Talk:Marin Academy/Archive 1

Maybe we should add some references. But it seems that the majority of the information on this school is gleaned from the collective knowledge of the people editing the page, and is not from an external source, especially a book or website.

The previous Marin Academy page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael%2C_California was becoming rather unwieldy, so I choose to put it back on its own page.

This page reads a lot like it was written by the admissions department of MA, although I think that is a problem that is widespread across wiki high school articles.. What distinguishes the selected 'notable' faculty; the existence of a website to link to? Don't get me wrong, I know both of the noted teachers and they are fine people, I just don't understand what criteria is being applied to distinguish them from any other fine teachers I can think of at MA (Mark Stefansky, James Shipman, Alison Park (who I hear is leaving?), Ken Lanik, etc.) apart from that, the language in the beginning (excepting the first graph) strikes me as the wrong voice for a wiki article. '02 represent!

Alison Park was a great teacher. Like what I did with the names and new section? It makes the page look more legit. Someone keeps deleting my changes because they don't like what I'm saying. Is that fair?

I love how this article touches on the harsh truths about MA, yet says it in such a nice way!

Music
Someone who's willing to go dig for citation should mention that school sponsored bands have been invited and reinvited to play at Warrior's games.

Lucas connection?
I just filled out some of the text referring to the physical additions at MA in the past 10 years. Does it make sense to point out the significance of contributions by George Lucas, who has pumped millions of dollars into MA over those years? On the one hand it seems notable, not just because he is such a public figure, but also because his contributions were pretty much essential in getting many of these projects off of the ground. On the other hand, I could imagine that this might be a little bit undue notice for an individual, and it might not necessarily be something that we need to draw attention to.

This is unofficial and merely speculation, and therefore cannot be placed on wikipedia.

additions
consider this article pimped!

Let us keep this article on topic
There have been a lot of edits on this page recently, and while some of them have been very well engineered, many have been contributing either off topic or unencyclopedic information. -206.13.48.3 20:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

User:Cuttycuttiercuttiest disagrees. The information is pertinent, interesting, and encyclopediac.

The information may be pertinent, interesting and encyclopedic, but it is not factual. There are only seven students in Outdoor Skills now, so I changed the 'incredibly popular' part.

PHOTO
If anyone with Wixperience could please verify the copyrite info for the picture, that would rock. User:Cuttycuttiercuttiest

Hey, the Oddysey was an excellent play with depth, character development, and a moving blues score.

Controversy
The list of controversies was too long, and not detailed enough for anyone outside of the school's immediate community to get anything out of it, so it was removed. There is certainly a lot of material to be covered there, however. Perhaps enough for a Controversies at MA article. Although not all of the material is entirely encyclopedic, therefore a more general Controversy at High Schools article would probably be better. -206.13.48.3 20:58, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
 * The list perhaps merits its own page, yet should be deleted from this one? I agree that the information presented, in it's current form, wouldn't allow for outside community members to glean much, but this could be changed if they were expanded upon. And they certainly wouldn't be able to get anything out of it if it weren't there! In short, I put the section back.

Bodie's Departure
The page does not reflect the news that Bodie, who is mentioned in the opening paragraph, is now planning to depart from MA. I learned of this from an alumni newsletter, but I don't know much at all about the plans to select a new headmaster, so I'll leave that to somebody who knows.

MA Wiki Abuse
A wiki is meant to be an evolving creation, yet I cannot possibly reconcile some of the edits that have been made here. It is offensive to see that entire sections have been deleted; that people badmouth teachers in the discussion area after removing them from the Wiki. Edits, at least, would be understandable. It is absurd to remove paragraphs of community contributions such as athletics and teacher bios when the school is indeed a reflection of these myriad components. Admittedly, the wiki does not do MA justice, but that is why we are working to develop it, not to slash parts of it in some arrogant scorn. I expect more from this community.

honestly, does anyone believe the alex harris and patrick ford part? that seems a little fishy to me.

Alex Harris and Patrick Ford?
Who even are those guys?

Someone cut a lot of it
Not sure who did it, as the IP tracks to the school's campus, but the article had a lot of good information that didn't necessarily need to be removed. There was also a link to a website I run, the Unofficial MA Forums, which didn't necessarily need to go. Mmeyers 07:01, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia only accepts information that can be verified from other sources. If you can provide sources to support the removed information, then I fully support adding it to the article again. -64.142.65.33 00:21, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

First of all, I can say what I want in the discussion page. And if I think Alison Park was a bad teacher, I'll say it. She was never on the main page, she didn't DESERVE to be there. Second of all, why all this whining? Lets just bring it all back, ya dig? Cuttycuttiercuttiest 19:36, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

Unnecessary info
I still think that this article has a lot of unnecessary information, especially names. The point of a wiki article on MA should be to describe the school, not to give various people (students and faculty alike) name checks. I'll reiterate my question from some months ago about the 'noted faculty' - what makes them so notable from an NPOV perspective? Remember that articles are meant to be verifiable, so noted teachers should be limited to folks that have been recognized in some way beyond the MA community - besides being ridiculously subjective, I don't think that being a 'beloved teacher' is notable, nor is starting an oceanography class or having participated in a community art exhibit notable enough for these standards. The head of the article is a fine example of what I think should be strived for in the rest of the piece. The rest is really lacking. Lets consider that people who are not involved with Marin Academy at all are reading this article - are all of these bits of information (for instance, which college a previous captain of the soccer team is attending or who the members of the cross country squad are) significant for their understanding of Marin Academy? Are the lists of student senate officers necessary? Perhaps listing the current officers would be acceptable, but I haven't found another high school article that contains a history of previous officers. Maybe some will think it's harsh to strip names of MA community members from the article, but it is important that they are significant to the broader understanding of Marin Academy from an encyclopaedic point of view. The page doesn't exist to validate some alumni or current students position in the past - get over it. I don't want to keep an edit war going, but I think that the named individuals worth retaining are limited to people like Bodie, current student senate officers and a stripped down version of 'notable alumni' (I'd potentially strike this from the page as well, however it does appear to be common to other high school wiki pages, so I'll begrudgingly tolerate it - still I'd break it down to something like 'Chris Ford and Andrew Hasse ('98) - Filmmakers' or 'Peter Som ('89) - Fashion Designer')

I agree with this other person. Way too much unnecessary information. It is almost like someone is trying to make fun of the school by making the article so unprofessional. -129.22.98.118 21:36, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I went in and made some of the changes that have been talked about in this section of the talk page, including removing the sports and notable faculty sections as well as trimming the notable alumni section. I also rearranged the sections to put the less important lists at the end of the article instead of near the top. I left Changes at MA and Controversy sections intact, although if I was being more thorough I would probably at least heavily rewrite them, if not remove them entirely. I think that this has improved the article, but am open to discussion on reinstating some of the removed information.

I think that the Changes and Controversy sections should be removed because they are too heavily dependent on opinion. Perhaps a section on student-administration disagreement would be more appropriate if anyone wants to write that. Additionally, Marin Academy has some pretty decent sports teams. For example, the volleyball team did perform very well a couple years ago. -129.22.42.111 01:06, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, it seems like this whole article has been stripped, which definitely has some advantages, but it really doesn't say anything at all. It's pretty pointless right now.

Extremely Slanted
Currently the article is very slanted and needs to be revised. Mmeyers 01:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree, there have been a number of recent edits that appear to be quite embittered and obviously totally unacceptable for an encyclopedia. I will do my best to clear some of it up but will leave the neutrality check tag up until we reach some agreement here on the talk page. Methinks there is a disgruntled current student having their way with the wiki page. Cuffeparade 06:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I did a little bit of editing of the most egregious parts (references to police states, for instance), but I let a few parts that I think are a bit outrageous stand with fact tags. Whoever is making those edits, please do try to provide some kind of source for these mysterious people that you claim feel the way that they do, perhaps there have been articles or editorials in the Voice that may apply? Also, I added a fact tag to the entry on the new rule of the library. I don't necessarily doubt that this could be true (I've had some trouble in the past with librarians at MA), but I would like to have a few current MA students attest to this in a less inflammatory manner if possible. Cuffeparade 06:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I've removed speculation and weasel-wordism. The article looks to be in better, more neutral shape now.  JDoorj a m     Talk 21:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Changes at MA
Regarding the message left in the Changes at MA section - I am totally willing to believe that MA 'as we knew it' has changed a lot. I think that it was a common complaint from every senior class (beginning before I got there) that the school was changing, that it was 'losing its artistic roots', that each new crop of freshmen represented the 'death of MA'. I'm sure that this trend has gone on, and I don't mean to suggest that there have not in fact been real changes to the attitude and methods of education there. I think that is valuable information, and it can be included in the article, but it needs to be done in an appropriate manner, and according to Wikipedia's guidelines. If there is a website devoted to hating MA (I'd be interested to see a link), maybe that can be included or mentioned to provide evidence for this backlash. I am totally open to criticism of the school in the article, it just needs to be done appropriately (in other words, without bashing people). Cuffeparade 05:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)