Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Thomas Spriggs Wootton High School

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was ambiguous.

I count 11 clear "delete" votes (including 1 from User:Seesdifferent who forgot to sign his post), 12 "keep" votes (2 anons and 1 probable troll discounted) and one "merge" vote from Skysmith who put one too many tildes in the signature). Failing to reach a clear concensus to delete, the decision defaults to keep.  Rossami (talk) 06:40, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thomas Spriggs Wootton High School
This is a non-notable high school. It should be Deleted. --Holdek 00:31, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, vanity. Sigh.  I wish people were at least willing to come to the table to hash out a compromise on these instead of leaving everyone to fight it out three times a day, every day. &mdash;Korath (Talk) 02:17, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * What kind of compromise would you like? I suggest a tag, which spells out what a school article should contain to make it interesting/useful enough for inclusion. Kappa 08:45, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I think a centralized discussion on schools would be in order. We are indeed repeating our arguments nearly daily; it should be possible for us to reach a consensus through discussion. Radiant! 10:48, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * I was thinking more of guidelines for inclusion à la WikiProject_Music/Notability and Music Guidelines. BEEFSTEW's a step in the right direction, though I regret to say I've mostly been using it like "this article is so terrible, even the radical inclusionist party should be embarrassed to vote keep for it".  I think a mere  template is just another way of saying that every school is worthy of inclusion, an opinion that I respect but emphatically disagree with.  I'm sure everyone agrees that every country should be in Wikipedia, and not every fire hydrant should; the contention is where the line should be drawn.  That every town in the world, even those with no more than six inhabitants, should have its own article seems like overkill, though I'm willing to accept it for consistency; that every high school - let alone middle and elementary schools! - in every town also should is well on the other side of the line.  There's really very little to say about most of them other than location, number of students, mascot, football team name, and similar, and such is better suited to an almanac than an encyclopedia.  I also remain of the opinion that, of the school articles that get created on Wikipedia, at least ninety-nine out of every hundred are vanity pages. &mdash;Korath (Talk) 12:00, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I don't see why notability shouldn't be a criteria. We use it for bands, people, companies, books and more. DaveTheRed 04:28, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Notability is a de facto criterium, because of the amount of people that use it, and the amount of articles that are deleted by the consensus because of being not notable. Radiant! 10:48, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete: The "notability isn't spelled out in the deletion guidelines" argument is wearisome and false. At any rate, the difficulty for me with schools has always been that an article must give a reason for the school having a character that sets it apart.  "It affects lives" doesn't work, because the local gas station affects lives.  "Noted Person X went there" also doesn't work for me, unless the school as a particular school had some effect that can be identified in making the fame (e.g. J. D. Salinger's prep school would have a good case to make, but Alfred Kinsey's high school wouldn't).  In this case, we have the bare facts of the school followed by a student's idea of highlights that go back 2 years and a student's ideas of the administration (that the principal's sexual orientation was a reason for removal is shocking, if this is a public school, as it absolutely is illegal to do something like that).  Nothing makes this school a uniquely identifiable or significant entity.  Those seeking to learn about it will do better with the county court records. Geogre 04:59, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. It's a school.--Centauri 06:42, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, and cleanup possible POV/unverifiable. The article explains various interesting facts about the school, and schools particular characters are important to their local areas. Kappa 07:21, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. No evidence of notability. Jayjg (talk) 07:24, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete until notability established. Radiant! 10:48, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. I might be willing to accept the first two paragraphs if the 'top 100' claim would provide an external cite. Presidents visiting a school isn't exceptional - politicians tend to do a lot of these things, particularly when an election is coming up. Minor, amateur, age-group sporting stuff, boring. So, a potential claim to note followed by lots of irrelevent padding which is better off in your own webpages somewhere. Average Earthman 14:59, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep- One of the Best Schools in the Nation. Stop Bombarding the school's with vfd's! --BrenDJ 17:05, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * On what parameter? Cite? Average Earthman 23:21, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and improve --BaronLarf 17:09, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep: A BEEFSTEW of nine is the best I've ever seen before. You should DEFINITELY keep this.  mathwiz2020 11:07, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * A) +1: The article is more than two sentences.
 * B) +1: There is one coherent paragraph of text.
 * C) +1: Assuming each character is one byte, the article is more than 2000 bytes (excluding the Votes for Deletion header).
 * D) +1: There are more than three facts. (OAR members attended Wootton, President Bush visited Wootton, and the cheerleading scandal.)
 * E) +1: There is a photograph.
 * F) +1: Yes, the members of the band OAR are alumni of Wootton and, considering they played at Wolftrap (a very prestigious honor), they are notable enough to be the subject of a Wikipedia article.
 * G) +1: President Bush visiting the school appeared in a White House press release.
 * H) +1: The Science Bowl and Cross Country teams make the school notable AND do not fall under F or G.
 * I) +1: Pleasing an alumnus is a matter of opinion but, in my opinion, it would. ESPECIALLY since it mentions some 2004 alumni.
 * J) +0: Well, a teacher could learn that many teachers are often fired, but I wouldn't give the tenth point to Wootton.


 * OUTTAHERE In all things, seek what is the essence... Wiki is a reference work, imho. Schools have large professional websites full of information. Take a look at [Wootton's]. GOOGLE/search engines have a place in IT !!!  Columbine High School is notable and needed in a reference work. Wooten is nice but not the subject of research. The "Washington slept here" stuff is chamber of commerce style bs. IMHO.
 * Keep and make room for extra extreme helpings of BEEFSTEW. &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 02:17, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. No such thing as school articles being vanity. Btw, great article! --Andylkl 07:02, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * Merge into Rockville, Maryland and delete - 10:29, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * No evidence of non-notability, even though notability is not a criterion for inclusion on Wikipedia. Keep and allow for organic growth and expansion.  --GRider\talk 23:22, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Comment: I added an aerial photo and a nice table. Is that enough to keep it?
 * Keep Tiresome deletioncruft. Wincoote 17:32, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Not notable. --Carnildo 22:52, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * We're looking at a BEEFSTEW of nine and this is up for deletion?!? Keep.  IMO, the article establishes notability pretty well as is, but it could certainly use an external reference. - Lucky 6.9 23:12, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. If this were what we typically got for secondary schools, I'd be in favor of keeping them generally. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:44, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. BEEFSTEW is a poor set of criteria for determining inclusion in Wikipedia.  -- WOT 17:25, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Weak keep. For me, this is in the grey area of minimally notable things that we don't need articles on, but if someone bothers to actually make a decent non-stub factual and properly formated article, I don't object to leaving it here as mostly harmless. -- Infrogmation 16:40, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * You expressed it better than I could. Weak keep --Tydaj 01:58, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Strong keep The article looks better than some other articles that I've seen. -- 68.255.38.230 00:59, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. More than a stubstub, but the article still leaves one wondering how this is anything other than a run-of-the-mill high school. How is it notable? Why does it belong in an encyclopedia? Jonathunder 23:50, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)
 * keep this please, its a great article. Yuckfoo 21:00, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.