Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 5/22/07, Angela Anuszewski angela.anuszewski@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.
—C.W.
The inclusion of non-notable schools is not, by itself, the problem.
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.
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.
Will Beback