User:MatthewVanitas/Guidelines for South Asia villages and towns articles

NOTE: I AM USING WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines AS A BASELINE TO CREATE A NEW POLICY

Coordinators

The WikiProject Asia Guidelines for South Asia villages and towns articles describes how the content of articles on villages and towns of South Asia should be organised, with the aim of providing general guidance to editors. It is recommended that they be read fully before starting a new article, in particular, the notability section.

Notability

 * Populated-places articles are exempt from speedy deletion criterion A7.

In practise, articles about populated places should not be deleted if the community is documented to exist in any WP:Reliable source, such as a government document, news article, or academic book. Individual articles must usually meet either the Wikipedia general notability guideline or the organizations and companies subject-specific notability guideline – note that the notability requirement is to pass one of the two guidelines; there is no obligation to pass both. It has been the subject of years of discussion on how school articles should fit into this guidelines, with many proposals having been made for a specific guideline on school article notability such as Notability (schools). Due to a lack of general consensus, many standards are now observed by regular editors who clean-up articles or propose them for merging or deletion.

General tips
THIS IS HOW FAR I HAVE GOTTEN IN CREATING THE NEW GUIDELINE. MatthewVanitas (talk) 19:04, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) Start your article in  your sandbox especially  if  it's your first  Wikipedia article, before you  post  it  to  the main  page where everyone in  the world will  see it immediately. If you  are not  sure how to do this, ask  a schools project member from  the lists at  Talk:WikiProject Asia.
 * 2) Style. keep the prose 'tight'. This is an encyclopedia—avoid the use of familiar language, contractions (it's, he's, don't, etc.), and magazine or blog style. Do  not use personal terms like "you" or "we", nor use terms implying you are speaking from inside the subject, such as "this town" or "here in Foo...".
 * 3) Avoid "peacock" (praise) terms. Do not use generic opinion phrases such as "Foo is a wonderful place" or "in Foo everyone lives in harmony". These do not truly inform the reader as to what makes "Foo" special and distinctive. Instead, use statements made about Foo by newspapers, academics, and other such outside observers who notice interesting and distinctive things about "Foo".
 * 4) Avoid stubs. Only add villages and towns that you are willing to do basic research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Don't automatically assume that someone else is interested enough in your town to finish it for you. Under certain conditions, very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost.
 * 5) Avoid short sections. Consider combining sentences in to flowing paragraphs of prose. Remember that books don't have one-line chapters. Section headings are large and too many in a small area make the page look ugly. Delete empty sections.
 * 6) Avoid ambiguity. Ensure you include the district and country of your town/village in the lead section, in the very first sentence. Wikipedia is read worldwide, and not everyone speaks the same English as you; some words have very different meanings in different countries.  Dates should always be written out in full i.e. 4 July 1984 in the body as well as in inline references. Abbreviations must be written out in full at the first occurrence; do not say "UP" (Uttar Pradesh) or "NWFP" (Northwest Frontier Province) and just assume that readers in Mozambique, Argentina, and Iceland will automatically know what you are talking about! Ensure that that local/national terminology must be explained or wiki-linked, such as panchayat, tehsil, lakh, etc.
 * 7) Write a strong lead. Be sure to write a lead that concisely summarizes the town/village into one or two paragraphs which make sense to someone who may know nothing about the location in question, and remember to include the country where the place is located.
 * 8) Support your contributions. Before you start an article on a school, or make additions, it is strongly suggested you first have an adequate amount of verifiable information about the community readily available, written in reliable published sources, independent of the place. This will make meeting the recommended content requirements far easier than trying to find all the information after you have already started the article (or hoping others will). Do not just write thing "everybody knows", because that will leave the reader with no easy way to verify that what you have written is accurate. Information is only as good as the sources that you provide.
 * 9) Images.: Images of the community are an outstanding addition to any town/village article. However, make sure that the images are as distinctive as possible for informing a reader. For example, a photograph of someone's house with car in front looks no different from a thousand towns in the region, but a photo of the main town square, or a photo taken from a high place overlooking the town, or a photo taken as you enter the town which shows local signs and some of the surrounding environment (mountains, jungles, desert) helps the reader to imagine the place. Do not use an excessive number of images, but do the best you can to choose a few of the very most expressive visual representations of the town.


 * 1) Infobox. Wikipedia Infoboxes are an important element  of many page types. They provide an overview of essential school information in  a format  that  is common to  all  school  articles. (See the main infobox section below). Flag icons should not be used.
 * 2) Go back to your new article in a day or two to see if it has been tagged for you to do something urgent to it. Someone might even have listed it for deletion.
 * 3) Return to your article frequently. A Wikipedia article, like all encyclopedias, is always a work in progress. Heads change, the number of students changes, new inspections are published, some former students (alumni) become famous, and someone may have changed your edits and damaged your work.
 * 4) Avoid bulk additions. The mass creation of short school articles is strongly discouraged  and can even cause authors to be blocked for disruptive editing.
 * 5) Get help! post a question  at  WP:WPSCH/H or check out the various lists of coordinators and active members of this project at WP:WPSCH/P and don't hesitate to ask for help on their talk page, many of them are beginners too and you can help each other, while some of the  lists  are of really  cool  experts who  just  love to  help  out.
 * 6) Be bold! If you have already edited Wikipedia pages, you probably know what perfect articles look like. They cover everything they should without going on forever. Common sense could have told you almost all of the items mentioned above. Ultimately, assume good faith and go out there and write some good articles!

Neutral point of view
Take care to maintain a neutral point of view when describing a school. It is especially important to avoid vague praise, and overly descriptive adjectives, even if sourced. Avoid mission statements and goals. They are generally promotional.

Avoid comparing schools (sports results, exam results) to introduce rivalry or to promote the school. Although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Avoid academic boosterism also applies here. Some examples that have been found in the past:


 * "School X has had a long and glorious tradition."
 * "School X has been consistently been ranked as one of the top public high schools in both the state and country."
 * "School X has one of the lowest admissions rates in the country."
 * "School X has 98% A-level passes, school Y 12 miles away has 75%."

Structure
Follow the Wikipedia Manual of Style and only make links that are relevant to the context. Days, months and years should not be linked in school articles unless the inclusion of such a link is of specific relevance to the article, and if a complete date is required, write the date in full, e.g.: 5 November 1985.

The key to writing a good school article is to explain why the school is unique. What makes it different from every other school? Does it have special programs? A history of championship sports teams? Famous alumni? Has there been a noteworthy event there?

Sections of the article
The following section names are for guidance only, and may be adjusted to suit local spelling, custom, and organization. Do not use very short sections; very short articles are best kept to a single section only and avoids unnecessary page clutter.

Infobox
All school articles should have an infobox. This gives readers quick, concise information about the subject.

Selecting the correct Infobox
Please see the complete listing of infobox templates. Select the one that appears to be most specific to your subject. Please use one of the existing templates; do not create a new infobox template for any school subject without discussing it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools first. Please do not copy and use infoboxes from other school pages, they may well be the wrong ones, or older deprecated versions. Also note that infoboxes contain programme code that  you  cannot  see, it is essential that you read the relative infobox documentation and the examples. Below are some shortcuts to the most common templates used for primary and secondary schools:

Infobox contents
Provide the basic details about the school, include a street address, and the name of the county (UK, USA), state/province (Australia, Canada, India, USA, etc.), Landkreis (Germany, Austria), Département (France), canton (Switzerland) etc., Post Code/Zip, and geographical coordinates. For the UK, use the constituent country: England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales - these countries have their own governments/assemblies and education departments.


 * Avoid including:
 * Contact details such as phone, fax, email. (policy)
 * Deputy heads/principals (policy)
 * Deputy chairpersons
 * Temporary positions
 * Pre and post nominals (CEO, Dr, BA, BSc, MA, PhD, etc.)
 * Mr, Mrs, Ms, Miss, unless the gender is not obvious. For example John F. Doe or Mary Bloggs or J. Doe (Ms) or M. Bloggs (Mr). (Note that as marital status can change and is not necessary to know, for females it is always more correct to use 'Ms'.
 * Flag icons


 * Do include:
 * A referenced source for the number of students, or at least the year in brackets i.e. (2007) including for faculty and other information that is annually (e.g. budget, student to teacher ratio, teaching staff, or graduates). Round up or down to the nearest 10, and use the abbreviation approx if only very appropriate (optional).
 * The school motto. If it is not in English, use the appropriate language template, for example for Latin use motto goes here and then provide a translation.
 * The school's crest, logo, seal, emblem or coat of arms (generally not larger than about 150 pixels). You can either copy  this from a school's website or scan it  from  a school document. You  must  provide a source,  and for the licence on the upload form, choose logo in the drop down menu for the copyright  licences, and copy and paste this fair use rationale in the fair use/description field:


 * Though this image is subject to copyright, its use is covered by the U.S. fair use laws, and :the stricter requirements of Wikipedia's non-free content policies, because:
 * Source:  [http:// school website]  Retrieved DD/month/year
 * It illustrates an educational article about the entity that the logo represents.
 * The image is used as a school infobox illustration.
 * It is a low resolution image, and thus not suitable for production of counterfeit goods.
 * The logo is not used in such a way that a reader would be confused into believing that the article is written or authorized by the owner of the logo.
 * It is not replaceable with an uncopyrighted or freely copyrighted image of comparable educational value.

Other sections


School district and list of schools articles
Should you wish to create or improve an article on a school district or create a list of schools article, a fine example can be found at Dallas Independent School District, and a list at List of schools of the Dallas Independent School District. A less complicated example list is List of Clark County School District schools.

What not to include
School articles should only contain material of encyclopaedic interest; lists should be kept to a minimum; prose with context to the individual school is preferred. Remember that Wikipedia is not a directory, a host of primary source material, or a place for advertising.

Any mention of living people must conform with the biography of living persons policy, including the presumption in favour of privacy. While naming the head teacher or principal is permitted, lists or detailed information about current or former pupils, parents of current or former pupils, administrative staff, school secretaries, teachers etc. is usually inappropriate. Special care should be taken in regards to the mention of individual pupils or providing information that would allow individual pupils to be identified (particularly where they are underage); such disclosures should only occur in exceptional circumstances.

School articles should also specifically not include:


 * Excessive amounts of detail about the school uniform or dress code, unless it has seen significant coverage in multiple third-party sources. However, the uniform may still be mentioned briefly without this level of coverage, particularly if it is unusual;
 * Trivia which is only of interest to pupils in the school (such as school timetables, bell schedules, class-by-class rules, daily lunch menus, location of the toilets, or a room-by-room description of the school facilities);
 * Current school events which are only of short-term interest;
 * Telephone numbers, fax numbers, and e-mail addresses (postal addresses are acceptable in infoboxes);
 * Country or regional flags, including within infoboxes;
 * Lists of colleges and universities that have accepted students from the school;
 * Copies of the school's mission statement, aims, or goals – these are generally considered promotional;
 * Comparisons of sports results, exam results, etc. between schools which introduces rivalry, unless third-party reliable sources themselves make such comparisons; otherwise this is a form of original research. Such content can also be considered promotional, and although written for colleges and universities, the advice in Avoid academic boosterism also applies here;
 * The lyrics of the school song. However, the lyrics may be placed on Wikisource and linked to from the article using if it can be verified that the song is in the public domain or has been released by the copyright holder under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence. See Public domain and Non-U.S. copyrights for guidance on when material will enter the public domain.

Applicable categories
Try to avoid overcategorization. Generally all of Category:Education, but especially articles in the subcategories of


 * Category:High schools and secondary schools by country for secondary schools and high schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state, county or region
 * Category:Middle schools for middle schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state or region
 * Category:Elementary and primary schools for elementary or primary schools, divided by country and then subdivided by state, county or region
 * Category:Private schools for private (non–government run) schools
 * Category:Educational institutions by year of establishment categorized by year the school was founded, divided by century, decade, and then year.
 * Category:School districts (for schools in Australia, Canada, and the USA)

See also:


 * List of schools by country
 * List of the oldest schools in the world
 * Category:Education by country
 * Category:Public education in the United States for American public school (government-run) systems and broader public education topics, divided by state.

History
Some schools have published histories. Check the online catalogue at WorldCat. For UK schools the best reference is COPAC. Smaller schools might not have deposited a school history with one of the major deposit libraries so check the catalogue of the relevant local library (most are now online). Even if you do not live in the locality it is possible to borrow any book for a modest fee via the inter-library loan system

Many schools have buildings which are of architectural importance. Some English schools have been classified by English Heritage as listed buildings and are included on the Images of England website, while some American schools are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Australia

 * My School is a website administered by the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) which provides access to information about Australian schools.
 * SchoolChoice provides information on a number of New South Wales and Victorian schools (mostly private schools), including history, enrolment numbers, facilities, location and occasionally alumni. Please note that fees and revenue information should not be included in Australian school articles.
 * Australian Boarding Schools' Association has a fairly comprehensive listing of boarding schools in all the states of Australia. Includes introductory information about schools, enrolment statistics, contact details and year levels offered.
 * Australian Schools Directory Provides fairly detailed information on schools with featured pages.

United Kingdom
(Note: Following major changes in UK government in 2010, some some UK agencies have changes their focus and/or their websites. See also: Independent School Inspections.)
 * England: Schools are inspected by Ofsted. Reports are online and as PDF. In 2010/2011 many  UK  school  with  'outstanding' Grades were awarded Academy status. Ofsted Unique reference Numbers (URN) have been changed and new reports should be obtained from Ofsted - Academy Converters. Independent (private) schools are inspected by the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI).
 * Schools finder is a government site and has detailed statistics for English schools including the size of the school, the school profile if available, and a link to the school’s Ofsted report.
 * EduBase is a government site and has details on schools past, present, and future.
 * Most English county councils and district councils have comprehensive websites which provide details of school admissions policies and other useful information. The Department for Education has a local authorities address finder.
 * The Department for Education website has comprehensive statistics including school performance tables and local statistics about education.
 * The Department for Education standards website, which contained comprehensive lists of Beacon Schools, academies, and specialist schools, has been "decommissioned" following the United Kingdom general election, 2010, and an archive can be found here.


 * Northern Ireland: Schools are inspected by DfE NI Schools, and by  ETI. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by ETI.
 * Scotland: Schools are inspected by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Education (HMIE). Information on all Scotland's schools is provided by Scottish Schools Online. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by HMIE.
 * Wales: Schools are inspected by Estyn. Stats are published by the Welsh Government Assembly. More information on  Welsh schools is also provided by Schools in Wales. ISC-member independent schools are inspected by Estyn.

Awards
(Note: These are examples only and the list is not intended to be exhaustive. Contributors are welcome to add other notable international or national awards here so that they can be researched and used by other school article editors.)

Awards should only be mentioned if they themselves are notable. Not all awards are genuine awards. Local awards for Beautiful Gardens around the schoolyard, or Good Food for the school canteen do not really count.

In the United Kingdom, information on awards is available at UK teaching awards, and at School Achievement Award Scheme. Budget allocations for a Specialism College (in the UK) are not items for the 'Awards' section.

In the United States, information on awards is available at Blue Ribbon Schools Program run by the United States Department of Education and at Blue Ribbon Schools of Excellence Program (BRSE). See also Wikipedia article: Blue Ribbon Schools Program.

In Australia, the Citizenship Award Order of Australia in Queensland confers awards to primary and secondary schools in Queensland each year. Such awards could contribute to the level of notability required for primary school articles. People's Choice Awards gives one prize per year for a school  video from  over 1,100 registered contenders.

Global: The International School Award for cross-cultural school  projects is administered by the British Council in the UK and with  partners in many other countries.

Alumni
All alumni information must be referenced. See Footnoting for technical help. Individual alumni need a citation to a) verify that they did indeed attend the school, and b) verify the statement of their notability in their short one or two line description. When alumni have their own articles in mainspace, it is not necessary for their notability to be referenced, as long as it is done in the biographical articles. Be sure to check the existing biography article to ensure that it demonstrates alumni status with a cited reference.

Per Bio, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria. All alumni meeting these criteria are to be included on an alumni list, regardless of how much time they have spent on a school roll, from one day to several years, and whether or not they graduated.
 * Who should be included?

The Manual of Style (embedded lists) guideline invites consideration of whether information might be more appropriately presented in list or prose form. As the notable alumni of a school typically form an assorted group with little in common, describing all of them in prose would be clumsy. Unless there are very few notable alumni, lists are recommended as the most accessible way of presenting all of them. Adding a prose summary is encouraged, particularly if the list is split off as a separate article.
 * Style of entries

Entries should be bulleted and have a very brief description of their notability. Links to articles related to an entry are encouraged, but beware of overlinking, for example if many alumni have entered parliament, there is no need to link to the parliament of a certain country more than once. After a description, state when they graduated or what years they attended.

Alumni may be categorized alphabetically, or according to the field that made them famous: e.g. politics, medicine, academia. It is acceptable to list someone in more than one field, provided that this is mentioned in a side note. Add something like: "(Also listed in sport)".

As all alumni who attended a school for any amount of time must be included across all alumni articles, some attendees will have attended more than one school. Place in brackets the name of any other schools that they attended.


 * Most Rev Sir Marcus Loane KBE, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney (1966–1982) (also attended King's School)

If a list of alumni in a school article becomes quite large, consider moving it to another page entitled "List of...". It is not necessary to include "notable" in the article title, as all articles in the mainspace need to follow notability guidelines. Have a look at other alumni pages in Category:Lists of people by school affiliation, for an example of a separate alumni page see List of Old Malvernians with its summary. If the alumni are listed in a separate article, the alumni section in the school article should link to the list article and provide a brief summary. See Harrow School or Baltimore City College for examples of such summaries.
 * Separate alumni pages;

Alumni to be included should meet Wikipedia notability criteria, and must be verifiable; a biography page in Wikipedia that does not provide a source cannot be used as a reference. The following is a list of external sources which contain notable alumni from various schools. Ideally this should be used for sources that are selective (separating the most notable from the rest of the alumni). When using information from one of these sources, always try to confirm it with another source (such as a newspaper article specifically about the person) and don't automatically assume any source is comprehensive, even in its field of expertise. Ideally you should confirm something from both sides (e.g. the school acknowledges the individual, and the individual acknowledges the school).
 * Notable alumni sources;

International sources

 * Australian Dictionary of Biography – The Australian Dictionary of Biography has a quite comprehensive database of notable Australians. Most bios seem to mention the person's high school and university (if applicable).

Athletes:
 * United States
 * The Baseball Cube has a very extensive database of baseball players, with the data searchable by city, high school, college, team, etc.
 * National High School Baseball Coaches Association contains lists of BCA award winners back to 1992, including National Senior Players of the Year Winners, Coaches of the Year and Assistant Coaches of the Year (by District), and National Groundskeeper/Field of the Year; District and National High School Baseball Coaches Association All American Teams, 2005 through 2007; National, District, and BCA/Louisville Slugger State Players of Year. The BCA Hall Of Fame lists coaches inducted after meeting criteria, including 20 years of varsity coaching experience, and being elected.
 * Women's United Soccer Association – Each players biography seems to have the high school the player attended.

Local sources:
 * Boston Public Schools – Includes various notable people like Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. Lists about a dozen schools.
 * Baltimore County Public Schools – Already partly used for Dulaney High School, but not all names could be used yet, either because their notability isn't confirmed, or a particular school doesn't have an article.

Other less reliable sources:
 * Celebrity Prep Schools – This appears to rely heavily on tips. So you probably shouldn't use it as a single source, but once you get two names (famous person and school), it might be easier to find a better more reliable source.

Use this sub-page for recording school alumni who can't yet be placed in an article (e.g. the school article doesn't exist yet). When an article is made, the info can be moved there. By linking from this sub-page, somebody who creates the article would see this in the backlinks.
 * Individual alumni information;