Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of schools in the United States (2nd nomination)


 * 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   that this AfD was overtaken by events. Consensus was to delete the huge list of schools, but the article has in the interim been completely rewritten and should now be properly called List of lists of schools in the United States. It would take another AfD (not that I would recommend starting one) to determine whether there is consensus to delete this new article.  Sandstein  17:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

List of schools in the United States
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)


 * Note - The AfDs for this article are misleading. The first AfD represents three distinct AfDs from 2003-2004.

This should be a category, not an article. Jaysweet (talk) 16:03, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Additional comment: If it were sorted by state or some other criterion besides alphabetical order, that might change my mind.  As it is now, this article doesn't offer anything that a Category page wouldn't. --Jaysweet (talk) 16:18, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note to closing admin: If consensus is to delete, please userfy the article to my userspace so it can be organized by state and district; it needs work, but I think there's a viable list here. Celarnor Talk to me  23:50, 5 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Technically this is a keep. Delete but preserve history and softredirect to Category:United_States_education_by_state and Lists of school districts in the United States.  Preserve history to aide in expanding school district articles.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  16:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Essentially, this is a list of Wikipedia articles about high schools in the USA, which is also accomplished with a category (actually, it's a list of schools in the USA, which is even worse). There are thousands and thousands of high schools in the United States (i.e. more than 4,000), let alone all the middle schools and elementary schools; I suppose one could throw in colleges and business schools and preschools and beauty schools if one wanted to get technical, but assuming it was just a list of high schools, and I can't see what need would be served by listing all of them in alphabetical order.  Perhaps someone would see that their school is a red link, and make it a blue link, although I think they would notice that their school lacks an article even before seeing the list.  Perhaps someone would find an object that says "AHS" and look here for a clue about which high school the object came from, but that seems unlikely also.  Perhaps someone would look to see where all the "Fremont High School" schools in America were located, but that would be accomplished by googling.  If someone could show me that there was a need for this, I'd change my mind, but I don't see why you'd want an Aberdeen High to Zanesville High list of thousands of high schools.  Inevitably, this useless list would be spun off into even more useless lists, such as "List of schools in the United States beginning with A".  This isn't a good idea for an article.  Mandsford (talk) 17:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete/Categorise as it stands I really don't see the advantage of this list over a category and there doesn't seem to be the impetus to change it significantly to make it more useful/useable. Guest9999 (talk) 18:48, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep, per redundancy between categories and lists not being a reason for deletion. I'm not really convinced that a category would serve the same function.  Categories just aren't dynamic enough to allow for good presentation of information yet without creating separate subcategories.  Until they are, I think it is a much better solution to have a human-readable list to accompany the given category; there's a lot of room for improvement, and the NOEFFORT argument doesn't really make sense to me in an environment where articles are in a constant state of flux.  This could be separated by geographic region and then by state.  Really, for things of this size, there should be a List of schools in Kansas, List of schools in New York, etc, and this list could link to all of those.  Keeping in mind that our goal is to present information to people and not to computers, I think its best to keep this.  Celarnor Talk to me  23:47, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment There are already lists of school districts in each state. The individual school districts are the most obvious place to put schools in list form.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  00:27, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Those are districts themselves, not the schools within them. Useful for someone researching districts, but not schools themselves.  Celarnor Talk to me  00:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * There comes a point where things are ridiculous because things are too big, too unwieldy, too hard to maintain, or duplicate information found elsewhere in a way that becomes hard to maintain in sync. Somewhere between List of schools offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme and List of educational institutions on Planet Earth is the right place to draw the line.  In a country where even the list of school districts is broken down by state, NOT breaking down the list of schools into states or individual school districts leads to a mega-sized list that is difficult to manage.  davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  01:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that the place to draw that line is at the schools; they need to be included in a hierarchal list. The appropriate place for them isn't here in one massive list, but importantly, that doesn't exclude listings higher up in the heirachy for navigational purposes.  Remember that our navigational system is based on lists, not categories.  We need List of schools, just like we need List of schools in the United States, because that's how people navigate.  The actual list of schools doesn't have to be there, but it's the appropriate name to host the next level of content.  Consensus seems to be that high schools are notable, so a decent system to should be in place to organize them, starting with individual listings like List of schools in district Y.  I don't agree that we shouldn't have this page at all; this page should at least link to each List of school districts in state x, since that's how the United States operates its schools, and that's the most appropriate way to organize it based on our navigation system.  Celarnor Talk to me  03:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The hierarchy already exists for public schools, it is List of school districts in the United States->list of school districts in [state]->[School district article] which, if complete, would list the schools in that school district. The soft-redirect I propose above will serve as a navigational aide without unnecessarily duplicating existing information.  Of course, many of these articles are woefully incomplete, but where they are complete, it is as easy to find as a hierarchical set of "List of public schools in the United States"->"List of public schools in New York State"->"List of public schools in Queens County" would be.
 * For private schools, a similar set of lists can be developed, only since most such schools are stand-alone, breaking down by state, county, or metropolitan area would make more sense, e.g. List of private schools in New York State.
 * In any case, the only advantage to a list, list-of-lists, or lists-of-lists over categories is they can include non-notable entities like Your Neighborhood Elementary School that categories cannot.
 * davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail)  03:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Lists can do many, many things that categories can't, or can but do badly. I can cross elements (i.e, Schools in New York can include both private and public schools), and add descriptions and formatting to make it more human-readable.  Categories are ugly to look at, can't be edited for formatting, and need subcategories that you can't look at all at the same time.  My main issue is that someone not familiar with the district system will get confused.  Someone who is looking for a list of schools is looking for a list of schools.  They're not going to type "List of school districts in the United States".  A soft-redirect, I suppose, is a viable solution, but it doesn't incorporate what you suggest.  I would say that each state should get accompanying private and public school lists and categories and those would get linked to from here; that way, all the information is centralized and accessible from one location; two separate lists aren't necessary, and we aren't favoring one school type over another; the private vs. public school thing brings up an interesting point that makes it more imperative that this page gets kept and adapted.  Celarnor <sup style="color:#7733ff;">Talk to me  03:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment I love it how Wycombe High School is on the list and it is not even a US school. Seems to confirm the pointlessness of the page Sinisterial (talk) 00:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
 * So fix it. That's a content issue, and only means that there's improvement to be had.  <b style="color:#629632;">Celarnor</b> <sup style="color:#7733ff;">Talk to me  00:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete as redundant with other categories and hopelessly too large to properly maintain and keep updated and accurate. --ElKevbo (talk) 03:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Strong delete This is a "useless" list and impossible to maintain. Reliance on category is infinitely preferable. Ohconfucius (talk) 03:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete this version, as lumping all the schools together on one page will be MASSIVE, unmaintainable, and so incomplete that it becomes useless. (It is basically a list of randomly(?) selected schools in US, which is not what the title promises.) I could see this working if this is the top of a list pyramid, with entries like "List of schools in Alabama" and so on, in that case it would be a good navigational tool which might be a bit more flexible than categories since we can list by district and not just in alphabetical order. So if anyone wants to recreate (or rewrite) in that form, that's fine. Sjakkalle (Check!)  08:20, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment Regarding Celarnor's remarks, I for one would consider a WP:HEY criteria that the article needs to be reorganized so that it is actually easier to navigate than the category page (right now, the *HS organization just makes it confusing) and ought to be as complete as the category page (within a few percent at least, allowing that new school could be created while doing the formatting).  The apparent intentions of this article do not demonstrate value to me; but Celarnor's proposed article may have some value. --Jaysweet (talk) 13:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.   —Camaron | Chris (talk) 15:47, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.   --  Double Blue  (Talk) 19:58, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per Celarnor and WP:HEY after I've heavily revised it to be more of a "list of lists" type article. I've condensed the format introduced by Celarnor to something which I hope you will agree is more useful. Please reconsider any "delete" arguments in light of the new format of the list. DHowell (talk) 04:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per Lists (discriminate, organized, verfiable, notable, and encyclopedic list). Consistent per First pillar with an almanac on schools.  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 04:31, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Strong keep per Lists (discriminate, organized, verfiable, notable, and encyclopedic list). Consistent per First pillar with an almanac on schools.  Sincerely, --  Le Grand Roi des Citrouilles  Tally-ho! 04:31, 10 June 2008 (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.