Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Busan Foreign School


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. After multiple relistings for absence of consensus, the last relisting resulted in an overall narrow consensus in favor of keeping the article. From an editing standpoint, substantial improvement is still needed. bd2412 T 15:22, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Busan Foreign School

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

The subject is not notable (fails NCORP and GNG) and likely will not become notable in the near future.

This article moved into draft space by after. decided to submit the stale draft rather than let it be G13'd so I sent the draft to MfD. PMC has since moved the draft back to the main namespace so that the article faces and up or down AfD. Chris Troutman ( talk ) 16:10, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 16:11, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of South Korea-related deletion discussions.  Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 16:11, 28 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment, I accidentally made a duplicate nomination for this just now. I'll be deleting it shortly, but my rationale is copied over below:
 * Procedural nomination as a result of a clusterfuck. I don't have an opinion on whether it should be deleted or not.


 * On Apr 9, Chris troutman applied a PROD tag to this article. On Apr 10, SwisterTwister moved the article (an established, 8-year-old article) to draftspace without discussion, with zero explanation in his edit summary or elsewhere (without even removing the PROD tag, which was done by another editor). The article sat in draftspace without improvement from SwisterTwister or anyone else for six months until it was discovered as a stale draft on Oct 19 by Legacypac. Legacypac submitted the draft for approval through AfC, and it was declined shortly after by Chris Troutman. Chris then nominated the article for MfD, where only he and Legacypac participated in the discussion. Rather than relist the MfD today, I returned the article to mainspace today for it to be discussed at AfD, like it should have been back in April when SwisterTwister apparently wished to contest the PROD in the first place. &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 16:17, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:09, 28 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep as a secondary school per longstanding precedent and consensus. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:33, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You are incorrect. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is no longer a valid rationale; an RfC determined the consensus is against presuming schools are notable. Please be honest that you're forwarding an ILIKEIT rationale. If other editors agree with you they can admit to having capricious logic, too. Chris Troutman  ( talk ) 09:40, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not "incorrect". Any of us who regularly participate in AfD school discussions know how controversial this whole thing is and how many of us believe some editors are misinterpreting the RfC. Also, please don't accuse an experienced editor of dishonesty or I shall assume that you are making a personal attack and act accordingly. You should know better. Thank you. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:53, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The classic circular reasoning to keep a school-article because in the past we have kept a school article because in the past we kept a school-article etc. etc. And no, that consensus what you are claiming is gone. The Banner talk 19:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The RFC summary states, "WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES...is an accurate statement of the results". Unscintillating (talk) 20:05, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And the full quote: WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be added to the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, as it is an accurate statement of the results but promotes circular reasoning. The full quote says something less positive than your selective quote. The Banner talk 20:31, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete as failing WP:GNG. I found a few mentions in news sources, but nothing substantial. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:57, 30 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per long-standing precedent of keeping secondary schools. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:41, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete. It continues to astound me that we're willing to give free advertising to a non-notable business simply because that business operates a school for teenagers. If this were a store (or even an unaccredited private college!) we wouldn't be having this discussion. Pburka (talk) 03:01, 1 November 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFF. - The Bushranger One ping only 03:24, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * My argument is consistent with OTHERSTUFF only in the sense that I'm arguing that, since we apply WP:GNG and WP:PROMO to all other topics, we should apply them to secondary schools. Pburka (talk)
 * Keep. This school's existence and information about it is confirmed so it passes a pillar policy WP:Verification ("all articles must strive for verifiable accuracy"). Until we made a comunity-agreed consensus or policy that there's an urgent need for deletion of verified subjects or pending damages without its existence, there's nothing to argue about here. Trampton (talk) 04:34, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I understand, . Are you suggesting that all articles about verified subjects should be kept, regardless of notability? That's what your comment seems to suggest. Cordless Larry (talk) 10:12, 5 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:55, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep - as per note 2 of the GNG, very likely to be government reports about the school which show notability. Also other third party sources exist which are not mentioned on the page including this news report and this magazine article. Neither extensive, but indicative that other sources likely to exist. JMWt (talk) 16:36, 4 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete fails NCORP and GNG. Secondary schools do not have the presumption of notability simply because they exist. This includes government reports which are not third-party sourcing that independently covers the topic. The school must be significantly covered by independent reliable sources as defined by guidelines and policies. Government reports are primary sources. Also, the two sources mentioned do nothing to demonstrate notability.
 * The first article discusses war preparation and does not show why this school is remarkable. The second source is passing mention with puffery and promotional language . ---Steve Quinn (talk) 05:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete fails WP:GNG, WP:ORG and WP:NOTPROMO. Claiming that the RFC inconclusive is nothing more than a poor attempt to circumvent the facts. The Banner talk 19:30, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I linked to this below, but also putting it here since it directly addresses your point: when questioned on-wiki about this, one of the closers admits that the actual close was no consensus and the rest was simply commentary. TonyBallioni (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note that a comment has been left by at Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/Busan Foreign School, requesting deletion of the article (although not on policy grounds). Cordless Larry (talk) 08:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Note, I left this comment for Cordless Larry he suggested that I put it here. Hi Cordless Larry, Thank you for linking my discussion about the Busan Foreign School wikipedia. As an educator I appreciate the work that dedicated volunteers of Wikipedia do to store and disseminate knowledge. As a principal trying to run a school, I find this whole experience frustrating, time consuming and serving no purpose. Sy Lee graduated in 2016 from Busan Foreign School. Before he left he changed the web page to show himself as principal. We have corrected misinformation left by students from our own school and students from another local school. When the page was put up for deletion we were very happy. I don't see it as a page that serves the public good. You can check the school website to see relevant information about the school. You can also check the following sources: Western Association of Schools and Colleges Eastern Regional Council of Overseas SchoolsBoth organizations are well respected and have accurate information on our school. But why bother, at this point the page has so little verifiable information that it should be deleted. Thank you, Iain Macfarlane}}  —Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|undated comment added 08:40, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hum. That puts a different slant on things. Not sure what I think now. JMWt (talk) 09:05, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: Relisting because many of the comments reference SCHOOLOUTCOMES which as the RFC pointed out, is circular reasoning. I would suggest that more policy-based comments would be useful in this AfD.
 * Keep. the practice remains that we keep all secondary schools with a real existence. The RFC was indeed conclusive: it said there was no consensus to change the practice. It also said that it was no consensus to just  say according to Schooloutcomes and leave it like that without further explanation.  The reason we do it is to avoid the thousands of discussions like this, where the outcome depends only on who shows up at the AfD, It is best seen as a compromise, that we do not usually keep primary schools.    DGG ( talk ) 15:01, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * You better start reading Articles for deletion/The Sheffield Private School. The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 18:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep See the RFC, which states, "WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES...is an accurate statement of the results".   satisfies WP:V#Notability.  Unscintillating (talk) 20:38, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
 * And the full quote: WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be added to the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, as it is an accurate statement of the results but promotes circular reasoning. The full quote says something less positive than your selective quote. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 00:01, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but my quote is succinct. Unscintillating (talk) 00:22, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Looks like I'm supposed to tell closers what they might consider to be the obvious: WP:N is a minor guideline that does not require sources, and cannot be invoked as a deletion argument while ignoring the policy WP:ATD. WP:V, however, is a core content policy.  Unscintillating (talk) 19:00, 12 November 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 01:18, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Observation: This kerfuffle over "SCHOOLOUTCOMES is no longer a valid rationale" is, in a word, blatherskite. If one types out "due to the fact that it is the long-standing consensus of the project that secondary schools are notable for inclusion in Wikipedia on the basis of their being secondary schools, in accordance with the first of the Five Pillars that states Wikipedia is in part a gazetteer", it means exactly the same thing as saying "per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES", it's just that apparently it's been decided that using 48 words is Good but using two is Bad. - The Bushranger One ping only 01:40, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep per Bushranger, and trout to for his commentary in the relist: comments such as that should always be avoided in a relist because the risk prejudicing the discussion. Wikipedia opperates on consensus, and the fact that school AfDs are still a mess 9 months after the RfC shows what one of the closers has admitted on-wiki is true: the close to the actual question asked was no consensus. Everything else was simply commentary, and WP:OUTCOMESBASED (which I helped to write after the RfC) is simply an essay on equal standing with WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. It is not an actual policy or guideline and shouldn't be treated as such.The best indicator of actual consensus is what we do, and we do routinely keep secondary schools. Singling schools out as the one area where our practice on inclusion somehow has to match the exact text of the notability guideline is ridiculous: we literally do it nowhere else: for corporations and organizations we jump through hoops to find ways to explain how coverage doesn't meet the the GNG (and rightly so), and in other areas such as military history or clerical biographies we routinely go by informal essays such as WP:SOLDIER and WP:CLERGY. These practices can be argued against, but so can the GNG: it does not guarantee inclusion either.Since there is no consensus on schools currently, it is up to the participants at the individual AfDs to decide how to treat them, and appealing to the fact that we're a gazetteer and that the notability guideline also includes WP:NPOSSIBLE is fine, but thats all SCHOOLOUTCOMES documents anyway. I see no reason to discount the people who don't feel like being overly verbose as I do, when their meaning here is clear, and the justification for doing so is an essay of equal weight to OUTCOMES.  TonyBallioni (talk) 02:07, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * The trouting by TonyBallioni is a rather fishy act. There is again some blarney about acting on consensus, but should the sheer number of school-AfDs not be a reminder of the LACK of consensus? If the consensus is so clear cut as Tony states, why are there so many AfDs about schools? But your so called consensus also flies in the face of Articles for deletion/The Sheffield Private School, a school article that was deleted by an administrator of standing. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 15:11, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "should the sheer number of school-AfDs not be a reminder of the LACK of consensus?" - considering it's possible that it could be a reminder that there are editors who are nominating these articles because they refuse to accept the consensus and intend to keep deleting until they manage to "reject the consensus and establish their own", no, that's not necessaily the case. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Could it not be a case where the defending editors try to turn a blind eye to the fact that their consensus is not there any more? And that that is, in my opinion, the reason why they turn to WP:OUTCOMES and its circular reasoning and not to a content based judgement. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 06:24, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Let's go back to what was stated at the RfC, "WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES...is an accurate statement of the results". Since AfD is not a !vote count, only one editor at an AfD needs to provide further input into what would otherwise be circular logic.  For example, in my !vote here I've documented a source that satisfies WP:V#Notability.  Unscintillating (talk) 18:06, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * See also Articles for deletion/Daffodils English School, Sanjaynagar, where the closer notes that keeps based on "an apparent sentiment that there exists community consensus that secondary schools are inherently notable" bear very little weight. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:27, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Super votes based on a no consensus RfC where the commentary was taken as the actual close are bad for the AfD process: I'm actually fine with consistent no consensus closes here, as I think it reflects where the community actually is on the topic. Relists where admins encourage users not to make arguments where approximately 50% of the community holds those views are also bad for the process, and I have and will continue to criticize any administrator or other user who makes them: Black Kite was wrong to interfere with the community process here in this way. A no consensus close of the RfC means that the status quo before the RfC holds. The status quo before the RfC was that we typically didn't delete secondary schools (and people didn't make a point of nominating them), and we simply redirected all pre-secondary schools. We did delete some secondary schools then, and having secondary schools deleted after the RfC is also not inconsistent with the status quoThe close of the RfC has falsely be interpreted as a consensus against all secondary schools being viewed as notable: that was not what it resolved as. It resolved as no consensus on the question. The fact that to delete a school you typically have to get an admin willing to ignore the opinions of 50% or more of the participants of the AfD shows how poorly constructed the commentary was, and that was likely the result of having a committee of closers that wanted to give answers rather than a simple no consensus close (I'll ping as a courtesy here. I very much respect the work they did, and they had a hard job, but I think that the fact that 9 months later nothing has been resolved shows that their closing commentary does not reflect community consensus, even if it was well intentioned.) TonyBallioni (talk) 17:39, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Basically this whole school thing is smelling more and more of a WP:IDONTLIKEIT campaign to me. That's not to say everyone who !votes delete, or who participated in that RfC towards the declared closure (or even the closure itself) are acting in bad faith; they're not. But the core of this somewhere is obviously "Schools shouldn't have Wikipedia articles". (I've seen this with corporation articles too; there seems to be an automatic presumption that they're spam and should be deleted, and I've seen the literal statement with some sportspeople that if they don't meet the specific sport requirement GNG doesn't matter.). Basically something is rotten in the state of AfD, and I have to wonder whatever happened to 'the sum total of human knowledge'. - The Bushranger One ping only 22:32, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
 * If you look through my contribution history,, you will see I have supported keeping school articles where sufficient sources exist. My position is not "Schools shouldn't have Wikipedia articles". By contrast, there have been AfDs where some editors argue for keep even in the complete absence of independent sources! To turn your characterisation around, their position seems to be "Schools should have Wikipedia articles", regardless of whether we have the sources to write those articles (and sometimes, regardless of whether we know they exist). Cordless Larry (talk) 07:54, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm certainly not accusing you, or anyone in particular, it's just a growing tide of feeling more than "It's Those Guys". However anybody suggesting we ignore WP:V absolutely needs to be hit with a kaiju-sized trout. - The Bushranger One ping only 09:22, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This is getting off-topic of an AfD, but basically my position is that secondary schools should have wikipedia articles. The only other possible position is that no schools should have wikipedia articles. Intermediate positions are going to show various types of bias, which is incredibly unfair to children in situations where their school would never meet the normal notability standards. We'd just have a small handful of very old and very rich schools, primarily from North America and the UK pages on wikipedia - nothing else would be notable. I don't think corporations are the same thing, because I don't think there is the same kind of urgency for children to believe that a local company employing 500 people is as important to the world in general as their school. JMWt (talk) 09:21, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I am somewhat sympathetic to this argument, although it does rather assume that people connected with schools want there to be articles about them. In the present case, it seems that the school staff do not want there to be an article (see 's comments above. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:51, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, to me that's why we might need to have the discussion in particular cases. But that said, I'm not sure that school staff request is in-and-of-itself a decent reason for delete. It might well be that a school should have a wikipedia page, but that's practically impossible at the moment because we don't have any way to add reliable information about it.  Clearly if the page is just vandalism, or being used to spread rumour, that's a problem - but again, I don't know that this invalidates the point. Perhaps this page should be deleted at the present time for those reasons and await someone who can write something that has something better to say. I'm not sure that simply !voting keep/delete really covers that scenario - perhaps arguing for deletion because the content is thin and crap not because the subject is not notable. JMWt (talk) 10:20, 13 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Delete After having read through the discussion on the notability of schools, I have to agree that the presumption of notability is flawed for secondary schools, at least in the United States. To begin with, any criteria that gives presumed notability only to extant institutions should be greeted with suspicion. I think we need something more than this. However in the United States, it seems to me that School Districts, and not individual schools at any level are more clearly notable. The School District I went to Warren Consolidated Schools offered many of its high school (secondary) programs as cooperative programs between multiple schools, I can think of 4 such programs the district had when I was there. Actually as a result of reading the related RfC and considering the issues involved here, I just nominated for deletion the article on the high school that is my alma mater, Sterling Heights High School. That is how committed I am to do the view that we should stop presuming notability for high schools without actual proof of reliable source coverage that is more than routine.John Pack Lambert (talk) 05:58, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * WP:IGNORINGATD applies to schools covered in school districts. You can't argue a policy-based deletion for notability when the topic is already covered elsewhere in the encyclopedia.  Unscintillating (talk) 13:25, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment The support for deletion from the school principal is the closest we could get to a BLP request for deletion in an article that is non-biographical. While some seem to think that school articles being magnets for vandalism is not an issue worth considering, I think it needs to be born in mind. The information in these articles is rarely of a truly useful kind. Beyond this, often basic info included in tables like enrollment and ethnic composition of the student body is not dated and so its relevance to present conditions is unclear. The notion that being a gazeteer requires articles on every secondary school that exists is not logical to me. For one thing, why only secondary and not primary schools in that case?John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:09, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Venues can be considered to be a part of the gazetteer. Unscintillating (talk) 01:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Keep A news search brings up a number of hits that can be used to reference and expand the article; though most are in Korean. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  11:07, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep due to the fact that it is the long-standing consensus of the project that secondary schools are notable for inclusion in Wikipedia on the basis of their being secondary schools, in accordance with the first of the Five Pillars that states Wikipedia is in part a gazetteer. From that RfC close: Because extant secondary schools often have reliable sources that are concentrated in print and/or local media, a deeper search than normal is needed to attempt to find these sources. At minimum, this search should include some local print media. If a deep search is conducted, and still comes up empty, then the school article should be deleted for not meeting the GNG - Editors are not expected to prove the negative that sources do not exist, but they should make a good-faith effort to find them. Searching already brings up some results, and no evidence that a look at local print media has been done. Galobtter (talkó  tuó  mió) 11:50, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep. Frankly speaking, if High school's notability is to be strictly assessed with WP:GNG and WP:ORG thousands of secondary schools will have been/will be deleted. But this longstanding community consensus and WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES cannot be overridden simply to school that 1-claims to have international students, 2-mentioned in the press not once, and 3-have webpage. When outright non notable, super stub like this are depended with WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES you know this school doesn't even deserve nomination at first place &thinsp;&mdash; Ammarpad (talk) 14:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * This is basically an WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument, . You're arguing that we can't delete this article because there is an article on Lobatse Senior Secondary School. I'm sure we could find worse articles to justify keeping Lobatse Senior Secondary School, but that's not how deletion works - otherwise we would always have to start with the very worst article we could find. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:27, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * . There are something you should understand. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is a supplement of and Community wide consensus while WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is mere . There is big, big difference. Second; you ignored my main argument for keep and delved into second paragraph, which is just supplement. Read my main argument and fault it. I have given 3 points why it should be kept in addition to comments like that of  which show there are many sources (especially non English) which can be used to expand the article. In my own personal view; all High schools should be subjected to the same scrutiny like any organization, but  have strongly objected to that, and Wikipedia exists because the community exists. So any community-wide consensus is sacrosanct whether we like it or not  &thinsp;&mdash; Ammarpad (talk) 14:48, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I find it a bit hard to follow your argument (which isn't split into paragraphs, by the way), but if you are referring to your arguments that the school has international students and a website, then I don't see how those facts contribute to establishing notability. I accept that press coverage would, but I haven't seen enough to convince me. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:07, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Schooloutcomes is an example of circular reasoning when it is used as a keep-argument. In cases like that, people say that an article should be kept because earlier a same type of article was kept because earlier a same type of article was kept because earlier a same type of article was kept because earlier a same type of article was kept because earlier... etc. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 15:17, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.