User talk:Maplethelibrarian

Hello, Maplethelibrarian, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful: Introduction The five pillars of Wikipedia How to edit a page Help How to write a great article Manual of Style

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AfD nomination of Marlboro School
I have nominated Marlboro School, an article you created, for deletion. I do not feel that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Marlboro School. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time. Kim Dent-Brown  (Talk)  14:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello there, just wanted to add to this rather unfriendly sounding template above, with some warm encouragement for the idea of getting your kids involved in article writing. As I've said at the AfD discussion, I think the bigger issue is not the relatively minor one of writing and formatting an article, but the bigger one of establishing notability and finding sources. I realise it's attractive to start with a subject they know about - their own school - but it's hard to remain neutral and avoid a conflict of interest with such articles. Why not start the other way around - get them to find a valid source about an interesting topic, then write the article from the source (or add to the article, if it already exists). That way they'll learn the technical aspects of citing and the editorial aspects of sourcing and notability? Do have a look at the three blue links in my first comment, re starting, improving and perfecting articles, I find them very helpful. All the best and good luck. Leave a message here if you need any help! Kim Dent-Brown   (Talk)  10:17, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much for the encouragement and help. I'll continue to work on the article. I like your ideas for the students, thanks! -Maplethelibrarian

Hi Maple! Thanks for the compliment. I think the article won't be deleted, but anything can happen. It would probably be a bad idea for any of the kids at the school to participate in the AfD. It sounds like an interesting school. Is it really on a mountaintop? If you were to do a similar project in the future, the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum might be a good topic, but footnotes and neutral language would be necessary. Articles on local communities, like Marlboro, Vermont are one of the few types of articles that never get deleted on Wikipedia. Everything else is up for grabs when editors spot articles they don't like. Best wishes, Noroton (talk) 19:56, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you!
It's nice of you to write, particularly since some of my comments probably seemed flippant. When I speak of appreciating the singificance of Noroton's efforts, it's from the perspective of seeing so many articles deleted. For some reason, the Wikipedians who debate what should stay and what should go judge a school on whether it is "notable", and their definition of that seems to be how many "hits" it gets on a Google search, of all things. Under that shallow standard, they seem to delete a lot of the school articles. For those persons who can't see the significance of a place through which thousands of children pass, his additions stifled most of those comments. If you (or your students) ever have a tough time with one of these deletion arguments, the "userfy" suggestion that I mentioned is a good alternative. I'm glad the Marlboro School's page can be out in the open instead of hidden away in user-space. I'll have to say, I was impressed with some of the novel ideas that go with the school. My wife and I are supporters (and among the founders, 10 years ago) of a K-8 (private) school in our county, the Harlan County Christian School, in Putney, Kentucky. I knew about Putney, Vermont, and I figured that your school would be on the other side of the state from there, so it was a surprise to see that it's only 20 miles distant. Anyway, there's a lot to be said for a school having a degree of independence. Marlboro School seems to be a pretty interesting place. Best wishes to you and your students, on this project and on everything else (Mark L. Ford, alias Mandsford (talk) 01:49, 16 January 2008 (UTC))