[Wikipedia-l] school articles : enough

[David Monniaux]

On the English Wikipedia (but this is coming on other  ones) we have a
large amount of articles about individual highschools, most of which
have nothing special and are just like the next highschool.

These articles tend:
* to lack perspective
** give name of personnel who are private persons, which is
unencyclopedic (ex: there's a teacher called foobar)
** devote inordinate length to individual, non notable incidents
(exemple: some incident because of drunk students at a party 2 years ago)

* to be a magnet for vandalism, from disgruntled or bored students
** this vandalism can give details about the personal life of some minors
** it often also is demeaning
** and sometimes contains outright libel (accusing teachers or
principals of being pedophiles etc.)

* not to be patrolled much
** they interest few people

* to lack sources
** unique source tends to be the school's own cite; in theory we should
be able to have multiple sources, including independent ones

In short, they have little encyclopedic interest, are a target for
underage vandals, create lots of work for the OTRS folks and the Foundation.


However, when OTRS folks delete such articles as "non notable", they
often face angry remarks, accusations of lack of democratic process, and
what else; often from people who apparently feel strongly enough to keep
the article, but not strongly enough to patrol it for abuse.

Other users, including admins, seem to entirely ignore
[[Wikipedia:Schools]] as applicable policy.

In fact, I'll also suggest altering the policy in a way: the simple fact
that two "celebrities" from a school have an article on WP should not be
cause to create an article about this school.

Tons of non notable schools have had a celebrity go through. That does
not make them notable.

What would be relevant is: if many celebrities have gone through it. For
instance, Eton in England is notable because many upper class British
men, in high positions, have passed through it.

In any case, I think the Foundation should issue a clear statement that
admins, especially from OTRS, can CSD:A7 school articles that do not
demonstrate notability. Otherwise it's not manageable.