Talk:Harlem Academy

please be careful in editing
Please be careful in editing. Wikipedia is designed to allow newcomers to jump in and edit, but there are policies and guidelines and also some nondirective essays and help files. Concerns include writing that reads like advertising, statements that are not sourced to reliable third-party sources, the deleting of a link to another school whose recent former name may lead to conmfusions (the link allows visitors to find the right article), and the list of trustees (I think the standard is that only notable people should be mentioned, notability warranting articles in Wikipedia for them, while the school head may be named). Various solutions are available. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:36, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

new edits in October 2013
The article needs some editing.

I've done some: I added Citation Needed templates, a Failed Verification template, a Dead Link template, citations, the city the school is in (Wikipedia is read well beyond the city's boundaries), the district number, a smaller number for the student population (so both figures are present since sources disagree), that the school is private, modeling on highly performing schools, Dotoli's full name as the head of the school to the lead, on Dotoli having been a middle-school director, Dotoli's title in the section for the position, spending levels, the startup cost, on the share of the operating budget paid or to be paid by tuition, socioeconomic and racial diversity as a goal, on lunches being student-supplied, on parental approvals of teachers being hired, new-parent orientations, on seminars for parents, that parental volunteerism is by contract, that Mark Tashjian left, the cross street, the square footage, the External Links section including the Harlem Academy's website, an organizational abbreviation twice including in the lead (to support a separate non-lead mention of the organization), links to Wikipedia portals, and a category; attributed content and a quotation and marked the latter as a quotation; clarified that the school is nonprofit and that donations were multiple (there was not just one, according to Forbes); copied (with editing) content from the lead into the body (the lead is supposed to summarize the body); deleted redundancies, the first name from each subsequent mention of a person (per Wikipedia style) (the full name now being in the lead and one other place), a citation to an inappropriate source (inappropriate for what it is offered in support of and because it appears to be not a reliable source since the organization seems to be a membership organization with membership criteria unclear, it's apparently a primary source given that "What We Stand For" is written as if written by this school, and I didn't find much about it outside of its website but I didn't search deeply into Google results) (I replaced the citation with a Citation Needed tag), an honorific (Wikipedia usually doesn't use them), zero-cents amounts from large dollar sums, an unmatched double quotation mark, and spurious paragraph breaks; corrected tense, misspellings (including for a lack of a diacritical mark), a preposition, a plural to a singular, the date of the New York magazine article (published in October 2007 and not November 2006 and the relevance of February 2011 is unknown so that date was deleted), and the cited publication date of Winnie Hu's N.Y. Times article; linked terms; made a link more specific (for Camp Timanous); divided a sentence; reformatted paragraphs listing trustees into a list and edited the list item about the chair to place that position before his name; reformatted, rearranged, and repositioned ref elements; replaced numerals with words at a sentence's beginning (that being the normal style); added syntactical articles and deleted one; repunctuated; restyled apostrophes and quotation marks to Wikipedia's preferences; recapitalized; deboldfaced; respaced; and conformed text. About some of these edits:
 * I added quite a few Citation Needed templates.
 * I prefer a citation for each sentence or part of a sentence (this eases maintenance with future content expansions) but some editors find a single citation for an entire paragraph sufficient and makes the main text more readable, which is allowed provided that the citation supports everything in that paragraph (citation bundling may be required for a single whole-paragraph citation). So, if an editor wants to support an entire paragraph with one citation at the end, that can justify deleting multiple Citation Needed templates from within the paragraph.
 * Sometimes, a Citation Needed template is immediately next to a citation. In all of those cases, the citation is only for the specified information, so that a citation is still needed to support the rest of the tagged statement.
 * The sentence saying that Harlem Academy "has also been recognized for efficient budgeting and financial structure in Forbes and New York Magazine" is not supportable from the Forbes interview, the Forbes post, or the New York magazine article that are now cited. Those sources give figures and other financial information, but do not say anything paraphraseable as "recognized for efficient budgeting and financial structure". That appears to be original research by a Wikipedia editor, which Wikipedia does not allow. Citations are needed or the statement must be edited or deleted.
 * Attributions should be added to some statements when citations are also added, depending on the statement. I didn't mark which ones need attributions because those that need citations might be substantively edited when citations are supplied, which may change for what it is that attributions will be needed.
 * If content is tagged for needing a citation, a link being dead, verification having failed, or some such and remedying the tag is not possible for the content as it is, the content may need changing. For example, if a citation was needed and is now supplied but it does not support the content exactly as it is (paraphrasing being permitted), then edit the content to conform to the source.
 * A quotation has to be shown to be such, usually either as a blockquote or with quotation marks, and it has to be attributed. Otherwise, usually, an editor is committing plagiarism. (Copying a significant amount of copyrighted material requires that permission be provided to the Wikimedia Foundation and that would rarely be appropriate when we can paraphrase or can quote and attribute. It is more often appropriate for images not used under the doctrine of fair use. Material that is not in the public domain and is copyrightable should usually be presumed as under copyright even if it is not accompanied by a copyright notice. If the school or another owner of copyright wants to give permission to use copyrighted content, a procedure exists for telling the Wikimedia Foundation about the permission.)
 * In the lead, citations and links are optional if they appear for the same content in the body.
 * Some statements need attributions in the main text.
 * The student population is given with two numbers because both are sourced, even though they disagree, because Wikipedia reports both sides of a dispute. The sourced higher number being 120, where the article said "more than 120" I deleted the "more than" as unsourced. If the "more than" has a source, please re-add and source it.
 * For the dead link for the Bruce Wright award, I looked at archive.org for an archived copy of the cited page but did not find it. I found a page for general information on the award at http://web.archive.org/web/20110727231709/http://www.saedclinic.org/BWLABenefitBreakfast.asp as it was archived July 27, 2011, 11:17:09 p.m., as accessed September 22, 2013. However, that archival page's link for the 2010 honoree list was to http://web.archive.org/web/20110727231709/http://www.saedclinic.org/2008BWLABenefit.asp which is dead as of October 2, 2013, and thus a source is apparently not available for individual awardees for 2010, and http://www.saedclinic.org/2008BWLABenefit.asp is not archived at archive.org for any date. A replacement citation is needed or the article's content must be edited or deleted to reflect what is sourceable.
 * Research that I did for this editing by accessing websites was done over the last couple of months or so unless otherwise indicated.
 * I cited Forbes as such for the post, not as Forbes Magazine, because my copy of the text of the post says only Forbes and there may be a distinction if the post is only an online post and not available in Forbes in the print magazine, as appears to be the case.
 * Decapitalizing "MATHCOUNTS" to "Mathcounts" is in accord with normal Wikipedia style.

Some editing, however, I can't do because I don't know enough:
 * Content should be sourced to secondary sources and not to Harlem Academy's own website (or other publications by the Harlem Academy or other primary sources), with some exceptions permitted.
 * What does the school being "independent" mean? That it is a private school? That is not associated with any other school? Something else?
 * According to what was moved from the lead into the body: "Its mission is to offer educational opportunities for children whose aptitude for success in higher education might otherwise go unrealized." Isn't this true of every nonvocational school and to be assumed? What makes this school distinct (it doesn't have to be unique) according to sourcing? "The school aims to foster levels of academic achievement and character development required to enter and thrive at top secondary schools." Same questions.
 * The lead says the school is "registered with the New York State Association of Independent Schools." Why is this important (in Wikipedia's terms, why is this due weight)? I'm not saying it's not due weight, but we wouldn't list every association with which a subject organization is registered, which is a verb with a very wide meaning, so the importance of this registration should somehow be made clear.
 * The school seems fully accredited by NYSAIS. If it is, say so with a source, but notice that "provisional membership" is stated by SchoolsThatCan.org, as accessed September 21, 2013. That seems contradictory and the apparent contradiction should be resolved or reported.
 * Why is being "an accredited member of the National Association of Independent Schools" due weight? For example, is there a significant level of academic rigor implicit or is that accreditation available to almost any private school? NAIS suggested that accreditation requires fulfilling standards but those standards were not stated. We don't publish trivia, so the accreditation has to be shown to be due weight.
 * In the body, some abbreviated terms need explaining and expanding an abbreviation may not be enough for clarity for most readers:
 * ERB CTP4: is "ERB" the Educational Records Bureau? or something else?
 * MOEMS
 * On academic rigor, on there being two and a half times the number of students relative to a national figure, a link was to a too-general page and thus didn't support the specific statement it was cited for, so I tagged it as having failed verification. A citation should be to a specific URL or page and not just to a home page (unless the home page itself does have the supporting information). If that statement is sourceable to 2010, the statement in Wikipedia should say "2010".
 * "Delta Science" should be explained. Is it a brand of science curriculum? Or is it a generic type with certain distinct characteristics? If the latter, a few words should be added to describe it.
 * If Dotoli when at the Buckingham, Browne, and Nichols School was not just "a" middle-school director but "the" middle-school director and a source says so, edit the word.
 * If Mark Tashjian is now with Harlem Academy and a source says so, add it.
 * "Teams of lead and assistant teachers guide each class.": Does each class have multiple teams? or one team with "lead and assistant teachers" (perhaps a total of two teachers)? Multiple teams implies at least four teachers per class.
 * The school day is described one way in the article without a source and another way in Forbes in Country Day in Harlem. Either the current description should be sourced or the Forbes description should replace what's in the article now and sourced to the Forbes post (which says, "[s]tudents ... begin sports at 3:45 and leave at 5 or 6, depending on whether they want homework help after sports."). The editorial decision can be made separately for each item of information and sourced accordingly. Other sources can be used, if they qualify. Wikipedia reports what sources say. Anything challengeable but lacking a source is to be tagged as needing a source and, if no source is forthcoming or if it is biographical about a living person, deleted.
 * Singapore math was discussed on three places, apparently redundantly. It belongs in the Model Programs section, except that how it differs between the lower and middle schools can be distinguished in the two subsections.
 * If FOSS is being used in the school, say so explicitly. If it's not, state its relevance to the Harlem Academy (like if Harlem Academy was a nontrivial developer) or delete the paragraph.
 * I edited this sentence: "Every family is asked to contribute some tuition, but no student is denied admission for financial reasons." It now says that "[e]very family pays some tuition" because that's consistent with the Forbes post (if the minimum is $400 then that's implicitly being collected from everyone); however, if below-minimum (even zero-dollar) tuition is accepted, as implied by the subordinate clause, then that fact should be re-added with a source, whereas if they're not then the subordinate clause should be deleted or rewritten.
 * That every employee but one has a role with students is potentially interesting and sourceable to New York magazine but is not specific enough about the roles. Does every employee except one teach? If not teach, what's meant? If a more specific statement is sourced, add it.
 * There's more than one Pennfield School. Whichever one is mentioned in the article, it should be unambiguously identified. If what was meant was Pennfield Senior High School in Michigan or the Pennfield School at Portsmouth, Rhode Island (in the section Private), the link should be provided.
 * Likewise for Collegiate. The link is now to Collegiate School (disambiguation) and if someone can disambiguate the school that would help. If none of the schools listed on the disambiguation page is it, then Collegiate should be delinked in this article or, if Collegiate is notable and thus qualifies for a future article, the link should be replaced with the name of the school without the parenthetical "(disambiguation)" (the result will be a red link, which suggests to readers an article they might draft for Wikipedia).
 * "Dotoli has been asked to share Harlem Academy's model programs" sounds like puffery, which is not our encyclopedic writing style. If he was asked and did so, it's more direct to say "Dotoli has discussed Harlem Academy's model programs" (also replacing "share" with "discussed" to avoid implying instituting a model elsewhere, but if he did institute it elsewhere then that probably qualifies for weight). If he was asked but did not do so, the paragraph probably does not deserve weight and should be deleted.
 * Among the trustees:
 * There is a Pam Clarke who is named in Wikipedia's article on Gordon's School, of England; if she's the same person, either this article or that one should be updated and perhaps added to and perhaps a link should be added.
 * Timothy Speiss is a Wikipedia editor, User:Tspeiss, who has no edits except to his user page; a Wikipedia article, however, can't cite the user page (and it didn't).
 * Dotoli's awards appear to be too minor for due weight. Some awards, such as Nobel and Pulitzer prizes and those given within the relevant profession and being especially respected, should be listed, but these two don't seem to qualify. Sources should indicate why they deserve weight, so content about their importance can be added on the basis of sourcing.
 * If St. Luke's only "offered" classroom space, that's too trivial to report; but if it provided classroom space, say that. (While politeness may lead to a preference for "offered", this encyclopedia tries to be as factual as sourcing permits.)
 * Is the plural in "Upper East Side Historic Districts" correct? If not, it should be corrected and linked as Upper East Side Historic District.

I searched Google for the school and reviewed the first five pages of results but did not find much that is usable.

I did not look in articles databases or for government files and those searches might well be fruitful.

Singapore Math is probably covered too extensively, since the content of that paragraph belongs in the article on that curriculum, not in this article. Nothing in the N.Y. Times article about the math curriculum says anything about Harlem Academy. If Harlem Academy has made changes to the curriculum and if those changes are sourceable, they may be reportable in this article.

Attributions may still be needed for some content, in the main text, even where sources are cited.

Some citations had dates but I couldn't tell whether those were document dates or access or retrieval dates. Whichever is the case should be made clear; and usually both should be provided if available.

A promotional tone, some subtle, has been present and should be avoided. It can make the article too much like advertising.

I was going to delete the list of trustees on the understanding that articles are not supposed to have such lists (with exceptions), but couldn't find the policy or guideline saying so and apparently it hasn't existed in some time, if ever. So I discussed the lists generically and proposed that such lists ordinarily be forbidden, but that does not seem to be the consensus, so the list probably can stay.

I searched for images of Harlem Academy or Vincent Dotoli/Vinny Dotoli in Google but failed to find any that had a Wikipedia-compatible copyright license (including permitting commercial re-use) or that is in the public domain. Besides the copyright issue, we should avoid using any with minor children or most adults because permission from their parents or guardians should be obtained but the Wikimedia Foundation has no system for accepting those permissions.

A logo can be used under the legal doctrine of fair use. It may take a bit of work to prepare an image file for use and to comply with the fair use doctrine. The file can be submitted into Wikipedia (not Wikimedia Commons) and then linked to for the article.

I may have a few more edits to come, including on the rise in the top tuition, and I should get to them soon. Hopefully, the article now has useful guidance on the specific improvements it needs.

Nick Levinson (talk) 23:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC) (Posted 11 minutes ago; now corrected what should have been a closing nowiki tag: 23:50, 19 October 2013 (UTC)) (Corrected wording & syntax & this sig block; clarified; added link; edited on trustees (my error (list item drafted before decision not to delete article's section)): 18:47, 20 October 2013 (UTC)) (Corrected phrasing, syntax, & spelling: 19:03, 20 October 2013 (UTC))


 * I added a Failed Verification tag to a statement on being registered with NYSAIS because I didn't see support for the verb. The school is listed but I'm having difficulty sorting out the various kinds of status at the NYSAIS page and which one applies to the school or if the listing is simply information about a school that is in New York. If only the latter, being in some directory is not due weight.
 * An option for the article is to add an Infobox school template. Any information in the infobox has to be in the rest of the article, too, since infoboxes are not accessible to people with visual impairments whose computers read aloud to them. Therefore, anything in the infobox and therefore in the rest of the article will need to be sourceable in the article. But not all fields have to be completed. An example of one in use is at the Harvard College article.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 20:38, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Coordinate error
The following coordinate fixes are needed for Harlem Academy. The correct coordinates are: 40.82286659475736, -73.94578481537006 I've updated them on the page, but the map is still rendering them incorrectly at its old address (1330 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10026) - the school is now located at 655 St. Nicholas Avenue, New York, NY 10030. I've also updated Open Maps and Bing Maps (though that may still be pending).

—173.54.203.32 (talk) 20:55, 27 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I've moved the template into the infobox, tweaking the coordinates slightly. The infobox map is now showing the correct location. (The former map was based on the coordinates in the school's Wikidata item, which were those of the former location; so I'm updating them in Wikidata as well.) Deor (talk) 13:43, 28 June 2022 (UTC)