Talk:Northwestern High School (Indiana)

The funeral service

@John from Idegon: What "pillar policy" is the mention of the funeral service failing and in what way is it failing it? As I have explained, this was a major event in the history of the school because it was held there and a memorial was built outside of it. The funeral was widely reported in both local and state media, so there is certainly no shortage of reliable sources on it. I have even tried to reword the passage to make it clearly focus on the event's impact on the school rather than the man for whom it was being held, yet you still continue to insist that we are not allowed to mention it, for reasons you have failed to fully explain. I simply do not see what problem you have with it; it was a highly significant event. --Katolophyromai (talk) 02:00, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

It was an important single event to the school and the community, not about the school. The only lasting impact was the addition of a memorial. Virtually every school older than 75 years has a memorial to those who have died at war. It's not differentiating. The copy regarding the deputy and his death is out of guidelines as his death had nothing whatsoever to do with the school, and as tragic and senseless as the death of any police officer is, it generally (in this case certainly) does not elevate them to notability. We do not mention non notable staff or students in school articles. The funeral itself is simply a single event that was hosted at the school. That is news, not history. I can't obviously know your motivation for including this, but it certainly seems an attempt to memorialize the officer, which is clearly in violation of WP:NOTMEMORIAL.

In short, the only copy on this I could endorse is "In XXXX, a memorial was erected to a school resource officer that was killed in the line of duty doing police work not involving the school", with an appropriate reference. That support is reluctant, but if it puts this to bed, I can live with it. I don't think it belongs at all. The article should stay focused on the institution, it's institutions, and not on staff or students. John from Idegon (talk) 03:09, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that was a perfectly reasonable answer. Thank you for providing it. I will not attempt to restore the passage. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)

Why did you remove all the images?

@John from Idegon: The images provide valuable information about what the school building looks like. Images do not necessarily need to "tell a cohesive story in a way words cannot"; they just need to provide information, and these ones do. The image of the front entrance to the school is certainly not in violation of any policies; nearly all of our articles about educational institutions that are currently listed as "Good Articles" have images of the front entrance to the school. Additionally, the image of the auditorium directly relates to the text of the article, which specifically mentions it being built in 2006. I am willing to tolerate the removal of the image of the bison outside the school, since it is more of a marker of a particular anniversary than a permanent structure of the school itself, but I see absolutely no reason why the other ones you removed would be deemed inappropriate for inclusion. --Katolophyromai (talk) 20:38, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

The only one that could be appropriate is the entrance photo, but frankly it's a very poor photo. The rest are simply not differentiating. Unless there is independently sourcable copy on the various interior features, they simply look like the interior of a school. Any school. How do they help a reader with no knowledge of the school understand it better than the words auditorium or library would? The answer is, they don't. The only people who would find value in the images I removed are reminiscing alumni, and frankly, that isn't the target audience for a school article. There is nothing unique about the auditorium that requires illustration, and our policy on images is pretty clear we do not use photos simply for decoration. John from Idegon (talk) 20:57, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Galleries are useful in school articles primarily to show age progression pictures, or to illustrate a series of unique architectural features. The vast majority of schools are very undistinguished structures, about as mundane as they come. Of course, there are exceptions. This school isn't one. John from Idegon (talk) 21:00, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

@John from Idegon: I personally strongly disagree with your argument that we should not include pictures of the school just because the school is not built in an innovative architectural style or anything. The way I see it, the article is about the school, so not having pictures of the school in an article about the school is like not having pictures of a person in an article about a person. Even if the features of the school are not especially distinctive, that does not mean their appearances have no distinctions between them at all. Besides, the pictures still show what the school looks like and I figure, if we are going to have an article about a place, we ought to include pictures of it. To give an analogy, just because every person has a face and all faces have the same structure with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth does not mean a reader of an encyclopedia article does not want to know what a particular person's face looks like. Nonetheless, I clearly see there is no point in trying to argue with you, since you clearly have more authority than I do, and no matter what I say it will never convince you.

I am rather frustrated, though, because my sole intention in coming to this article was to improve it by adding more sources, information, and images, but it seems that all my efforts to improve the article simply result in you reverting me and then us arguing back and forth here on the talk page. The rules regarding what information we are allowed to include in an article about a school seem to be very different and much stricter than the rules regarding what we are allowed to include in articles about ancient history. It almost feels like there is simply no kind of information that we are allowed to include in any articles about schools at all. You say we are not allowed to mention anyone who has worked at or attended the school because none of them are notable, we cannot include information about events that happened at the school because that is "news, not history," and we cannot even include images of the school building itself because the architectural style is "not differentiating." It seems impossible for me to find out what information we are allowed to include in any article about a school. I am genuinely trying to be helpful, but, since you have not clarified what I am allowed to write about and this game of trying to guess at what is and is not allowed is just frustrating me, I think that I will just leave this subject area entirely and try to avoid editing any articles relating to schools, at least for a very long time. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:43, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

A general picture of the school would be a great addition. We don't have one. If you're in the Kokomo area and want to take one, that would be great. As far as what does and doesn't belong in a school article, the guidelines for school articles will give you some guidance. For instance, the athletic achievement you've added to history belong in a section on athletics, and the sectional championships should be removed. There are huge differences in writing about astronomy or ancient history vs writing about social geography topics. Stars and ancient events don't have boosters. No one tries to make a star sound better than it is. No one tries to make mountains out of insignificant recent events when you are writing about Hannibal's elephants. An article about a school is about the brick and mortar, and about the institution's institutions. Unfortunately, we are rather heavy handed with this, due to the fact that a large number (I'd even say most) of the editors working on school articles are SPAs with a connection to the school (generally either current students or alumni). As I'm sure you realize, at least in the US, after your family and if you are so inclined, your church, the strongest emotional ties the average person has are to his school and hometown. This leads to a marked lack of emotional detachment to write about the subject neutrally, especially when it comes to assessing the long term importance of current events. Remember that encyclopedias are tertiary. It's easy enough (not saying simple to do; writing history is hard) to write from secondary sources when your subject is 1000 years ago; that's pretty much all there is. A dynamic institution existing and changing in real time is much more difficult to stay tertiary on. Referring back to the funeral, there were no secondary sources. The journalism was reporting, which is primary. Obviously society does not have the perspective to mskm a secondary analysis of the importance of that event yet. There is a big push to include even the most trivial acts of violence in school articles here recently (since MSD). Many school article editors oppose this, as there is no indication of long term significance. Violent crime rates had steadily declined from the mid 70s until 2 years ago. Unfortunately, society is becoming more violent again. Schools are a microcosm of society. I grew up in NW Indiana, graduating from high school in the mid 70s. Gun crime in schools in metro Chicago were a regular occurrence. Wikipedia's big flaw is that our editing model is inherently biased towards current events, cause if it isn't on the net, it didn't happen. But to report the ones that happen today (and I'm of course not talking about the massacres, but the gang incidents, drug deals gone bad, I'mma killya cause you looked at my girlfriend kind of thing), without covering the past leads to an inaccurate portrail of history.

Sorry for the TLDR. I appreciate the work you are doing, even if it doesn't seem like it. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 05:47, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Do not bother

@Leadsoprano: Unfortunately, Wikipedia's standards for what counts as notable when it comes to schools are so high that there is virtually nothing you can say about this school (or really almost any school for that matter) that would meet those standards. Believe me, I have tried adding more information to this page in the past, but nothing seems to count as notable. I strongly recommend giving up. It is not worth your time re-adding this information, since it is just going to be reverted anyway and you have no chance at convincing John from Idegon that what you are trying to add is encyclopedically notable. --Katolophyromai (talk) 04:10, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

both of you would benefit from reading WP:BRD and WP:CONSENSUS. Flat Out (talk) 04:14, 17 September 2018 (UTC)