User talk:Alex van d

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Welcome to Wikipedia, Alex van d! Thank you for your contributions. I am Swarm and have been editing Wikipedia for quite some time, so if you have any questions feel free to leave me a message on my talk page. You can also check out Questions or type at the bottom of this page. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Also, when you post on talk pages you should sign your name using four tildes ( ~ ); that will automatically produce your username and the date. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!
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Hello
Honestly, telling students to start articles on schools they have attended is probably not a good idea, and the majority of them will get deleted, and the students will end up not having a good experience. People who haven't taken the time to learn about Wikipedia misunderstand the goals and basic policies here usually have their first article or two deleted because they don't comply with the guidelines. When I started here, over 5 years ago, same thing, the first few articles were deleted. It would be better to talk to experienced editors here first, and preferably administrators, to get some guidance and ideas before making assignments on Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't require it in any way, but everyone here would want it to be successful and a pleasant experience, and could offer tips to make sure it was.

What does and does not pass criteria is laid out in the guidelines (yes, there are lots of them...) The guidelines themselves are decided by the editors, all of us that want to participate in the discussion, based on a consensus of opinions over time. We had to draw the line somewhere, and we decided High School was the lowest level. In part, it was because it is the highest level of education that many people get, and it made an easy "lowest common denominator". That was years ago. It can be changed, but changing things like this take time, often months or a year, and only after following the process to change the guidelines, including many public discussions. It looks like something between anarchy and a bureaucracy to those who aren't familiar, and even to us on the inside. But it works. It is fluid enough for change, but stable enough that editors can depend on it.

As to a Christian school not having a school district, then if the school wasn't notable (via WP:N) then it would either be deleted, or perhaps redirected to an article by the sponsoring Church or organization. Often it will be merged, meaning some of the content will be put into that main article, as a section on that school, then the name is redirected to that organization. While the school might not be notable, it may still be worth mentioning in a larger article on an institution that IS notable, via the guidelines. This is very common. Examples are characters in a TV show. The TV show may be very notable and famous, but not every individual character is by themselves.

What I want to stress is that no one is trying to delete articles to be mean, single out your school, or be difficult. Rather, there are thousands and thousands of articles that are created every week on Wikipedia. A large number of them are spam, not notable, hoaxes, resumes, essays, advertising, or are unacceptable for other reasons. Also, likely half of the million edits per month are vandalism or just incorrect. The editors and administrators here spend more time dealing with bad content than dealing with good. This is why the guidelines are in place, to create a fair and objective set of criteria for inclusion, and a process to discuss it so everyone can voice their opinions. Keep in mind that the editors (like myself), administrators and others here at Wikipedia are business persons, teachers, students, plumbers, mechanics, etc.: Just every day people volunteering. No one gets paid, it's all volunteer in our spare time. This means that sometimes things happen fast, sometimes slow. I encourage you to stick around, maybe copy the article over to your user page to work on it, learn about Wikipedia, maybe help edit and correct errors on existing articles or just add new material. Your school *might* be notable, I really don't know. It may be notable for reasons that you aren't aware of, which is why we recruit others to help us develop articles. For instance, the article Bob Timberlake (artist) was on my personal page for over a month before I moved it into main space, just the other day. I got others to help, I made sure I had lots of references and that it was clear that he was notable before introducing it into what we call "mainspace". I took these extra steps, even though most people would consider me very experienced here (over 13,000 edits over 5 years). I say this because Wikipedia IS the encyclopedia that anyone can edit, AND create articles on, but we try to take Wikipedia serious enough to have established policies, based on the wishes of you, me, and everyone else who edits, to make it more than a website with info, but to make it a respectable and reliable source, free for everyone.

Sorry to be so long-winded, but I didn't want you to think I was just throwing canned replies at you. I'm glad you are here, I hope you stay and find a way to contribute that benefits both Wikipedia and yourself. Dennis Brown (talk) 02:29, 15 December 2011 (UTC)