Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Jefferson Middle School (Arlington County, Virginia)


 * 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 no consensus to delete, default to keep. Sandstein 09:47, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thomas Jefferson Middle School (Arlington County, Virginia)

 * - (View AfD) (View log)

1. I once went to a far more remarkable school with the same name, 1200 enrolled kids, several Honor School of Excellence awards in NC, and winning A School To Watch award along with only 107 other schools in the country. Yet nobody ever considered an article.
 * Delete I have nominated this page for deletion for a couple reasons.

2. The only reason the English Wikipedia has over 1.2 Million pages is because of nonsense like this. As I said, there are much more remarkable schools that have no article or even a passing mention anywhere in Wikipedia. It has only been contributed on by 3 people or their cooresponding IP Addresses. FinalWish 02:22, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
 * This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 09:22, 5 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Keep Schools are notable. Bo 14:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletions.   -- Noroton 14:57, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete This is a middle school. Public high schools are notable. I draw a line. --Masterpedia 19:17, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete for a lack of independent, reliable sources. Huon 20:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep I wouldn't automatically want every middle school article, but this is a very good one. It meets WP:NOTABLE. I don't understand Huon's statement that independent, reliable sources are lacking. I've added two, and there are more out there: a Washington Post article and the Great Schools web pages on school statistics, both can be seen in the footnotes. Noroton 00:23, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. This is a relatively good article for a school and the sources establish notability.  Also, the nomination presents no reason for deletion: attending "a far more remarkable school"? ... Hardly a reason.  Having some kind of problem that WP has >1.2 million articles??  ..........  Having a problem with IP contributors? .... Rather WP:BITEy.  -- Black Falcon 08:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * In fact, I'm going to propose a speedy keep based on the fact the nom has given absolutely no reason to delete. I don't quite understand the comment by User:Huon as the article does have sources and ones that are independent of the school. -- Black Falcon 08:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment The problem I have with this article is one of notability. The sources we have are:
 * The school's website and the local school profile obviously aren't independent sources.
 * The County Fair and the Opera Theatre are both passing mentions, more for the location than for the school itself. "Independence" is debatable.
 * The Washington Post definitely is independent, reliable, an all-round good source (though it wasn't there when I first voiced my opinion), but the incident reported is rather strange - I would call the depth of coverage "not substantial" per WP:N.
 * That leaves us with the Great Schools website, one where I'm very skeptical. If it were to confer notability on this school, does it also confer notability on every other school mentioned on that website with a comparable amount of information?
 * In conclusion, I don't see notability established by mentions in secondary sources. The Washington Post might persuade me to make it a very weak keep, but then we have a school notable for a teacher playing Mah Jongg with some of her pupils during the lunch break... Huon 11:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Delete per Huon's reasoning. In reading this article I was tempted to add to the "Trivia" section the phrase "all this article", but I manfully resisted. I can see the way this debate is going: it's pretty clear that the undiscriminating masses have virtually "won" the battle over high schools, and have moved on to middle schools. Despite their protestations that they would stop with high schools they haven't, and they won't stop here. Kindergartens will be next, and then post offices. And then malls. Maybe I should just argue for keeping everything too, and then sit back and laugh as Noroton and his friends try to maintain thousands of articles. There is no reason why anybody in the world, other than people with a personal connection, should have any interest in this school. Let's just be clear about this school: it's entirely unimportant in the great scheme of things, and has no more bearing on the history or future of mankind than my little finger. It's just a school like thousands of others. WMMartin 15:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Lack of non-trivial coverage in multiple independent reliable sources -- fails WP:NOTE. Shimeru 19:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment I find it very annoying that most of the schools in the Arlington County school district have articles, the only schools that should be on wikipedia IMO are high schools, and even then only if their are exceptional in some way or a notable event has occoured there. Strongsville High School is notable for example because their marching band is annually featured at the Macy's Day Parade and has performed many other major events, not to mention the sports team winning several state championships. And an article on Colambine is very notable because of the major events that occoured there FinalWish 21:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. The policy I find most applicable to this discussion is WP:NOT. Wikipedia's coverage of schools (including Middle Schools) should be standardized and improved, not ignored, and the pages should not be deleted.—Carolfrog 00:55, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep 1) WP:OTHERCRAPDOESNTEXIST is not a valid justification to delete an article. 2) If we only have 1.2 million articles, we still have a few million more to go before we're done. This article covers the topic, providing reliable and verifiable sources to demonstrate notability. Alansohn 05:00, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as notability is clearly demonstrated within the article, regardless of what school guideline is being rejected this week. See also User:Silensor/Schools for additional rationale.  Silensor 05:36, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Strong Keep Its notable, theres a lot of info and much of it has been referenced. The article needs a bit of a cleanup and a few more references would be good, but its hardly a one line advertising stub! LordHarris 00:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Claims of notability? Umm.... where exactly are these claims of notability? Like, name one? The only one I see is the large gymnasium it uses, which doesn't even belong to the school; it just happens to be next door at the community center. And then there is the current vandalized state of the article... not a good sign.  Out!! --Brianyoumans 05:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * keep please there is notable showne in the article erasing this makes no sense to do yuckfoo 06:30, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Just to be repetitive... what is notable about this school? Things I would regard as notable: it has won some major national award or recognition; it has a proud history of winning sports championships; it has several prominent alumni; it dates from, say, pre-Civil War era; it is located in a historic school building; some significant events of the civil rights era occurred there; some maniac once shot 12 students, covered them with peanut butter, and asked the police for grape jelly.  I'm not hard to please, but I don't see any such claims here. Not a whit. --Brianyoumans 07:29, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, there are a few things to note:
 * The school has the second largest gymnasium in Virginia;
 * The school is used as the location for Arlington County's annual fair;
 * The school has been noted in a Washington Post article; and
 * The sixth grade lobby is green, the seventh grade lobby is yellow, and the eighth grade lobby is blue. Although this last one doesn't do anything to establish notability, I find it rather (disturbingly?) strange.  -- Black Falcon 17:40, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * The Post article is a little "people" story about the teacher who plays mah-jong with students; it is only incidentally about the school. The gymnasium is at the community center next door, it is just used by the school. Site of local annual fair - how... unexciting. But I appreciate your working with my strange demands for something interesting in the article.  Anyone else?  (We once moved into an apartment where all the rooms were painted different pastel colors, apparently after the colors of NECCO wafers. It was slightly disturbing, but I'm not writing a Wikipedia article about it.) --Brianyoumans 17:53, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
 * First, there is nothing wrong with a "people" story, given that it is about a teacher from this school. Second, what you (and admittedly I as well) find unexciting is not particularly important: a county fair is a county fair and it undoubtedly attracts significant annual local attention (see WP:LOCAL).  And no offense to your (former?) apartment, but it probably has far less significance than a school which tens of thousands will attend.  -- Black Falcon 18:28, 9 March 2007 (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.