Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alonso High School
Alonso High School was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was kept. SimonP 22:07, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)
My count of the votes: 17 Keep, 16 Delete.
A non-special primary education high school.
- (Note: above rationale was added by User:DraQue Star.) --Ardonik.talk()* 05:06, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- A Google search for "Alonso High School" gives 263 hits. Since I think the community's consensus on high schools is to let each one stand or fall on its own merits and notability, I find it hard to vote for anything but delete. As always, I'm willing to be convinced otherwise. --Ardonik.talk()* 05:06, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- Delete: The article does not establish anything special about this high school. It is not poorly written, but it does not establish notability. Geogre 12:51, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Not notable. --Improv 16:31, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep consensus is not to delete high schools and 90% of them listed on VfD are kept. - SimonP 17:01, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- There is no such consensus that I'm aware of. If there is one, please point me to it. I believe that the correct statement is that because there is no such consensus, and because consensus is required for deletion, it is fairly easy for a high school article to survive VfD. That is not a reason for automatically keeping them without discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- The difficulty with having no policy on high schools is that most of them are kept, but some also end up being arbitrarily deleted. Since we are fairly evenly divided on the inclusion of high schools it generally works out that stubs or unformatted articles on high schools get deleted, while longer ones are kept. This violates basic Wikipedia principles. - SimonP 20:00, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not trying to be argumentative—really. This is not a rhetorical question. I agree that the tendency is that "stubs get deleted, while longer ones are kept." But I'm happy with that. What basic Wikipedia principles does this violate? I'm willing to listen. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:42, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- How many other articles get deleted simply because they are stubs? Being as stub has never been a criteria for deletion, nor should it be. Yet high schools are getting deleted simply because they are stubs. Not because people vote to delete them for that reason, but because others refrain from voting to keep them. - SimonP 23:25, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- SimonP has either not been reading reasons given by those who vote to delete or doesn't understand them. I vote to delete most high school articles not just because the article is a stub but because most schools are not notable and won't ever ever generate an encyclopedia article beyond a bad stub. Most high schools are normal high schools much like any other normal high school. People mostly neither know nor care about any of them individually. Those who care about a particular school are mostly those employed at that school or by the local Board of Education or who are attending that particular school during a few years of their lives at most. Immediate family also care while a child or sibling is attending such a school. But most don't think that their school is special or notable or stands out. That most high school articles are uniformative stubs reflects the fact that the editor writing such an article either doesn't care much or just can't make a good article from information easily available oor both. What people do care about is their own years in "high school" in general rather than about the history of the particular high school or high schools that they attended. Notable high schools, like notable people, or notable organizations of any kind, would be those mentioned in media as being recognized for some reason other than merely existing and performing their normal, mundane functions. The repetative litany that "high schools are notable" is belayed by the substance of most Wikipedia high school articles which don't provide any reason why a particular high school is notable and often don't say much at all. An encyclopedia article should not provide only the minutiae of present day information such as the name of the current prinipal and whether a football team is doing well, all likely to be out of date even a year from now. Yet a history of a high school would be mostly nothing but such disjointed minutiae: names of principals, lists of teaching staff, awards won each year by teams or bands or clubs, average grades obtained compared to other schools, additions and renovations of the building, and so forth. Such an article would be encyclopedic. But people don't write them. SimonP doesn't write them. And there's no point in retaining bad stubs when it would be just as easy for a knowledgeable editor to start an article fresh. Wikipedia is not improved by bad articles that don't improve and are unlikely to improve. Jallan 17:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Jallan, I agree with you. I further would say that said articles with all that detail is not encyclopedic, and that this kind of topic, with very rare exceptions, is never encyclopedic. --Improv 18:54, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- SimonP has either not been reading reasons given by those who vote to delete or doesn't understand them. I vote to delete most high school articles not just because the article is a stub but because most schools are not notable and won't ever ever generate an encyclopedia article beyond a bad stub. Most high schools are normal high schools much like any other normal high school. People mostly neither know nor care about any of them individually. Those who care about a particular school are mostly those employed at that school or by the local Board of Education or who are attending that particular school during a few years of their lives at most. Immediate family also care while a child or sibling is attending such a school. But most don't think that their school is special or notable or stands out. That most high school articles are uniformative stubs reflects the fact that the editor writing such an article either doesn't care much or just can't make a good article from information easily available oor both. What people do care about is their own years in "high school" in general rather than about the history of the particular high school or high schools that they attended. Notable high schools, like notable people, or notable organizations of any kind, would be those mentioned in media as being recognized for some reason other than merely existing and performing their normal, mundane functions. The repetative litany that "high schools are notable" is belayed by the substance of most Wikipedia high school articles which don't provide any reason why a particular high school is notable and often don't say much at all. An encyclopedia article should not provide only the minutiae of present day information such as the name of the current prinipal and whether a football team is doing well, all likely to be out of date even a year from now. Yet a history of a high school would be mostly nothing but such disjointed minutiae: names of principals, lists of teaching staff, awards won each year by teams or bands or clubs, average grades obtained compared to other schools, additions and renovations of the building, and so forth. Such an article would be encyclopedic. But people don't write them. SimonP doesn't write them. And there's no point in retaining bad stubs when it would be just as easy for a knowledgeable editor to start an article fresh. Wikipedia is not improved by bad articles that don't improve and are unlikely to improve. Jallan 17:01, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- How many other articles get deleted simply because they are stubs? Being as stub has never been a criteria for deletion, nor should it be. Yet high schools are getting deleted simply because they are stubs. Not because people vote to delete them for that reason, but because others refrain from voting to keep them. - SimonP 23:25, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- I'm not trying to be argumentative—really. This is not a rhetorical question. I agree that the tendency is that "stubs get deleted, while longer ones are kept." But I'm happy with that. What basic Wikipedia principles does this violate? I'm willing to listen. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 20:42, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- The difficulty with having no policy on high schools is that most of them are kept, but some also end up being arbitrarily deleted. Since we are fairly evenly divided on the inclusion of high schools it generally works out that stubs or unformatted articles on high schools get deleted, while longer ones are kept. This violates basic Wikipedia principles. - SimonP 20:00, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- There is no such consensus that I'm aware of. If there is one, please point me to it. I believe that the correct statement is that because there is no such consensus, and because consensus is required for deletion, it is fairly easy for a high school article to survive VfD. That is not a reason for automatically keeping them without discussion. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- I agree with [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith. Furthermore, I can point you to the "consensus." It was informally reached when someone wrote List of schools and someone else listed it on VfD. That debate went on for a few epochs, and, in the end, people voting there sort of kind of agreed that high schools stay (there) and others go (there). That's it. No policy, no consensus reached in any deliberative forum except the VfD debate on one article. Since then, people have used the chimera of a consensus that "High schools stay" in VfD voting, but the truth is that it's exactly as Dpbsmith says: every single nomination is its own case. The only policy is the deletion guidelines. Thus, notability, encyclopedic content, non-advertising, etc. Geogre 00:50, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete - not notable - Tεxτurε 17:32, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. Why not? There are lots of high schools and lots of colleges. There's no good to add all of them, but, so far as I'm concerned, there's no good reason to delete them either. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 18:53, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- My view is that they should be kept if they are good articles, and discarded if they are basically stubs, because stubs are essentially a request for someone else to write an article. In a developing encyclopedia it makes sense that there are those who can reliably judge "we need an article on X," knowing that they can't write it themselves, and that there are others around ready and willing to flesh out the skeleton. In this case, there is value in submitting a stub. This is not the case for non-notable high schools. If we had a high-school expert who loved to write articles about high schools, such a person might well take high school stubs into account in prioritizing his work. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:55, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. There is good reason to delete anything that is not notable, that isn't likely to be mentioned in books or other media outside of its local area (and is considered rather ordinary and non-notable in its local area). There is good reason to add only those that are notable in some way or other. This particular uninformative substub article contains more information on Braulio Alonso than on the school. Since the Braulio Alonso article (created by the same editor who created this article) is marked as suspected copyright violation, perhaps the Braulio Alonso information here could be moved to that article's /Temp subpage to create a new stub there. Jallan 19:06, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Not notable. RickK 19:13, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- delete. While there is no consensus to delete high school articles, there is no concensus to keep them, either. This school appears to lack notability. Gentgeen 19:47, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete unless greatly improved before the expiration of VfD. Delete because it is not an article that says anything of much use or much interest even to alums; because stubs are not worthwhile in themselves, but only as they lead to articles; and because it is unlikely that the Wikipedian community contains anyone able and interested in adding more to this than the original contributor. People who want high school articles to Wikipedia should submit articles, not stubs. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 19:49, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Just curious -- is that an argument not to write stubs at all? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 23:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- No. There are better stubs and worse stubs. See Wikipedia:Perfect stub article. A stub is not useful in itself. It's only useful if it grows into an article, or if it provides a useful amount of information itself. We should write articles when we can. We should write good stubs when we are quite sure that the topic is encyclopedic, and the stub provides enough information to have some value of its own, and we think there's a reasonable likelihood that someone will expand it within a month or so. We should not write worthless stubs, and we should delete worthless stubs if others write them. Wikipedia:Perfect stub article says that when you do write a stub you should be prepared to keep adding to it yourself. "If nobody contributes to your stub for a few weeks, roll up your sleeves and expand it yourself." This is an encylopedia; it's not the Britannica "Micropedia" and it's not a nanopedia. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 01:48, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- My opinion is that a useful stub gives a reason why the article should be expanded - so if the stub states nothing other than that the individual is a nobel prize winner, or that the school is the oldest in Virginia, or similar, then it's clearly worth expanding (as long as it is true). If it merely says John Smith is a scientist, or Bog Standard Comprehensive is a high school, then it isn't a useful stub. Average Earthman 09:04, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Well, you'll hate me, but in my random acts of cleanup at Special:Deadendpages, I've been known to turn a substub into a stub and hope that the winds of Recentchanges and What Links Here traces will push it towards its full potential. Especially when I don't know much of anything about the subject matter. Of course, turning a substub into a stub is still improvement. - KeithTyler 06:07, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
- Just curious -- is that an argument not to write stubs at all? – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 23:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. I don't have a good reason why, maybe I'm just feeling generous. Something about the former high school of a former NEA president lends it a touch of notability to me. - KeithTyler 21:22, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, agree with KeithTyler about NEA president! -- Old Right 23:00, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Comment: I just wanted to point out that this high school (and most high schools, actually) has more students than Alligator, Mississippi has residents. I'm just saying. – Quadell (talk) (help)[[]] 23:20, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I have no idea who decided it was a good idea to start importing Census data for every little town in the world, and, despite having contributed to a description of a place I used to live (Brecksville, Ohio) and another place where my grandparents live (Bath, Ohio), if there ever were a discussion that would have a reasonable guideline by which all nonnotable towns were to be removed (Bath and Brecksville are really not notable), I probably would vote for their mass deletion. --Improv
- Delete: no evidence of notability. The notion that there's a consensus for keeping high school articles is just wishful thinking. Wile E. Heresiarch 01:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete unless evidence of notability added. There is no consensus on high schools. Average Earthman 09:04, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep, just so if my high school ever comes up, I can vote keep without being a hypocrite. The Steve 12:05, Sep 21, 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Articles on random high schools might be considered community vanity. -- WOT 18:55, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep ugen64 00:47, Sep 22, 2004 (UTC)
- Delete as not notable. FWIW, my high school is notable and happens to have an article which someone else started. - Lucky 6.9 17:07, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Not notable, and the article says almost nothing about the school anyway. It just talks about the guy the school is named after. Isomorphic 00:44, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep I'm new to Wikipedia and came across this by pressing random page and couldn't believe that an article about a real school would be deleted. The Recycling Troll 00:48, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Delete. Non-notable. SWAdair | Talk 07:24, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Keep. I think all schools (primary and secondary) should be kept. I see no reason to delete. However, this article should be improved. Still, I vote for keep. --AAAAA 20:03, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.