Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Chaminade College 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. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 20:04, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Chaminade College School

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

This article has been tagged as requiring citations since December 2006. It makes use of no secondary sources to back up any of its claims. No reliable secondary sources appear to exist online, judging by a few Google searches -- Books turns up a few directories of schools, but no substantial coverage, and News turns up nothing. A proposal to merge to a locality article was rejected without comment. Shimeru (talk) 07:39, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment. Usually, for North American schools, it seems that High Schools or the equivalent are typically considered notable, while lower grade level schools are not (barring unusual factors or outside notability). So, as a high school, this school should (in theory) be notable. But any school with 750+ students should have some sourcing - and there simply isn't any beyond the usual confirming-existance references. So, hrm. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 13:45, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to consider that line of thinking suspect when an article can be tagged as unsourced for over 3 years without any attention being paid it. Is that too short a period of time?  Would we allow an article about a band or a webcomic to sit in a state like this for three years on the argument "sources probably exist, somewhere"? Shimeru (talk) 20:11, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Not likely, no - but there seems to be a firmer precedent with regard to Schools than with webcomics or the like. On point, there's a reason I didn't go Keep or Delete. But if sources are available about the school itself, as the editors below seem to indicate, then we should probably keep. UltraExactZZ Said~ Did 17:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * They aren't, though. Look at the arguments so far.  "We have an established policy that all high schools are notable."  No, we do not.  You won't find WP:ALLHIGHSCHOOLSARENOTABLE alongside WP:V and WP:OWN.  "Sources exist."  Do they?  I see one source about a music teacher that only mentions the school in passing -- trivial.  One source about the school's football program changing from one high school sports league to a different one -- pretty trivial, almost all high schools belong to a high school sports league.  One source about the river cleanup and trout farming program -- this is at least a solid independent reliable source, but it's still not about the school itself.  We have nothing showing anybody has taken note of the school itself as an institution.  Nothing on its history, its founding, its mission, aside from the primary source, the school itself.  This is a situation that would not stand for a biography, a company, a band.... Shimeru (talk) 20:46, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The fact is that consensus is derived from AfDs, and you'll be hard pressed to find a delete outcome in any high school AfD in the past few years. Its about 99.9% keeps, I believe.--Milowent (talk) 21:06, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Sure, but consensus can change. Five years ago, we had many articles "sourced" like this one -- including BLPs.  The project as a whole has been moving toward more rigorous sourcing, which can only be a good thing in the long run.  It seems that schools are still using looser standards, but I'm fairly confident that will change eventually.  If this is kept, as seems likely, I'll test it again in six months or a year. Shimeru (talk) 21:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Test it now on smaller, private schools with fewer mentions. Abductive  (reasoning) 22:20, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The purpose of a bright-line rule, in part, is to avoid meaningless AfD debates trying to split the head of a pin on which high schools are notable and which are not. Myself and other editors think that's a waste of time better spent elsewhere on the project.--Milowent (talk) 23:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I am in general agreement with that. I also believe that having articles on high schools is useful for editor recruitment. Editing an article on one's local high school is unlikely to cause anxiety in newbies, who may feel they have less to offer on more technical articles. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree with this, and also feel that Wikipedia is better for having these articles. I strongly agree that it would be desirable to "avoid meaningless AfD debates trying to split the head of a pin" in this area; unfortunately, that goal has not been attained, yet.--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's unlikely ever to be, as long as some of us value rigorous sourcing. I do, however, respect your effort to improve this article.  You are the only 'keep' voter to attempt to do so, to date. Shimeru (talk) 19:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep. I'm not sure why others are reporting no coverage for this school: I get 854 hits at Google News archives for the search string .  Many of these are pay per view but some examples include a Canadian music teacher of the year, a discussion of the school's status within the Canadian high school football structure, and "a student-run fish hatchery [that] grew into a river-cleanup model for the entire city [and] won one of 10 Green Toronto Awards last night." --Arxiloxos (talk) 18:50, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Number of Google hits is never in itself an indication of notability, for several reasons, and in any case 854 is a very modest number: a search for a high school I attended gives 64,000 hits, and a search for the high school my children attended scores 23,800. I have looked at the first couple of pages of Google hits for "Chaminade Toronto". The vast majority of them are not reliable sources, not independent of the subject, only a brief mention, or more than one of those. Probably a tiny minority of the 854 are actually useful by Wikipedia's standards. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:36, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I disagree: I am referring to Google News hits and these do show actual news articles. The point of the count is that the school is covered extensively in the media.  The bottom line is that this is a significant high school in one of North America's largest cities.--Arxiloxos (talk) 15:08, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep - I notice that sources are available to meet WP:ORG. WP:NHS outlines the arguments why high schools should be kept. TerriersFan (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per TerriersFan. --Milowent (talk) 22:02, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per the others above. It's a secondary school and sources do indicated notability.  As for sources not being in the article for 3 years, Wikipedia has no deadline.  Some articles could go twice that or more without improvements, but that doesn't mean the topic is not notable.--Oakshade (talk) 21:36, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep - We have an established policy that all High Schools are considered notable. This clearly is a 9-12 school, established in the 60's, serving classes in the high hundreds.  What on earth makes this an exception to precedent.  Worse yet, since people here do quote precedent, how can we start a trend against any high school now?  The answer is: of course not.  This is a frivolous challenge to this article.Trackinfo (talk) 04:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Once again we are told "We have an established policy that all High Schools are considered notable". Once again no we do not. The extent to which this is consensus' is debated, but there is certainly no such policy''. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge to Toronto Catholic District School Board. Sources exist, and the consensus on en.wikipedia is that high schools are notable, (exception; very small private schools). One example of how our society considers high schools to be notable is that any serious obituary of a famous person will always name their high school. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:55, 12 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete (I realize this is a futile !vote). Contra many !keeps, there is no policy or guideline that says North American 9-12 High Schools are inherently notable. In current practice, maybe these article are generally kept, but WP:CCC, and in this case I hope it does. I'm a firm believer in logic behind WP:N: we need independent, reliable, secondary sources if we're going to write neutral article article on something. Synthesizing an article out of primary sources, self-published sources, and trivial, passing mentions in articles about other topics is just that--synthesis. There's a difference between being an encyclopedian and a historian, and we need to be mindful of it. Yilloslime T C  04:23, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per consensus. "It's ugly and needs cleanup" is a poor rationale for deletion. tedder (talk) 17:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Delete As has been said above, there is no policy that high schools are automatically notable, and the supposed consensus that they are is largely based on people saying in AfDs words to the effect "we should keep this one because we always do keep them", which is what has happened in this case. The trouble with that approach is that it prevents consensus from evolving. Are there any good arguments why we should regard high schools as automatically notable? If there aren't then the fact that people in the past have taken that line is not very persuasive. If those of us who disagree with this automatic notability idea keep saying so then maybe eventually we will get a genuine discussion, rather than just being told that consensus is for "automatic notability" because it is. The notability guidelines say notability needs substantial coverage in reliable sources. Is there a good reason for ignoring that guideline in the case of high schools? If there is then please tell us what that reason is: don't just tell us we should ignore the guideline because that's what we do. About the only reason which has been put forward is "Editing an article on one's local high school is unlikely to cause anxiety in newbies". In a way that is a good point, but it is completely out of line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines to say "we will allow articles on subjects which inexperienced editors will be happy to edit". As for the various editors claiming there are sources, some of them make statements such as "sources exist" and "sources do indicated notability", but do not say what sources or why they are enough to establish notability. The sources are not of sufficient standard to justify the article if it were on another topic, such as a business. Only if we take the line that high schools are exempt from Wikipedia's normal notability standards is there any case for keeping. JamesBWatson (talk) 14:26, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The main thing being prevented is easy research, and the things preventing it are Google Snippet View and paywalls. I have added a couple of sources to the article just now. I haven't used this story on nuked feces in the article, but I challenge you to find it in the seaches provided at the top of the AfD. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment. The argument usually put forward as to why high school articles are usually kept is because for just about any high school, there are almost always sources somewhere, if not on the net then in local and regional "dead tree" newspapers without online archives (or archives behind paywalls). This assumption is usually correct for any high school in the "western world" so we give it the benefit of the doubt. If the high school in question is somewhere in "South Succotash, Induganda" where such alleged sources are less likely, the argument of avoiding "western world bias" is usually put forward. --Ron Ritzman (talk) 01:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Keep Yes, the reason for the convention that all high schools are notable (a convention that I initially fought against, because I tend to be deletionist on local institutions) is that so many of them are, that it isn't worth arguing over each of them. Probably 2 years ago, when this became firmly established, about 90% of those in the US or Canada were easily sourceable, even using the resources available free over the internet to those unwilling to see what their public library had on offer. Now it's probably 98% at least, at gradually getting near that in other countries. Should we debate a thousand of articles, to remove 10 or 20 that might be slightly sub-standard and do not harm? Given the millions of articles remaining to be written, it would be a very poor use of resources. In fact, we'd probably make far more than 10 or 20 mistakes in each direction while trying to do it, and end up with a worse result by anyone's standards than if we took them all.  DGG ( talk ) 01:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Keep per the arguments outlined in the essay WP:NHS. All high schools are notable. This school has received sufficient coverage in reliable sources to verify the information. Cunard (talk) 06:55, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment OK, there are some good arguments which I had not seen before for accepting automatic notability, so I have withdrawn my "delete" above. However, I still have reservations, so I am not willing to actually say "keep". JamesBWatson (talk) 08:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Delete As this is heading for a keep close, this is a largely grandstanding delete !vote to support the views expressed by User:Shimeru. This school lacks significant coverage in reliable sources as opposed to the occasional coverage in respect of discrete events. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:42, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have altered my notvote to include the possibility of merging to Toronto Catholic District School Board. It is true that the article lacks sources which analyse the school as a whole. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:05, 15 May 2010 (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.