Talk:John Lyon School

NPOV
This article is filled with POV claims, especially the Recent history section. I have reverted some obvious treatises against individuals named in the article, but know nothing about this school, and therefore cannot judge the relative validity of many edits. -- Scientizzle 21:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Seems someone is intent on adding a rant about the individual Dr Ray at any opportunity, constantly ignoring neutrality. The same chunk of text has had to be deleted again and again.  -- Walter88 01:52, 11 May 2006 (BST)


 * My final minor edit gets balance even better. No more from me. stormininormin


 * Good work stomininormin, I've edited the Ray and Rimmer entries, because the Ray entry possibly wasn't sensitive to the fact that he did have his supporters, and the Rimmer one was filled with a rather blatant positive PR quote (which I've replaced with a more subtle reference mark) Walter88 19:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


 * OL, I've taken into consideration what you said and also read the report and have elaborated on the report's content, but I think people with genuine interest in the report will click on the link provided. My main reason for removing the quote was because it didn't quite fit in with the flow of the article as well as wikipedia generally discouraging the use of cutting and pasting large chunks of source material as quotations. I hope my changes have made it satisfactory. Walter88 17:17, 9 December 2006 (UTC)


 * It might be an idea, regarding the recent controversey surrounding him, to give Dr Ray an article of his own and so separate how he is presented from John Lyon School, obviously many people have strong opinions about him and giving him a separate page would allow these to be discussed side by side, allowing criticisims to be presented. Your thoughts? 84.92.246.41 19:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)


 * That would be boring. Also not what Wikipedia is for. Storminormin.


 * Walter's link to Inspection report removed. Why?  Have put it back in: need reason to keep this inportant information about school out.

Johann Hari
I agree that this is more like a PR statement than a Wikipeadia entry. it is revealing somebody keeps deleting a negative comment by an alumnus, Johan Hari, for no good reason -- DR


 * I removed the Hari comments for a number of reasons:
 * Firstly, the comment has no citation. Saying he said it on Radio 4 is all well and good, but can someone remember the show, date, and programme?
 * Secondly, even if it did have a citation I still have problems with the comment because I do not feel its NPOV. The article has rightly removed positive POV such as "As such, the school enjoys an excellent reputation amongst the locals and some neighbouring North London boroughs." My feeling is that if positive POV is not allowed in an article, then negative POV also needs to be removed.  Hari's comments seem to fall constitute a negative POV
 * Thirdly, I do not think alumni POVs really have a place in an encyclopaedia article. I would not have a problem with Hari's opinion being expressed on Hari's own entry - but it does not seem to have a place in this article because I think it invites the incorporation of all alumni POVs to be expressed in the article, which would make NPOV harder to maintain, and our jobs as editors harder. -- MS 11:36, 27 Sept 2006 (BST)

Thanks for posting here rather than just deleting again. To address your points:

(1) He said it on Radio 5, July 9th, at 10pm. (I know because I e-mailed him to ask and then checked it against the scedules).

(2) You have misunderstood the point about POV. The argument is not that there should be no points of view in a wiki entry - of course there are, just look at any entry about any contentious subject at all - but that the points of view should be (a) those of a clearly attributed and sourced person, not inserted anonymously into the entry and (b) not asserted as if they were objective facts. This matches those conditions.

I don't think your comparisson with the POV sentence that was deleted stands. The problem with the statement "As such, the school enjoys an excellent reputation amongst the locals and some neighbouring North London boroughs" was that it was inserted into the entry as a fact, when it is clearly a POV. If it had said, "One local newspaper, the Harrow Times (or whatever), has recently said 'the school enjoys an excellent reputation'" etc, that would be fine. It would be an attributed POV in a quote, as Hari's is, which is acceptable and indeed informative.

(3) If you know of contrary points of view, by all means post them, but it is simply false to say because you cite one alumni POV you have to cite all of them. All over wiki there are attributed comments on all sorts of things, and it would be crazy to say if you have to quote one interested party you have to quote every single interested party ever. Nothing would ever be posted on wikipedia on that principle.

I hope this answers your concerns. -- Jonti.


 * I take it that I may have misinterpreted NPOV as such, but my feeling was that POVs were vital to contentious and subjective issues such as art, films, music etc - and I didn't really think it applied to something as trivial as a private school. If it does apply - then fair enough.
 * There are a couple of issues though - may I suggest that the comment be moved from the History section? It does not seem to fit with the flow of the article. Perhaps move it back to the alumni section?  Secondly, could you put the citation as a footnote? Because someone else may well delete that comment in the absence of a citation.  -- MS

Relationship with Harrow School
I have altered the first paragraph since it is clearly inaccurate to describe it as "part of Harrow school", both websites make it clear this is not the case. This is not a PR brochure.

Somebody called 'Felix-Fleix' is trying to alter this because he has a strange bias against Johann Hari, a journalist who once attended the school, and an agenda to suggest hilariously that Hari attended Harrow School! Anybody interested should go to the discussion on Hari's wiki entry to see a long history of 'Fleix-Fleix' vandalising Hari's wiki entry, hurling hysterical insults at him, insulting anybody else who posts in disagreement, etc. I will keep reverting to this more accurate first para unless given good arguments against, and ask all people who post here to be alert to Felix's vandalism David r from meth productions 16:23, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Grow up dave-altering this article to try and win a pathetic argument on the Johann Hari page is low, even for you. hence my revert.Felix-felix 16:36, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

I urge people to read the discussion and see that Felix's position is based on personal anium against Hari, abusing him as a "tyke" etc, and that I am simply trying to make this entry factually correct. David r from meth productions 10:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * What's wrong with the entry, dave? Are you interested in improving this article, or in boosting Johann Hari's credibility and web presence? I'm pretty sure that most wikipedians can tell which one.Please desist.Felix-felix 16:23, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I have reworded the intro because I don't think John Lyon can really be described as part of Harrow School, although the schools do share a lot of history and maintain strong ties. Although I would like to ask, why does Hari's opinion of the school warrant a place in an encyclopaedia article? I'm an alumnus, does that mean I can add my opinion too? 18:45, 10 November 2006 (UTC)Walter88


 * If you have daver on your side, it would seem to!Felix-felix 07:21, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I like your intro Walter, I think it's a really good compromise between Felix and me.

Re: Hari's view, I think the views of prominent alumni about a school are pretty relevant but I wouldn't go to the stake to defend it. if you're going to list him as an alumni then it seems interesting to add that he hates the place - Dave


 * Lots of people hate school and no other alumni get comments in. Thus I've removed it. Oh, remember to sign in, dave.Felix-felix 08:18, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

If other alumni have views, they are relevant. if you're going to list a person as an alumni, it is relevant information to say they are extremely critical. I will have a google around and see if I can find comments by other alumni to add, but even in their absence, hari's view is interesting. Either remove him as alumni, or leave the entry with comment. David r from meth productions 00:13, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Excellent idea, dave-until you come up with a comments by alumni section, I'll remove the comment by Hari.He should remain in the list of alumni, however.Felix-felix 11:10, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't had time to do it yet (I have a job!) but I didn't say that keeping Hari's comment was cvontingent upon loads of otehr comments.

It is not a matter of "hating school", but of Hari being critical of one particular school while ptraising all the others. I think you've misunderstood... I'm putting it back unless you can make a stronger case than the one you've made so far.


 * Yup, as above, it's not remarkable and there are no other comments.Will remove again.Please sign inFelix-felix 15:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Just so anyone reading through this is aware, 'Felix-Felix' is somebody who obsessively obstructs and alters anything to do with Johann hari. he has called him "a little tyke", inserted blatant falsehoods into his entry, insulted anybody who defends him with the charge of being a sock-puppet, and is currently engaged in trying to paste a laughably unflattering picture of Hari into his entry. (See the discussion page there for proof for all this). I am afraid the alteration he is trying to make here is therefore not in good faith, so I'm reverting it and will continue to do so.David r from meth productions 20:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)


 * We've talked about WP:assume good faith before dave. There's no reason to keep inserting Haris comments unless you actually write a comments by alumni section. Until then, out it goes.Felix-felix 08:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

One does not have to carry on assuming good faith after somebody has described the person they are editing a section about as "a little tyke"; there is no assumption of good faith for vandals on wikipedia, it would make the system unmanageable.

You have repeatedly failed to show an assumption of good faith towards others, accusing literally everyone who disagrees with you of being a sockpuppet; it is hilarious that you are trying to now wave this rule at me now. David r from meth productions 22:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * David, no offence, but regardless of Felix's opinion of Johann Hari, I still don't see the relevance of his opinion in this article. Felix is not the only person deleting this comment, so it can't be blamed on his alleged anti-Hari bias.  I think I can summarise why people are deleting the comment because simply put the alumni section of any school article is intended as a list to show who attended the school.  Hari's presence on this list is not an implicit endorsement of the school.  It's just saying he went there.  Therefore there is no need to compensate by saying he thinks the school is 'appalling'.  If Hari thinks it is, fine - but I think it should stay on his article page - why?  Because this is a list, and no one is going to jump to the conclusion that Hari or any alumnus is endorsing the school because they went to it.  The majority of people don't know who Hari is, let alone know or care about his opinions, and if they do care about them, then chances are they'll seek his opinion on his article. PS. David, I'm glad you approve of the first paragraph, but sadly I can't take full credit (if any) - I think my contributions were lost.  Walter88 11:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Views of Alumni
Just noticed the Alumni list, having been alerted the other day to the so-called 'fact' that Angus Fraser, the former England cricketer, attended JL. As a cricket writer who knows Angus well, this astonished me. He did NOT go to my alma mater. He did attend the nearby Gayton High, as did his brother Alastair. As a fan of Green Room, I'm delighted to learn that the marvellous Julian Rhind-Tutt is an old boy, and would like to point that another was weatherman Michael Fish, best known for failing to detect the approaching storm of 1987.(Rob Steen, JL 1969-76)

As it stands, this section is pretty poor, I think either it should be expanded or got rid of-I would favour the latter. Any ideas?Felix-felix 15:50, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I refer everyone to to discussion above to find Felix's motives for this. The Johann hari page is currently frozen because of Felix's persistent editing of whole sections, defying consensus and wiki rules. (Now he has to justify any proposed changes in the talk section rather than unilaterally impose his will, he has gone mysteriously quiet there).

If you cut it Felix, I will restore it and apply for adjudication, pointing out your record towards anything to do with Johann Hari. This is now bordering on cyber-stalking

If you wish to expand the section to improve it by finding the views of more alumni, then that would be very welcome and we could build a consesus around that David r from meth productions 00:29, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think that I'm afraid of adjuication, dave? I'm not the one wikispamming other articles with spurious Hari related material.I think that the article could be improved by removing the section altogether, as outlined above.Felix-felix 18:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said above, I don't see the relevance of ANY alumni POVs irrespective of whether they are complimentary or degrogatory. If you look at any encyclopaedia article of a school (including those on Wikipedia), they do not reference alumni POVs. Therefore this section and any reference to alumni POVs should be cut out otherwise you'll open the floodgates for any alumnus (eg myself) to start adding their views on the school, which we all know would not be NPOV Walter88 18:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
 * It's removed now.Felix-felix 23:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Just how selective and exceptional?

 * a highly selective day school for pupils of exceptional academic abilities.

Is this true? Is it an appropriate comment? I don't know anything about this school. In fact, I was only vaguely aware of its existence. Is it more selective than Winchester or St Paul's or a top-flight state grammar school like St Olave's? Does it take five new boys a year and all of them have an IQ of over 180? Do 90 percent of its alumni become fellows of All Souls or chess grandmasters? My guess is that it's an ordinary good private school whose pupils do fairly well academically. Indeed, this is given away by that fact that some of its old boys go on to Oxford or Cambridge and the rest tend to head for other universities in the top ten - whose top ten? (there are five or six main league tables and these change every year). I suppose it means they go to UCL, LSE, Imperial, York, Warwick, Bristol, Edinburgh, where most of them get a 2.1 or a 1st, maybe the odd 2.2 or 3rd, or they even drop out. So I suggest somebody changes this to something more accurate, or I might do it myself.--Oxonian2006 (talk) 21:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 2 one external links on The John Lyon School. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110720115827/http://www.johnlyon.org/content/view/145/49/ to http://www.johnlyon.org/content/view/145/49/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20110720115905/http://www.johnlyon.org/files/autumn2006.pdf to http://www.johnlyon.org/files/autumn2006.pdf

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External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 4 one external links on The John Lyon School. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120310054615/http://www.johnlyon.org/files/spring2007.pdf to http://www.johnlyon.org/files/spring2007.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120225075350/http://www.johnlyon.org/files/winter0506.pdf to http://www.johnlyon.org/files/winter0506.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120225075345/http://www.johnlyon.org/content/view/219/49/ to http://www.johnlyon.org/content/view/219/49/
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