Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/William H. Farquhar Middle 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    Redirect to Montgomery County Public Schools. Eluchil404 (talk) 05:22, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

William H. Farquhar Middle School

 * – ( View AfD View log  •  )

Non-notable school with no claims of notability. My attempt at redirecting to the school district article, which is the standard practice for non-notable schools, was reverted by User:Beyond My Ken, who seems to do that on a regular basis. My feeling is that this should be a redirect, not a deletion, but since I can't do the redirect again because of Beyond My Ken's insistance, we have to go through the deletion process. I know the article won't be deleted, because that's not the appropriate practice, but what else can we do? Everard Proudfoot (talk) 18:29, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment "Who seems to do that on a regular basis." Actually, I believe I've done it twice, both times to redirects that you recently inserted.  I have no opinion about the notability of the school, but circumventing AfD with a redirect doesn't seem like the best way to go about things, if the article is not objectionable in itself, which it isn't.  In the future, please be careful not to substitute your own opinion for the consensus of the community in cases where the article in question isn't a blatant problem. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:01, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Also, the majority of your nominating statement is not relevant -- everything after the first sentence -- and should be struck. This is not the place for airing your grievance with another editor, that's what we have talk pages for. This is the appropriate place to delete an article which it is suggested is non-notable, so I fail to see what your complaint it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:07, 26 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Redirect to Montgomery County Public Schools. Non-notable middle school fails WP:ORG. Replacing the article with a redirect is the typical result for elementary school and middle school articles. It should not be necessary to go through AFD for every single exemplar of a class of organizations which have repeatedly been found not to be notable in AFD, so it seems prefectly reasonable for Proudfoot to replace the article with a redirect rather than cluttering AFD. The "consensus of the community" has been that elementary and middle schools are not notable, shown in countless past AFDs. Edison (talk) 20:04, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Can you point me to a consensus discussion (not individual AfD's, please) where it was decided that elementary and middle schools are automatically not notable? I'd appreciate it. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:08, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * He can probably dig some up, but that result occurs over and over in AfDs. See .  See also Articles_for_deletion/Common_outcomes, "Most elementary and middle schools that don't source a clear claim to notability are now getting merged or redirected in AfD, with high schools being kept except where they fail verifiability."--Milowent (talk) 20:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * So, per your second link: "Most elementary and middle schools that don't source a clear claim to notability are now getting merged or redirected in AfD..." (emphasis added). Clearly, there is no blanket rule, middle and elementary school articles must show notability, and that's what AfD is for. Bringing an article to AfD to test notability is not "clogging up the system", it's using it for the purpose it was conceived, yes? Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:36, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't say its clogging the system. Nor is making it redirect a misuse of making a redirect.  Undoing the redirect said "this needs to go to AfD."  Now, going to the merits, what's the case for notability?  It seems, at present, that the argument would be:  first middle school in the largest district in the state (and one of the largest school districts in the United States.)  Seems slightly flimsy at present.--Milowent (talk) 21:19, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes it "needs to go to AfD" so that notability, or lack of it, is determined by some cross-section of the community, and not by one editor with relatively little experience on Wikipedia. It's here, and it's happening, and all is as it should be. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:10, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * But what's the argument for notability? The redirect was a proper bold edit even if it was the editor's first edit.--Milowent (talk) 02:06, 27 May 2010 (UTC)
 * As I noted above, I have no comment on the notability of the school - that's why it's here, to determine that - but the article was not so egregiously bad, or malformed, or a hoax, or in any other way detrimental to Wikipedia, that short-circuiting the normal deletion process was called for. Nor is there a flat-out policy of reverting middle-school articles, they need to be tested against our standards. If it was an egregiously poor article, I wouldn't have reverted, as it could be assumed that consensus would be in accord with the move.  That's not the case here, such an assumption is unwarranted, so... here it is. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:17, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Redirect - No evidence of notability. Redirect is not at all controversial. - SummerPhD (talk) 20:31, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Maryland-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions.  -- • Gene93k (talk) 23:26, 26 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect - to the school district. Shadowjams (talk) 00:34, 28 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Redirect as above. Middle schools are rarely notable, unless they can show significant outside coverage, and this article doesn't even try to do that. --MelanieN (talk) 02:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Merge/redirect to Montgomery County Public Schools per usual practice. TerriersFan (talk) 22:19, 1 June 2010 (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.