Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/New York City DOE Region 1 (3rd 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 Merge. I've been watching this one for a while now and expected it to frankly be a no consensus. A consensus has emerged (NPI) however to merge them into one article instead of 10 separate (unexpandable) articles. Merging and redirecting doesn't need admin assistance. Please note, I will not be performing these actions as closer. Simply closing. Keeper  |   76   |   Disclaimer  19:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

New York City DOE Region 1
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

The Regions were disbanded. Schools in New York City no longer belong to regions. Templates and articles organizing NYC schools by region are anachronistic and confusing. Jd2718 (talk) 18:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason: :  :   :   :   :      :   :   :   : Short history

Districts: for several decades, NY City public schools were divided into districts. The districts were small geographic regions for elementary and middle schools (about two dozen in all) and 5 large districts for high schools.

Regions: In 2004 the districts were absorbed into 10 regions, and in 2006 they announced the Regions would be dissolved (happened June 2007).

Now: the districts exist (for one very minor task) and as identifiers. The Regions do not exist, and are not used as identifiers. Schools belong to "Learning Support Organizations" (LSO's) or "Professional Support Organizations" (PSO's) or "the Empowerment zone," non-geographic groupings based on who the school pays for support services. Schools may move from one LSO or PSO to another.

If we need a geographic organizer (and I am not convinced that we do), then either the old districts or the boroughs make sense. The regions simply do not exist. Jd2718 (talk) 18:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * In response to arguments that regions can be used as a navigational device: 1) The Department of Education organizes its schools on its website by Borough, District, or Zip Code, but not Region. 2) It has already become difficult to determine which region some schools belonged to, and 3) certainly the 20 new schools opened this year and the 20 to be opened in September will never have belonged to any of them. Jd2718 (talk) 22:18, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment - the fact that they no longer exist should not matter as to their notability. matt91486 (talk) 19:43, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * The fact that they are not notable makes them not notable. The fact that they no longer exist denies them the possibility of becoming notable in the future. The previous deletion debate resulted in "no consensus." The only argument put forward was that we use them as navigational tools. I would urge readers to read the two previous (quite brief) debates. Jd2718 (talk) 19:51, 17 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge them together, the navigational boxes can still refer to the main article, making a note as to which of the regions they belong, like this New York City DOE Regions (region 1) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:00, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.   —• Gene93k (talk) 22:19, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Do not merge or redirect; the old articles seem to have no content worth saving. CRGreathouse (t | c) 00:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete all per nom. Even if these articles were ever useful, they no longer are. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and merge - a record of which schools belonged to which region is sound historic information and the combined article should record not only the demise of the regions but the policy reasons behind the decision. TerriersFan (talk) 04:57, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep Whatever was noted historically remains notable. They were notable in the past, although the material may not yet have been adequately written for them here. That they no longer exists does not eliminate the sources already existing in NYC newspapers and elsewhere. New Amsterdam also no longer exists, but it has not therefore become un-notable.  This continues to serve to tie the articles together for a very long and important period of their history. I note that very few of the NYC high schools have yet received articles--this will undoubtedly be corrected. But if TerriersFan wants to merge them properly, that's OK also.DGG (talk) 04:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Note I've also nominated the Region 9 Template for deletion Templates_for_deletion/Log/2008_February_17. Apparently each of these articles has an associated template. Jd2718 (talk) 05:12, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete and optionally redirect all to New York City Department of Education. The content of these articles is essentially recursive (one sentence noting definition, one noting dissolution). We should phase out our use of this as a navigation scheme as well. Of course we can document but I don't see how these individually meet WP:ORG and their only utility is for navigation. If somehow there was content I could see keeping the stubs, but what content could there be? The DOE of one of the largest cities in the world has had more than one organizational scheme in its history and we don't need articles for every subgrouping they have ever created, especially if we offer nothing of value in those articles. --Dhartung | Talk 06:04, 18 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge into New York City DOE Regions (or somesuch) and Redirect numbered articles to it, would seem the encyclopedic thing to do. Exit2DOS2000   •T•C•  07:20, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge per TerriersFan and DGG. --Daddy.twins (talk) 14:36, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep and Merge per TerriersFan. Noroton (talk) 04:41, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep notability does not expire. A reader wanting information about these older districts for a historical perspective should be able to look to a world class encyclopedia for that information, not just a log page that says they were deleted because the districts restructured. KEEP. JERRY talk contribs 04:44, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Bearian's suggestion which was in agreement with Exit2DOS2000. I did not see that the first time.  Good idea!  Let's do it! That of course requires a keep closure for GFDL, so I am not striking through my original !vote, but here's a bold Merge. JERRY talk contribs 21:59, 20 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep and merge into one big article per Exit2DOS2000 et al. Bearian (talk) 20:22, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Bearian's suggestion is reasonable. However, they would still contain only a stubby amount of information. Perhaps they could make up a section in History of the New York City Department of Education. Jd2718 (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment Several editors have expressed the opinion "once notable, always notable." However, the claim that the Regions were ever notable is shaky at best; I would dispute it. Look, for instance, at the maximum extent of the articles being discussed. In the context of NYC, the Districts reached notability, and probably deserved articles. Some, including District 2 and District 26 have considerable history, culture, etc. Just not true for any of the regions.
 * Comment Tu quoque There have now been 3 nominations for deletions for these articles. In each of them the majority of the keep comments have been per DGG or per TerriersFan. (9 out of 12 keep comments altogether have been by or per these two editors.) Yet their reasons change over time and/or are demonstrably false. they will be a good place for listing some important information about less notable schools, They were used for many years (they were used for parts of three years, and never covered all schools), we now have an agreed use for these articles. (when asked what that use was, no reply was ever forthcoming), The reason for keeping them is the key information in the navigation boxes, which is where the individual schools are listed. (even though a substantial number of schools never belonged to a region, and today no schools do so), This continues to serve to tie the articles together for a very long and important period of their history. Jd2718 (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment I note with substantial dissatisfaction that some commenters here have not familiarized themselves with the difference between Districts in NYC and Regions in NYC. Jd2718 (talk) 01:38, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I was asked to respond. I have no quarrel with jd's very concise account of the historical record. But the sketch at New York City Department of Education will not provide much further information, nor will anything in WP. the defining event in its 20th century history, the 1968 school strike, is not covered in any WP article. Agreed there are problems in a rational description, for the Department of Education and its precursors are generally regarded in NYC as the acme of NYC's endemic dysfunctional complexity--and in educational circles as the most complicated way to organize public education yet invented, increasingly so in each successive incarnation. There is a need for giving an understandable account of it here, to the extent the material will allow of being understood.  I do not despair of it being done, though I certainly do not want to personally do it.  jd too has had the judgment to work on other topics. It is indicative that there are fewer articles on NYC public schools than in any other major urban area.
 * The way of clarifying such events is chronological, with each stage being separately described. The individual schools and the neighborhoods cut across the chronological framework in an non straightforward manner,, and can best be understood after knowing the basic historical sequence. Most established schools will have been in one or more districts, then in a region, and now in some other entity. Though the regions deservedly had a short life span, they are part of the record. The scheme needs to be set out, so that it can be expanded.  We have a start at the framework, and we should keep it so we do not have to reconstruct it.
 * Where we do not yet have full articles, but have the possibility of them, we should not tear down what little we do have. That's one of the meanings of always notable, of historical notability. We build a comprehensive work by filling in the gaps. I apologize for having earlier given a less comprehensive account of the argument. DGG (talk) 03:37, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Characterisations such as "I note with substantial dissatisfaction that some commenters here have not familiarized themselves with the difference between Districts in NYC and Regions in NYC" simply demonstrates how weak the nominator's case is. Regions were the management bodies for schools and as such notable. The proposed solution, creating a combined article to which some much needed background can be added, is the constructive, positive way forward. Deletion achieves nothing. TerriersFan (talk) 04:12, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Keep.

The fact that the scheme is disbanded should be of no consequence. History is especially appropriate to this encyclopaedia.

Further basic information needs to be added. What there is consists of “This districting scheme was officially phased out in 2007.” This requires a citation. The following questions should be answered: Why were they phased out? What were they replaced with? Where there any consequences, or was the change seamless. What history is there to the districting scheme (when & how was it introduced)? Jd2718’s short history is a good start.

Even if the regions were not notable, the article is important for navigation purposes and for expansion of the encyclopaedia. In this respect, the article is just like a list, only better presented. I expect that the articles will in time become organised differently, but this should be left to editors involved, not decided at AfD. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 09:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
 * keep the articles should make clear that these regions are essentially historical. But that isn't a reason to delete the articles. JoshuaZ (talk) 19:36, 25 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Merge all articles on NYC DOE regions into one section in New York City Department of Education. Rigby27 (talk) 18:41, 22 February 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.