User talk:Mrcurtis

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Hello, Mrcurtis, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:
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Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Questions, ask me on my talk page, or, and a volunteer should respond shortly. Again, welcome! Xx236 (talk) 11:39, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Woodham Ley Primary School
Please remeber the Articles for deletion/Woodham Ley Primary School.Xx236 (talk) 11:43, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

COI
Hi, Your school was deemed non notable and has been redirected so I would advise you not to restore the article,

You obviously work for the school and therefore have a conflict of interest - So any edits you wish to make to the article (or ones you're affiliated with) should be discussed on the talkpage first,

Also you state in the edit summary "Set up for our students to edit, please leave" - The article/website isn't a test site and you should probably avoid editing it altogether however I'd visit the help desk as I'm not entirely sure on it all,

Restoring the article could see you blocked indefinitely (and any student accounts too could be blocked .... infact the entire school could be blocked!) so as I said I would ask at the HELPDESK,

Thanks, – Davey 2010 Talk 13:31, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi, sorry I am new to this and not a coder. I felt that a good way to show my class of 8 and 9 year olds about the internet would be to get them to edit/create a page for our school. Whilst I realise we work/study here one of the main teaching points was the difference between fact and opinion. Surely this sort of learning about the internet in general and wikipedia specifically is something the site would encourage? Threats to block the school don't seem to be in the spirit of learning and sharing which I am trying to tell my pupils the internet is all about.

Also, why are primary schools not deemed notable? There is a lot of stuff on here which would seem much less important.

I appreciate your help, if you have any suggestions of editing projects my class could undertake I would be happy to hear them or if there was a way wikipedia could encourage the participation of primary age pupils I think that would be a great move forward.

Thanks

Mrcurtis (talk) 15:01, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi, I've asked at WP:AN as I'm not entirely sure on it all, (I'm required to notify you about the discussion so if you want to reply it may be best to chip in over there, Sorry I couldn't be of much help), Thanks, – Davey 2010 Talk 15:23, 26 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I am not sure if creating a Wikipedia page is a good way to do Internet education. Wikipedia has fairly high expectations on article quality that deviate a lot from normal Internet activity. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

A few things:
 * 1) If you've not yet seen it, the Wikipedia Education Program has some resources to help teach student about Wikipedia. You'll find that most of it is geared towards higher education, however, as the learning curve, writing style, and adaptation required tend to make it difficult to work with younger students productively (a generalization, of course).
 * 2) Primary schools aren't automatically "non-notable" -- they just aren't notable by default. Notability asks whether a particular subject has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject. It's about what's considered "encyclopedic". Some subjects, like universities, are given a "free pass" of sorts to be considered notable even before showing that "significant coverage", but that sort of pass doesn't exist for primary schools because most don't get very much coverage outside of routine stories in local news. There are exceptions, though. Information about notability is here: WP:N.
 * 3) If you would like a space to experiment for class purposes, it's best to do so outside of the article space. Some pages, you may have noticed, have things like "User:" (or in the case of this page, "User talk:") in front of them. Those are separate from the main encyclopedia space. Another one is called "Draft", which exists to draft articles that aren't yet ready to be part of the encyclopedia. To start the draft for your school, just click this link and start building: Draft:Woodham Ley Primary School. It's unlikely anybody will have a problem with using that page for experimentation. &mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  \\ 16:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)


 * In addition to Jo-Jo and Rhododendrites' comments, I'd also note that encouraging students to edit articles about their school tends to be something of a high risk activity. As Wikipedia is both "live" and all edits are recorded forever in article's histories, all vandalism and ill-considered comments are published immediately and (unless suppressed by administrators) miss-use of the site will be permanently viewable with a few clicks. Articles on schools tend to attract a fairly high volume of unhelpful edits and vandalism, typically from their students, and this is rather labour intensive for other editors to police. As such, Rhododendrites' suggestion about using a draft page for teaching purposes is a good one, but it may be for the best if an article isn't created on the school if you and your students are unable to find sufficient sources to demonstrate that it meets Wikipedia's notability criteria. Nick-D (talk) 11:44, 28 September 2016 (UTC)