not useful enough. We clearly don't have that agreement here - I have my opinion, Guy has his, and I have no justifyable reason to presume that mine is a more correct right answer in the greater scheme of things.