Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hancock County High 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. which does not preclude a possible merge, but there's no consensus to delete the article. Star  Mississippi  01:24, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Hancock County High School

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

This article is sourced to only the subject's own website which is not enough to show notability. It has been notified with a notice on this problem for 13 years. A search for more sources showed no substantial coverage. We need substantial coverage to show that a school is notable. John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:21, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Education, Schools,  and Kentucky. Shellwood (talk) 18:35, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge/Redirect into Hawesville, Kentucky. If anything additional pops up, it can incubate in there. Royal Autumn Crest (talk) 19:42, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * As far as merging it into Hawesville, the school is in Lewisport. If it were to be merged, I would suggest choosing Lewisport rather than the adjacent but smaller Hawesville.
 * I'm okay with that option as well. I'd like to see the content saved, but I don't know if a keep is in order right now. Royal Autumn Crest (talk) 18:11, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Relisting comment: I see this discussion teetering between Keep and Merge/Redirect. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 22:22, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's frivolous to delete an article for a high school that's been in existence for decades with a significant enrollment (this school has around 500) and that has won multiple state athletics championships. A quick newspaper search finds a myriad of articles. The article needs a lot of improvement, but it's clear that sources exist. Jacona (talk) 18:13, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I am still not seeing how any of these added sources rise to the level of coverage we need for an organization. The fact that an employee here was arrested for a crime and it made the news does not make the school itself notable for example.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:03, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - although it's my opinion that secondary schools are important enough to merit some sort of SNG, at this point, the standard is GNG. GNG requires multiple reliable secondary sources discussing the subject in detail. Well, at this point, even with improvements, there is still only a single reliable secondary source, and all the citations to it are to articles that are transactional in nature; not detailed. Not going to !vote. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to, I'd be forced to do something akin to jury nullification and !vote keep.174.212.228.208 (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Can schools be kept just on GNG, or do they have to pass the more demanding notability guidelines for organizations, since they are in fact organizations?John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:53, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * WP:NSCHOOL says they can meet either, or both. It does not say that WP:NORG is more demanding, however. Jacona (talk) 14:16, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment -, , the practice has been to apply GNG to public and non-profit private achools, reserving the more restrictive NORG for businesses that run schools for profit. Appropriate since the SNG for businesses, WP:NCORP, is a shortcut to the same place as NORG. 174.212.228.208 (talk) 16:19, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment, a Newspapers.com search for "Hancock County High School" in KY brings up lots of results, though I don't have time to sort through them. BeanieFan11 (talk) 19:47, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Weak delete I did a search for in-depth coverage of this outside newspapers.com and couldn't find anything. While I didn't look through newspapers.com, my guess is that all or most of the local news sources are extremely trivial school bake sale type nonsense that do nothing for notability. So I'm going with delete. That said, I'm on the weaker side since there are some articles about the school. If someone can provide evidence that they in-depth and not about trivial nonsense like bake sales or who won prom king/queen I will change my vote to keep. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:08, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment - GNG applies here, and GNG doesn't discount local sources. It does discount trivial stuff, it does require at least a RS, which can be local, with some detail, and it does require multiple sources. All single fact stories aren't trivial. Example might be local coverage of the school’s first minority student. Integration is the single most important event of the 20th century in US education, and is woefully undercovered on Wikipedia. 174.212.211.248 (talk) 16:39, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * On what grounds do you claim that GNG instead of the notability guidelines for organization applies here?John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:14, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I would say any discerning view of applying GNG to schools needs to demand that the coverage be of the school itself, not of a recurring event that happens at the school, not of a criminal charge against an employee of the school, and not an incidental mention of the school.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 *  Weak Keep I did a check on Newspapers.com, and I found two AP articles and  . The latter two are the same article, but it was published in multiple papers. I have not done much searching (15 minutes), but I am confident better sources exist. Scorpions13256 (talk) 19:27, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It does not matter how many papers publish it, if it is the same article it still is only one source.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:45, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I know. I just wanted to make it clear that this was national coverage. Scorpions13256 (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment: The second sentence at the top of Notability (organizations and companies) says, The scope of this guideline covers all groups of people organized together for a purpose with the exception of non-profit educational institutions, religions or sects, and sports teams. And of course, passing mentions do not count toward notability  for GNG.  has made a good start on newspapers.com, and using sing search terms "Hancock County High School" and "Kentucky", the search engine yields 5,972 hits. Even if 99% are sports coverage, bride/groom alumni announcements, alum obits, and meeting notices, there would still probably be about 60 articles that provide coverage in some depth about this school. I've listed a few on the article's talk page, but I've run out of time to finish the search today. Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 21:41, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge/Redirect into appropriate community article per Royal Autumn Crest. As a stand alone article it fails WP:GNG for lack of substantial coverage in multiple, independent and reliable sources. Springnuts (talk) 15:13, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment There is WP:SIGCOV in multiple WP:RS. One of the best is an Evansville Courier and Press article from 1973 (partial clip here). Here are some more online sources that fit, , ; there are numerous others in the article or on the talk page that aren't online, but these alone are more than enough to pass GNG.Jacona (talk) 19:10, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. There are multiple reliable sources with significant coverage. Meets GNG. Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 19:57, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * Comment: What makes this school special? From the sources … really not much, and not that special. I’m still for merge, as the school is no doubt a lovely school but just … not very notable in our sense. That’s not a criticism! So as an article it will always be uninspiring.  As a para in a locality article it will fit well and likely get more exposure. Springnuts (talk) 23:06, 24 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Please do not confuse being "special" with being notable under Wikipedia's notability policy. The GNG notability requirement is not that a school be "special", rather that multiple secondary reliable sources have written about the school in some depth. Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 03:07, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Response: You are entirely correct of course, and I do not suffer from that confusion. The reasons for my view about the the article are to do with notability and the lack of substantial coverage (which I know others debate). What I was trying to do - inadequately, clearly - was to make exactly this point that many, for example alumni, might well consider the school special, but that is not the same as being notable in our terms. Springnuts (talk) 08:48, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Editors may want to consider the depth of coverage in articles (and text) added since this nomination. Of course, some of the added reliable sources are only for verification of facts, but I invite your review of these sources that meet the criterion, A topic is to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list when it has received in  that are:
 * and
 * and full source behind paywall:
 * and
 * — Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 20:15, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * With apologies to, I inadvertently missed your comment above on additional sources. I especially appreciate this one I had missed in my newspapers.com search:
 * — Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh! Thank you! You have done the heavy lifting. Great job! Jacona (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * — Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 20:34, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Oh! Thank you! You have done the heavy lifting. Great job! Jacona (talk) 20:58, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Churnalism For me they fail WP:INDEPENDENT- these are generally indiscriminate bits of reporting in the local press of what the school is saying about itself - and much of which is in any case of little substance. There is nothing like this, for example, about a school in the UK: Plymouth High School consistently ranks as one of the top performing schools in Plymouth (and ranks well amongst schools in the rest of Devon and Cornwall) in terms of examination results. In 2011 97% of pupils achieved 5 or more A*-C grade GCSEs, including English and Mathematics.
 * Comment I have found another source here. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:39, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Friendly regards to all, Springnuts (talk) 22:46, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * My sources are all from national or regional outlets. None of them are local. Scorpions13256 (talk) 22:54, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * To take your last addition, [], it is just a reference to a staff member who has taken a job elsewhere. This is not the sort of significant coverage required to justify an article.  The WP:GNG says "If a topic does not meet these criteria but still has some verifiable facts, it might be useful to discuss it within another article": that is I think where this topic stands.  Then if and when significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject emerges, it can be broken out into a separate article.  Springnuts (talk) 23:30, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Per WP:AUD local sources appear to count toward notability. We do need at least one regional source though, which is about the students that were suspended. Scorpions13256 (talk) 23:58, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, WP:AUD is required under WP:NORG, but it is not a requirement of WP:GNG. Cheers! − Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 03:29, 26 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment, I'm not seeing the 2011 data in the cit you provided, but nevertheless, this AfD is not about that high school or the use of Ofsted report data, about which I have seen other editors object, citing the process of each school submitting data that is then reviewed by Ofsted evaluators, usually after a site visit.
 * I disagree that all the articles cited above fail WP:INDEPENDENT and are merely "reporting in the local press of what the school is saying about itself". Maybe that happens in the UK, but in US, articles that carry a reporter's byline are not press releases. (See bylines for Bobbie Hayse here, here, and here; Linda Dillon here, and Dave Taylor here.) Sometimes small local papers do publish press releases intact, but they don't credit reporters for them.
 * In addition, stories that are reported by the Associated Press or United Press International are carried in national papers (see Students suspended for walk-out protest and Basketball player is attacked with bat). These articles have not been used in the article, yet, nor the text and citations about the coach who was arrested and convicted for abuses, but many schools do have sections on "controversies", so perhaps fodder for future versions. The point: this article has significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, and thus, this stand-alone article belongs in Wikipedia.— Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 00:53, 26 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Comment Well that is the question, and there is clearly disagreement on the answer, or would not be in this process. So, we wait to see what the verdict is. In the meantime if you wish to improve the article so that it clearly passes GNG that would strengthen the case you are advocating. The last time I looked at the article it had been given a new outline format, but all the content had been removed. Perhaps it is better now. Springnuts (talk) 09:43, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm changing my vote to keep because I think there's been enough improvement to the article since the nomination to justify keeping it. Although that said, I do agree some of it is rather trivial and should probably be removed, but on the other hand one of their students winning Kentucky's Mr. Football, plus them playing in the girls class A cross country state championship in 2001 and 2002 is notable. The clear advertising nonsense like what extra curricular activities they provide, which literally no one except a potential student or their parents care about, should be removed. The same goes for the demographics section IMO, just say they are a majority white school or something. No one cares about the exact number of Asians that go there though. --Adamant1 (talk) 18:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * , thanks, points taken. − Grand&#39;mere Eugene (talk) 19:33, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Changing to keep (have struck through earlier “vote”) ivo significant improvements to the article. Good result from RfD process working well with goodwill on all sides. Springnuts (talk) 06:54, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. Easily enough sourcing to satisfy WP:GNG. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:27, 29 March 2022 (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.