Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Whitstone school


 * 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, defaulting to keep. Can&#39;t sleep, clown will eat me 21:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Whitstone school
No assertion of significance - CrazyRussian talk/email 03:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom.-- Hús  ö  nd  03:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. TJ Spyke 03:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. MER-C 04:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete fails WP:Schools. Catchpole 06:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep for reasons established at User:Silensor/Schools as well as the proposed WP:SCHOOLS guideline. I am currently in the process of refactoring this article, please feel free to lend me a hand.  Silensor 07:44, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment and see User:JoshuaZ/Schools as the relevant response. JoshuaZ 15:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * keep per Silensor Jcuk 08:03, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep as per WP:SCHOOL. There are many hundreds of similar articles about schools. If we delete this one we would really have to go after them all. --Dave 08:43, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment- That may be true, but precedent is no reason to keep. If you feel that by deleting this one we have an obligation to clean up other articles and merge them to their districts, then that means the community will just have to spend more effort on the topic. --Kuzaar-T-C- 11:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Xe actually cited WP:SCHOOL as the reason to keep. This article cites two sources.  The first of those definitely qualifies as a non-trivial published work.  Uncle G 12:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Standard school inspection reports are trivial. JoshuaZ 15:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Wrong. They are usually extensive, and this 33-page report certainly is.  You apparently do not understand what a trivial published work is.  For an example of what a trivial published work actually is, read this, which is just a directory listing. Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Wrong. The extensiveness of the report is irrelevant, and you are confusing "extensive" with "nontrivial". Since an Ofsted report, as far as I am able to tell, is made on almost every registered school in its purview, they are not useful for distinguishing noteworthy schools from the alternative. JoshuaZ is correct. --Kuzaar-T-C- 13:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom. And if there are hundreds of similar articles, let's delete those, too. Shimeru 09:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Appears to be an independent school. Merge with the town (Shepton Mallet) if feasible, otherwise keep per the past precedent. Sjakkalle (Check!)  09:29, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, per nom. Cedars 11:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete, no nontrivial mainstream sources provided. Additionally, no assertion of significance. --Kuzaar-T-C-
 * That rationale is clearly not based upon reading the article, which cites one source that is a 33-page document about the school, that is an in-depth report on things ranging from the school's Young Enterprise program to its deficiencies in the teaching of art, music, and drama. Moreover, lacking assertions of significance is not a deletion criterion for anything except certain specific categories of articles, which does not include articles on schools.  It is good that you are addressing the sources.  But please actually read them.  And please familiarize yourself with our deletion policies and criteria. Uncle G 12:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The info sourced from the Ofsted report appears to be in breach of Crown Copyright - which requires that all extracts quoted are reproduced verbatim without adaptation - the race percentages have been adapted. Catchpole 12:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That's ridiculously weak argument that is bordering upon outright silly. Repeating a percentage figure is not making an extract of a document and quoting it.  Data are not subject to copyright.  If such reaching is your only way way to criticise the sources on the article's subject, then please consider whether your opinion actually has any foundation at all.  Uncle G 13:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I was just surprised I didn't find your 99.6% figure in the report, then saw you had gotten your calculator out. I wasn't criticising the source, merely the use of the source in the article. It does seem strange that the most noteworthy thing you chose to include in the article - out of all 33 pages - is the ethnicity of the pupils rather than the average spent on each pupil from April 2002 to April 2003 was 3,025UKP or that 'provision in IT is very good. Catchpole 14:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It's not my figure, and I didn't write the article. Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I will thank you not to speculate on my analysis of sources. I do not and have not found Ofsted reports nontrivial, nor the coverage provided by them to have been significant to assert notability at any point. --Kuzaar-T-C- 23:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Analysing sources is what we do here at Wikipedia. It's a fundamental part of the task of writing an encyclopaedia.  If you don't want people to point out where your analyses are wrong, or clearly not based upon reading the sources concerned, then Wikipedia is not for you.  Moreover, any editor who finds 33-page documents on subjects to be trivial has a completely skewed idea of what constitutes a source for an encyclopaedia article.  The notability criteria on WP:SCHOOL describe what the triviality criteria are actually aimed at, which are sources that are simple name+address directory entries with no real meat to them.  A 33-page detailed study clearly is not a directory entry.  Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * How you managed to construe my concern with the Ofsted report on this school (which, as far as I know, are made on every registered public school under their purview, and thus is not a helpful factor for determining which schools have received significant mainstream attention) for a concern that the report was not extensive enough, I do not understand. It's great that an entity had a job to report on this school, but I do not find that sufficient to assert that this school has the thinnest claim to notability because of it. --Kuzaar-T-C- 13:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. And indeed, please delete all similar articles as well. The "cricket ground" line exemplifies for me the trivialities needed to fill such articles beyond directory length. Fram 12:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I suggest that you, too, actually read the cited sources and consider what material they have available for expanding the article. Uncle G 12:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't consider the school inspection report a sufficiently important mainstream source. Every school has one, and this does not distinguish this school from any other. This one clearly states that this school is average in almost all aspects. In fact, most companies, shops, clubs, ... have numerous official reports (work inspection,; food inspection, whatever): would you include articles on all these entities if those were made public as well? If all you have are official, obligatory inspection reports, then you have nothing of value on its own (though they can of course be used as additional info on notable schools, if needed). I don't think this school is (or for that matter, most schools are) notable, so I have no interest in expanding the article. And if you need to expand the article by including that an equally non notable local cricket club uses the school cricket ground as their training ground, then that is for me a reason more to delete it, not a reason less. As for deletion policy and criteria, one of the criteria is WP:NOT an indiscrimante collection of information, which states that "there is a continuing debate about the encyclopedic merits of several classes of entries". Schools obviously are one of those classes, and to me they do fall under WP:NOT. These discussions are an ongoing attempt at consensus forming, and implying that one cannot vote delete because there is no consensus for it is circular reasoning. There is no policy or guideline that says schools should never bne deleted, and there is none that says that schools should always be kept. Applying more strict interpretation of WP:NOT or WP:CORP for schools is the right of the individual editor and the only way to perhaps, one day get a consensus by precedent. For the moment, there is no such consensus and no clear precedent (I have seen schools deleted, kept, redirected, ...). Fram 12:58, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Your thinking is confused and erroneous. What is necessary to consider about sources when writing an encyclopaedia article is not their importance, but their provenances and their depths.  (Some very confused people talk about "notable sources" and "important sources".  There are no such things.  It is subjects to which the two distinct concepts of notability and importance apply, not sources.)  A 33-page document produced by someone who is not only independent of the school but officially so, has depth and is clearly not sourced from the school itself.  Your argument that companies have reports like this is also wrong.  They do not.  (If you wish to demonstrate otherwise, please point to the reports for .  You will find that you cannot.)  Not even all schools have such things written about them. You are also abusing "not an indiscriminate collection of information", a criterion that is not an indiscriminate criterion for deletion.  It is not a simple synonym for "I think that this should be deleted.", as it is sometimes abused to be. if you need to expand the article by including that an equally non notable local cricket club uses the school cricket ground as their training ground &mdash; The information is verifiable, and encountered when I looked to see what sources existed for the school.  If you think that editors should not include verifiable information that they come across, and cite their sources when including it in articles, you have a very odd idea of how to write a verifiable encyclopaedia.  If you think that it has a bearing upon notability, then you should re-read WP:SCHOOL (which makes no mention of cricket clubs) and this discussion (where you yourself were the first person to mention it).  Please don't use straw men. implying that one cannot vote delete because there is no consensus for it &mdash;  Please don't start the "stuck record" arguments over schools again, and please don't use yet more straw men.  You were doing quite well in addressing the sources, which is the proper study of encyclopaedists, until you reached that point.  The criteria for schools are WP:SCHOOL, whose primary criterion is the primary notability criterion that focusses discussion upon the provenances and depths of the sources that exist.  This article has at least one source of suitable depth and provenance.  You have yet to show that that source is unsatisfactory for the purpose of writing an encyclopaedia article.  The only arguments raised against it so far have been your argument that other such sources exist to support other articles, which is clearly fallacious, and Catchpole's ridiculous argument that one cannot use government published documents as sources for encyclopaedia articles because numbers are copyrighted. Uncle G 13:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The notability criteria for schools are not WP:SCHOOL, which is only a proposed guideline. The notability criteria for schools are undefined and hence up to the interpretation of the individual editors. Your criteria may well be WP:SCHOOL, mine aren't. As for the cricket quote, I did not say that it was unverifiable, just that it is a prime example of things that can be verifiable (and thus correct wrt WP:V, WP:OR and in this case WP:NPOV), and still of such extreme obscurity that they are very much not of encyclopedic value. Probably all results of all matches some team of the school ever played can be sourced to some local newspaper, but I don't think that means that they are of any value to the encyclopedia. This is just a prime example of why notability is a concept that should be a guideline. Other points you raise: it aren't only confused people that talk about important and notable sources: WP:V (a policy) says that "Articles should rely on credible, third-party sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The next paragrahp even talks about "reputable" sources. To parapharse this as "notable" or "important" sources seems not so confused to me. By the way, your sources can, according to WP:RS, be considered primary sources, which are not allowed as the main sources for an article. Certainly the "cricket" source is, on top of being about a very non notable subject, clearly unacceptable as a main source of information according to WP:V and WP:RS. Fram 15:13, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * It is confused. Please learn the difference between "reputable" and "notable".  And, again, please don't use straw men.  The only person who has suggested that the cricket source is the main source of information, indeed the only person to have raised the subject, is you. Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't use straw men, and repeating it won't make it so. I raised the subject of the cricket ground because you introduced it in the article. I suppose that means that you find this info important, not trivial, and that you consider the source a reputable third-party source. Discussing a source you introduced in the article is not a straw men, as it does not misrepresent your position. A for your question on Conflict Computer Limited: talking about strawmen... An article about a company that is already deleted and that may well have been a hoax. Anyway, I have given below links to reports for nurseries, daycare centers, and donut sellers. Fram 11:02, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Keep, with its 750 students it is notable to the society of Shepton Mallet . bbx 13:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * You are conflating notability and importance. Notability is not fame nor importance.  The notability criteria for schools are WP:SCHOOL, and to satisfy the primary criterion there need to be multiple non-trivial published works about the school from sources that are independent of the school.  Please address sources and the notability criteria, rather than making uncited and undemonstrated bare assertions of importance. Uncle G 13:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom and Catchpole. Not notable, nor does it meet WP:SCHOOL since inspection reports are trivial. Does not in any way assert notability (and no Uncle G, notability is not a default status). JoshuaZ 15:11, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Please don't use straw men. No-one has said that it is.  Arguing that a 33-page detailed published report on a subject is trivial is quite clearly a fallacy.  Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Re: the arguments above about whether the gov't report demonstrates notability:  (1) With respect to Uncle G, the existence of sources of depth and provenance clearly pertains to verifiability of deep and provenant facts, but not so clearly to notability of the subject.  To assert that the existence of deep and provenant sources automatically implies notability presupposes a particular outcome of a long-running and unresolved general debate among Wikipedia editors.  (2) With regard to the question in this case of whether the gov't document establishes notability:  As Uncle G writes in his essay, "A subject is notable if the world at large considers it to be notable."  The existence of gov't published documents about a school doesn't show that the world at large deems the school notable, just that people care about the quality and specifics of institutions of gov't education, hence the gov't mandates reports on schools.  Likewise, the gov't issues reports on local businesses (for example health inspection reports on restaurants), but these reports don't imply that local businesses are notable.   Pan Dan 15:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This idea that local businesses have reports is simply wrong. Once again, I challenge you to cite such a report on .  You will find that you cannot.  Your argument, being built upon that false premise, is fallacious.  Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, I wouldn't say that my argument is built on that premise. Essentially I'm saying that the burden is on your side to explain why this (or any) primary school is notable.  And the gov't report, even if it is deep and provenant, doesn't show notability.  I would argue that in general, one has to look at the raison d'etre of the source, as well its content, to determine notability of the subject.  In this case, as I explain above, the raison d'etre of the gov't report is not that anybody, or the world at large, considers the school notable.  Contrast the mandatory gov't report with a hypothetical press report that Whitstone School, say, consistently produces kid geniuses.  That press report would be issued because an editor would make a judgment that the school's feat makes it sufficiently notable.  So the issuance of such a report might show notability.  Not so the mandatory gov't report.  Pan Dan 20:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete Merge into article about the school district or the town.Edison 17:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and expand. &mdash; RJH (talk) 18:59, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment That's a normative statement about what you want to have happen not a reason for keeping. JoshuaZ 21:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and allow it some growth.  ALKIVAR &trade;[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 19:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per Silensor, Dave, RJH, Alkivar, et al. --Myles Long 20:41, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete for the same goddamned reasons as always. -- Kicking222 22:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * On behalf of God, I would like to clarify that His Supreme Beingness has endorsed the deletion of this and other schools not asserting any significance. - CrazyRussian talk/email 23:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep and allow for organic growth, this article meets the proposed WP:SCHOOLS. Bahn Mi 00:17, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Organic growth is a buzzword not an actual argument. And WP:SCHOOLS is a proposal without any real consensus behind it. JoshuaZ 01:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep school, as settled. --Vsion 00:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Repeated no consensus, a handful of keeps, and a few deletes hardly is "settled". JoshuaZ 01:08, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * keep please this article is interesting and important to surrounding communities Yuckfoo 01:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep. Inspection reports are not trivial. They are substantial pieces of work, and the British government spends a lot of money on inspection teams who evaluate schools and write the reports. As well, the people who make funding and hiring/firing decisions pay a lot of attention to the Ofsted reports.  --TruthbringerToronto (Talk | contribs) 02:33, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment You are mischaracterizing the opposition. "Trivial" is not used to imply that no work goes into such reports, but rather that they are not sufficient "independently published sources" on which to hang an article.  I'm inclined to agree -- are we going to develop articles on all restaurants because of government-mandated health inspections?  Average schools should no more be placed into an encyclopedia than average businesses or average individuals. Shimeru 06:26, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * The report cited here is independent of the school itself because such reports are required, by law, to be independent. "Trivial" in WP:SCHOOL is specifically dealing with the depth of material in the source.  Directory entries are trivial.  33-page reports that discuss the subject in detail are not. are we going to develop articles on all restaurants because of government-mandated health inspections? &mdash; Your argument is based upon the false premise that all restaurants have the same sort of things published about them as what is cited in this article about its subject.  That is not the case.  (Once again, please cite such a report for  if you wish to demonstrate otherwise.)  Your argument is fallacious and falls apart from its foundations upwards. I suggest that editors who have made the "a 33-page detailed government report is trivial" argument ask themselves why xyr convictions have caused xem to adopt the patently wrong position of arguing that lengthy and detailed government-published documents on subjects do not constitute sources for encyclopaedia articles.  If one's convictions take one to a point where one is making an argument that would clearly not hold water for any other subject, such as articles on drugs (which reference government reports from approval agencies) or towns (which reference government census reports), then it is time to question one's convictions.  Uncle G 09:40, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment The report may be technically independent of the school, but the fact that it is required by law is what makes it trivial as a source. If every school has such a report, then its existence says nothing in particular about the noteworthiness of the school.  If the school is noteworthy for other reasons, however, then the report may indeed contain useful and relevant information for the article.  I don't believe that was in dispute.  On another note, all restaurants (in many countries) do have information "independently" published (by government agencies) about them, along similar lines as this (though perhaps not in quite as much depth).  I do concede that Conflict Computer Limited probably does not have such health inspection reports, however, as it doesn't sound like a restaurant to me.  Why you think that fact is relevant to my example, I couldn't say. Shimeru 05:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * If the school is found to be notable enough to warrant inclusion in this encyclopedia, then the school inspection report is a useful source for some information. But to use an obligatory inspection report, made for every school in many countries (and, while not so often made public, made for many companies in many countries as well), as evidence that the school is notable is incorrect. When some source is produced for a very large number of similar subjects, that source becomes trivial as an indication of notability. Similar inspection reports are made for daycare centers and nurseries (see e.g. these pdf's, . I can write a sourced, verifiable, NPOV (but short) article on L'Oven Fresh Donuts based on e.g. their five food inspection reports I can find here, and the same goes for many thousands of similar places. I could make quite a long historic overview of the reports of e.g. the specific Macaroni Grill in Denver (not the whole chain) from reports like this one (29 reports in 6 years, this has to be important!). Does this source makes the subject notable? Of course not. So, until now, the only claim to notability this school has is that the local cricket club trains on a school field. Apart from that, it is a completely average school, as indicated by the inspection report. And so, this article should be deleted if you feel that schools must have some notability to be kept, and should be kept if you feel that all schools are notable. And that, obviously, is why I have supported a deletion. Fram 10:50, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * This involves the word "trivial" in the proposal, which means "worthless" or "without value". When it comes to writing an encyclopedia, these inspection reports are of little value.  However, due to their breadth, OFSTED reports are of significant value towards writing an encyclopedia.  Because schools are written about in OFSTED reports, they are "notable", which literally means "worthy of writing about".  JYolkowski // talk 23:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * "Trivial" does also mean "commonplace", "ordinary", which perfectly fits the Ofsted reports: they are made for every school and even for some non-schools, so they are commonplace.. And a commonplace source which says that the subject is average on top can hardly be used to show that something is notable, which is also "prominent, important or distinguished": this school is neither of the three. 05:01, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Mandatory OFSTED reports are trivial so far as schools are concerned. Not having one would be something. Angus McLellan (Talk) 17:43, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom.  --cholmes75 (chit chat) 19:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Edgecution 19:46, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, verifiable and meets WP:SCHOOL. JYolkowski // talk 23:11, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Comment Does it? WP:SCHOOL states "Wikipedia articles about schools should show that there is, or that there is likely to be, sufficient coverage of that school to allow for the creation of a complete article."  I don't think any such coverage has been shown, or we likely wouldn't be here.  So is it likely to gain such coverage?  Why? Shimeru 05:32, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete as insufficiently notable. Having reviewed the excellent debate above, I remain unconvinced that the cited Ofsted report is sufficient to establish the notability of a school. I find the arguments of Kuzaar, Pan Dan, and Fram particularly persuasive.  -- Satori Son 01:13, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep, satisfies all content policies. No objection to a merge as it stands, although giving some time to expand from the available source could be fruitful. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:00, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Which of the policies (specifically as outlined at the proposed guideline at WP:SCHOOL) does the subject of this article meet? As above, no one has been able to produce any reliable nontrivial coverage of the subject- the Ofsted report is trivial and the "meeting minutes" application for funding that mentions Whitstone school in passing is not reliable. --Kuzaar-T-C- 15:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't know that the school does meet the WP:SCHOOL criteria, although if it is further expanded with use of the OFSTED report it probably will. But schools that don't meet them aren't to be deleted anyway, they are to be merged into an appropriate target. The OFSTED report is obviously not trivial in the sense meant by WP:SCHOOL, since the point of the proposal is to determine how much content is available to fill in an article, and the OFSTED report contains an enormous amount of relevant, reliable information. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I agree with you- the amount of information in the OFSTED report is significant, and would probably be at home in an article overviewing the school district. --Kuzaar-T-C- 16:45, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep per comments as above, meeting WP:SCHOOL guidelines. Yamaguchi先生 23:18, 9 October 2006
 * Comment: I'm neutral on the issues of Schools, but I'd like to point out WP:SCHOOLS is only a proposed guideline. People don't have to follow it, and merely citing it as a reason why someone's opinion is wrong is bad form IMO -Halo 15:31, 10 October 2006 (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.