Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Toronto District School Board elementary schools


 * 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. Clear consensus in favour of keeping this list at this time. The nominator also has stated that they no longer stand by their nomination of this article (by not SKCRIT #1 due to the single "delete" !vote). The SandDoctor Talk 03:30, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

List of Toronto District School Board elementary schools

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

This article is not ready for mainspace. Ultimately I think this should move to draft space, but my attempt to DRAFTIFY was politely and firmly contested so I have self-reverted and am nominating it here. It is of questionable notability - there are no equivalent elementary school lists for other major cities that I could find. We also don't normally have articles about elementary schools as they lack notability. In fairness we do list elementary schools for smaller districts and such a list would overwhelm any separate article making it appropriate for a split as LISTN does have some leeway for lists of non-notable entries. However, that notability would assume anything close to a complete list. There are 451 primary schools in Toronto. While this list does not need to be complete with the information to be displayed in the table, to be ready for mainspace it needs more than the 13 schools (3% of total schools) present. Sending to draft (or userspace) for further development and/or restoring the redirect seems like the correct outcome at this time. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Striking my nomination in light of the table that was able to generate. It is now not an indiscriminate list and is in a shape where interested editors who add other information overtime has a strong base to build from. Thanks Bradv. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 00:21, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Ontario-related deletion discussions. Barkeep49 (talk) 03:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Comment in reply: Yes we do have lists of elementary schools, usually in school district article. E.g. Jefferson City School District.  Toronto is bigger though.  But see: List of public elementary schools in New York City.  AFDs about individual elementary schools are usually concluded by linking to the mention in the school district article. --Doncram (talk) 21:22, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep I've worked on the sister page List of secondary schools in the Toronto District School Board and thought it could use a partner. There are several pages on elementary schools in this district that may be orphans without this list. I do not agree with the argument that notability rests on how complete the list is, since wikiepdia is always evolving. I do agree that notability rests upon the content of the list which is up for debate. Ultimately, wikipedia is a collaborative process and pages cannot (and should not) be constructed by one user only in a draftspace and the mainspace is the only place for other editors to see and to edit and improve. I've started many lists like these that have went on to featured list status with collaboration that would be impossible if they were deleted like this page has. I'm glad this is up for discussion, I was frustrated that hours of work were deleted without any discussion nearly causing me to quit wikipedia altogether. Also to consider, Wikipedia is not paper WP:Paper so there is absolutely no harm in having this list, even incomplete, on wikipedia for others to improve. Mattximus (talk) 03:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 07:25, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 07:25, 9 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep - it is normal to have a repository for information about nn elementary schools. Sometimes it is a school board and sometimes a list. I see no policy objection to having this as a list and it looks useful. BTW as an editorial action, I would remove all the red links that will never be blued. Just Chilling (talk) 18:59, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete as a indiscriminate collection of information that does not satisfy the notability criteria for a standalone list. There are no independent and reliable sources that talk about the list itself as a topic. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:47, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Please take a look again, there now several independent and reliable sources added to the article. More will be added later. Please let me know if the CBC, or the EQAO websites are not independent or reliable, in addition to the TDSB official website. Also, the information is in no way in discriminant since it is not a random collection at all, but a finite list with a defined scope. Mattximus (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * The "list itself" is not a "topic"; the list is a format for presenting information. postdlf (talk) 21:02, 10 July 2019 (UTC)


 * This is clearly not "an indiscriminate collection of information" since it is limited to a distinct number of a specific class of elementary schools. I have sourced the inclusion criteria for avoidance of doubt. It is established practice in educational articles to group elementary schools, that are mostly nn, together either in a list or in the Board article to record key information about them. If this list were deleted they would have to be added to the Board page and that would make the page look unbalanced. Just Chilling (talk) 13:07, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Move to Draft space I agree this page is not ready for main space. It is, frankly, crap. If editors are willing to work on and provide ALL of the information that is required to fill the columns, it could be a useful list, I suppose. However, I am dubious. Myself, I am not sure of the value of listing the testing scores. They seem to be numbers without questionable validity to represent the quality of a school. I am not sure of the purpose of a list of schools here when the school board does so itself, with maps showing their catchment areas. Alaney2k (talk) 14:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 17:12, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep The nomination's opinion that "this article is not ready for mainspace" is fundamentally contrary to our editing policy which states that"Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. For instance, one person may start an article with an overview of a subject or a few random facts. Another may help standardize the article's formatting, or have additional facts and figures or a graphic to add. Yet another may bring better balance to the views represented in the article, and perform fact-checking and sourcing to existing content. At any point during this process, the article may become disorganized or contain substandard writing."


 * This method of making a quick start on a topic is the reason that Wikipedia has its name – wiki means quick. This quick and dirty method replaced the perfectionist approach of Nupedia which was an utter failure.  Our successful approach is explicitly incomplete and imperfect – that's why every page has a disclaimer; why we have concepts like stubs; and why we have templates like dynamic list.  If you want to make it even clearer to readers that a page is under construction then you just put a template like under construction on it.  What you don't do is delete it as that would be disruptive and bitey.


 * Note also that the topic certainly passes WP:LISTN because there are substantial sources which list and analyse these schools such as the Report Card on Ontario's Elementary Schools.


 * Andrew D. (talk) 22:41, 16 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment: There was Articles for deletion/List of educational institutions in Scarborough, Ontario about a list of schools within one big section of Toronto. There was considerable sentiment that organizing by area was not best, though the list-article was kept for the time being (I think it should be broken up now).  Discussion led to thinking that there should be lists of schools grouped by school district within the city, instead (though there turns out to be complication where districts don't align with city borders).  I think that listing schools by school district is what works well elsewhere in Wikipedia, and can cover the schools in Toronto, too. (Pinging Nfitz, Bearcat, and PKT who participated there.)


 * I presume school district lists could be organized by (or be sortable by) primary vs. secondary vs. post-secondary, and by location/area within the city. And articles about any small area within the city can mention any elementary school, say, but wikilink to its coverage within the relevant school district list.  Having mention somewhere for all elementary schools, is, in practice, essential to our avoiding cycles of new article creation and deletion for scattered separate elementary schools (usually the school name should be a redirect to an anchor for its coverage within a big list).  In the list-article, most elementary school mentions should be "black-links", i.e. avoid redlinks to avoid suggesting that separate articles should be created.


 * In that AFD it was noted there that there exists:
 * Toronto District School Board (TDSB), whose borders align with the city's
 * Toronto Catholic District School Board (TCDSB)'s whose borders align with the city's
 * Conseil scolaire Viamonde (CSV, French public board), which is an amalgamation of 6 old boards, only one of which (Conseil des écoles françaises de la communauté urbaine de Toronto (CEFCUT)) is in Toronto, while the other 5 cover the entire Southwestern Ontario, Niagara Peninsula, Hamilton, the rest of the GTA outside of Toronto, and a surprising chunk of Central Ontario
 * The French Catholic Board (Conseil scolaire de district catholique Centre-Sud (CSDCCS) "is a bit more limited, but still covers most of the entire Golden Horseshoe and some of the surrounding counties."


 * Here, this AFD is about a list-article for one type of school in one of the districts. It seems like a useful chunk of the total, and can be referenced from Education in Toronto article, which lists the school districts and also independent schools.  It is fine in general for sublists to be split out from list-articles that are otherwise too long, and it is just an editorial decision when to split, or how.  Splitting out elementary schools seems okay.  It could be argued that splitting within school district by geographical area, instead, could be better, but I leave that to others.  I hope that there are editors who will properly organize this stuff, including merging away the Scarborough list (which combined schools from 3 or 4 districts). --Doncram (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * If there is to be a list of public schools, then doing it by school board is the most pragmatic way of doing it, I'd think. It's how people around here (in Ontario) would probably expect to find the information. Nfitz (talk) 03:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep, although the list oughta be quickly developed so that it is comprehensive. A sublist of one type of school can be split out of a list-article about schools in a big district.  That is just an editing decision.  Merger vs. different split can be discussed at Talk page, with notice given to Talk:Toronto District School Board.  It is okay that this is an incomplete list for the moment, and I like the table, but most entries should be "black-links" i.e. no link, rather than redlinks.  The name of a school like Adam Beck Junior Public School (which showed as a redlink) should be redirected to its row in the table, and the mention in the table should be delinked.  As I just did for that one.  It required using "id=" to set an anchor in its table row. --Doncram (talk) 20:01, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * P.S. I just merged into the table all the elementary schools of this district from the Scarborough list-article (which should be dropped soon, IMO).  I think the ESL percentage and Reading, Writing, Mathematics scores columns ought to be dropped;  parents considering where to buy a house they should look this stuff up somewhere reliable and regularly updated, which must be available.  Add columns for relatively unchanging info such as date of establishment of school, and add a description or notes column, instead (adding to current location, size, grades covered). --Doncram (talk) 20:39, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep with a priority on having a simple complete list rather than an incomplete list with incomplete ancillary data (we really don't need test scores here). I've proposed such a version on the talk page. – bradv  🍁  21:02, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
 * If this had been the content to begin with I would never have nominated and have already support the simple list Brad included on the talk page. Best, Barkeep49 (talk) 21:04, 17 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Comment / Note on process. The article has been developed quite a bit and discussed on its Talk page, and the nominator has applied strikethrough to their nomination statement. I am not sure if striking that way is most proper, because it makes the AFD hard to read, although of course the nominator is allowed to indicate they have changed their mind.  But this AFD must continue, anyhow, and the nominator cannot (and did not attempt to) close the AFD, because there are outstanding !votes for "Delete" and "Draftify" from two editors.  User:Ritchie333 and User:Alaney2k, do you care to change/update your !votes given developments?  It is okay if they do not choose to make any update or even to reply.  Unless they both change to "Keep" then this AFD should run its course and be closed regularly by an uninvolved party. Actually a week has gone by since the AFD nomination though, but there have been substantial comments up to today the 17th, so I don't know when a regular close is allowed.  I !voted "Keep" above. --Doncram (talk) 03:22, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * So in this edit I reduced the stricken out range to just the nominator's words, so no longer striking out the AFD's basic info. As the AFD is going on.  And that was a day or two ago and seems to have been accepted.  I guess it is okay for the nominator to strike out all their words, as it now displays; it just appears wrong to strike out the title of AFD, the links to searches, etc., at the top. --Doncram (talk) 21:23, 21 July 2019 (UTC)


 * Keep we generally don't consider most individual elementary schools notable. Redirecting to a board, or in the case of a board with hundreds of elementary (451 apparently), list of schools, seems reasonable. And lists of schools within a board seem to be a common enough thing in the media that this would meet GNG - like this. Nfitz (talk) 03:53, 18 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per WP:HEY, the original issues that would have potentially justified deletion have been addressed. signed,Rosguill talk 04:31, 18 July 2019 (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.