Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Woodstock Elementary School

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was no consensus (defaults to keep) Ral  315  05:22, September 13, 2005 (UTC)

Woodstock Elementary School
It's an elementary school, no importance, notability or anything at all that warrants an article to itself. TimPope 20:01, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep it may be small but that doesn't make it non-notable, it prepares young people to enter life as productive adults, that makes it notable enough in my book HoratioVitero 20:04, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete every parent prepares young people to enter life as productive adults, as do their houses and streets. I think there's a couple elementaries in Alva, Oklahoma; at one elementary school per 4000 people, that's 15 million elementary schools in the world. Not notable.--Prosfilaes 20:31, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. A hard-won (rough) consensus is that high schools don't really have to show notability, while elementary schools usually have to have something going on. Sdedeo 20:42, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per User:Soltak/Views and common sense Soltak | Talk 21:33, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per User:Soltak/Views. Can I keep borrowing that? Nandesuka 22:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Feel free :-) Soltak | Talk 23:35, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete nn school. Dottore So 22:16, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete not encyclopedic. Anyone with any sense should see that. Dunc|&#9786; 22:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Prosfilaes says it's one school for 4000 people? sounds like a notable subject for those 4000 people then. SchmuckyTheCat 22:40, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Hey, I know! I could buy them a mac mini and they could run a wiki on it and host this article there, instead of here. Nandesuka 03:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Why do you think that even the 10% of the 4000 people that has immediate family there would consider it notable? If all three or four schools in Alva, Oklahoma are notable, why isn't the local band? More people would consider the local Wal-Mart important; more people are employed by it, and more people are directly affected by it.--Prosfilaes 03:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * delete High Schools by default are Notable (IMHO), primary schools by default are not (IMHO) Roodog2k (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Clutter. Gamaliel 23:26, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. 4,000 reasons to keep, pick one.  &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 02:07, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:29, 2005 September 7 (UTC)
 * Keep. Brief and businesslike.  Good stub. --Tony Sidaway Talk  03:15, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * If schools aren't important, why on earth do we keep sending our children to them? Keep. Grace Note 03:30, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Does that mean that houses aren't important, or that each and every house in the word deserves a Wikipedia article? --Prosfilaes 05:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. -- DS1953 04:52, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete - Quality control must be applied to Wikipedia; four walls and a roof are not encyclopaedic. Proto t c 09:32, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete, we apply notability criteria to people, bands, websites and businesses. It would be only logical to do the same with schools. - Mgm|(talk) 09:47, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and stop nominating schools until consensus is reached on them --Ryan Delaney talk 10:16, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete non-notable school. I agree with MacGyverMagic --G Rutter 11:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. Nothing notable about the school is mentioned. If "all schools are notable," then find what is notable about this one and add it to the article. All actions are case-by-case. The absence of policy consensus just means that it is harder to be consistent and to sway others' votes by citing policy. So: apply good judgement, do not nominate school articles that should not be deleted, and do nominate school articles that should be deleted. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:53, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep Good School Stub.  Need to be expanded.  Guerberj 16:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete &mdash; Schools notable at high school level, not generally below that. &mdash; RJH 17:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Time to start fighting the battle for elementary schools.--Nicodemus75 23:11, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
 * "Start fighting a battle"? I thought this was about trying to achieve consensus instead of fighting a war. Yours is just one of several keep votes that doesn't bother to state a reason on why to keep the article.--Prosfilaes 02:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, if you spent any time whatsoever researching the history of debates here for schools, you would realize that these issues have been hashed, re-hashed, re-re-hashed, re-gurgitated, re-envigorated, served up for breakfast and then re-defecated for months upon months upon months. Most of us have repeated again and again and again what our reasons are to the point of absolute and frustrated ad-nauseum. Many deletionists feel exactly the same way and they don't bother to give their reasons on each and every vote. There *is* an ongoing battle on Wikipedia for the future of school articles and attempts to convince or achieve a true concensus are long exhausted and dead. Those of us that believe that schools are inherently notable have no choice but to continue to marshall our forces to defeat AfD nominations on schools, and to utilize the 5-day waiting period to clean up and expand school articles to appeal to moderate and fence-sitting voters (which I might add, has the added benefit of actually improving and expanding the encyclopedic content of Wikipedia - imagine that!). If anything is obvious from the last 2-3 years of this ongoing struggle, it is that no permanent concensus will ever be reached irrespective of how many editors post their reasons for voting. Want my current reasons for voting to keep this school?  How about, "because the deletionists want to remove it" or "because the school has four walls and a roof" or "because you asked". My point is that the argument itself no longer matters - the only tool we have to work through this is the AfD process - discussion and debate has failed.  Most of us are not interested in a complete re-ignition of the debate all-around despite last-ditch efforts by deletionists to try to get a "merge" position to remove school articles, or the latest effort to attack the AfD process itself. To re-state, there isn't and will not be a concensus on the status of school articles.--Nicodemus75 12:23, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Soltak put together User:Soltak/Views, and simply linked to that. Is that so hard, to put together a coherant explanation and link to it, instead of giving hostility to anyone who disagrees with you? You aren't even trying to gain consensus or give a reason that someone new to the subject might be convinced by.--Prosfilaes 16:02, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Good for Soltak. I am not him.  Perhaps my initial repsonse was too caustic.  However, the facts still remain.  There have been attempts to build concensus on this issue for years, and all of these efforts have failed.  Many, many well-intentioned people have tried unsuccessfully to build a concensus on this matter - but the reality of the debate (despite the fact that some "moderates" would like to claim that there is some strange, subjective, floating middle-ground, is all about whether or not schools are inherently notable.  Those who try to re-state the debate in some other terms, are either trying to sidestep this issue, or are simply in denial. Those who do not believe that a school is inherently notable are engaged in a constant effort to nominate school stub articles which are not yet expanded and developed as quickly as possible in order to hopefully get the articles deleted before those of us that want school articles included can marshall the necessary resources to re-write the articles to demonstrate to enough of those who hold a middle position on schools, or voters who do not regularily follow these debates to vote to keep the articles.  This is evidenced by the fact that many (not all) VfD/AfD nominations for schools are made by the same group of editors.  In a way, there is a bizarre form of "concensus" being reached through this entire process, that is, as Tony Sidaway has pointed out elsewhere, the number of new school articles is growing at an exponential rate which is rapidly outstripping the ability of the AfD process to delete them.  The inevitability of this reality (coupled with the constant re-writing of school articles once the AfD process is started) is defacto, creating a Wikipedia-wide "concensus" that school articles will survive and flourish.  The sad and unfortunate truth, is those editors that do not believe that a school is worthy of an article simply by virtue of it's being a school, cannot be reconciled with those of us that believe that schools are inherently notable, knowledge-worthy and important enough to create and maintain articles at Wikipedia.  It truly is an impasse.--Nicodemus75 08:39, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * So you define your position as completely intolerant to compromise so you don't have to try one. Vanity biographies are popping up at an exponetial rate; does that mean we should give up trying to delete them? I can't believe that someone like Anuschka Tischer who's actually done something the rest of the world might care about (as well as 4000 of her fellow historians) is deletable, but a school that most of the people in its city, much less out of its city, don't care about isn't. --Prosfilaes 17:19, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * For the record, I voted keep on her also. I am sure that surprises no one.--Nicodemus75 06:21, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Perhaps he picked one of the 4,000 reasons mentioned above. &mdash;RaD Man (talk) 04:33, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * What 4000 reasons? Most of those 4000 have nothing to do with the school besides slowing down for the speedzone. I really feel this is crap; that these things are being held to a totally different standard than anything else, that WP:Music calls for bands to be notable on a national level, and these schools aren't even notable on the level of a medium-size city. And AfD is not a place for battles; it should be a place for consensus.--Prosfilaes 05:50, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep this fine school stub.  Un  focused  05:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete We delete band vanity and personal vanity, why should school vanity be kept? Pilatus 11:12, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per Pilatus and Soltak. --Idont Havaname 14:26, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete this stub for a non-notable elementary school. Jonathunder 02:54, 2005 September 10 (UTC)
 * Delete: pointless. CDThieme 03:05, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, relevant to education in Bryant Pond, Maine. --Vsion 04:50, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, good stub, valuable and verifiable information, which aids in understanding both the topic and life in its area and is thus part of the sum of human knowledge which wikipedia promises. Kappa 05:05, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Where does it promise that? --TimPope 10:11, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Fundraising. I suppose technically that's wikiMedia not wikiPedia but since this is an encyclopedia article it doesn't belong in any other of the other projects. Kappa 12:24, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Well wikipedia has a policy "Wikipedia is not an indscriminate collection of information" so it doesn't belong here, there would be a 80% keep consensus if it did. --TimPope 13:34, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * So although it forms part of the sum of human knowledge wikipedia promises, you want to delete it anyway? Kappa 13:43, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * You established in your previous comment wikipedia promises no such thing --TimPope 13:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia promises that between the various projects I will get the sum of human knowledge. Which other project does this belong in? Kappa 14:03, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I have no idea because I am only voting on its inclusion in wikipedia. The only other wikiproject to which I have contributed is wikiquote, and doesn't belong there. Maybe you could ask the Wikimedia Foundation to start a new wiki to fulfil its stated aim. --TimPope 14:07, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * It's not nice to take money from people and then not give them what you promised. Kappa 14:14, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. This is not a war and the lack of consensus is clearly not a reason to keep everything.  If anything, the lack of concensus should be acceptance of the fact that creating an article like this is going to fuel long discussions that will not do anywhere.  Vegaswikian 05:10, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * As a matter of policy, in fact, lack of consensus is a reason to keep. And my recent work on cataloging the rate of creation of new school articles shows that the AfD process isn't really controlling any perceived problem.  We're currently seeing more than three times as many school articles created (and not speedied) in eight days than have been deleted due to AfD in eight months of discussion. --Tony Sidaway Talk  06:29, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * May I add that the amount of contents in school articles have also increased. At least for those in my watchlist, many school articles started out as a stub and gradually became full articles. It takes time, but a nice stub notice provides the encouragement to keep it going. Hardly any of these full articles are nominated for AfD, which suggest that it's just an issue of expanding, not notability. --Vsion 06:56, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete. This sort of thing makes it really hard for those of us who try to decide, in good faith, the merits of each article without reflexively voting to keep or delete. This article has three sentences. It tells us where the building is located, that it has just 100 students (99 white), and that there are 8 teachers. That's it. There is not even one independent reference for the article. I guess I almost don't know what to say. It's honestly difficult to understand how this qualifies to be in an encyclopedia, but clearly quite a few people think it does. Well, I'm sure it will be kept anyway, so it hardly matters, no? Regards— encephalon έγκέφαλος   08:02:21, 2005-09-10 (UTC)
 * The article is a whole month old, give it half a chance for editors to expand it.--Nicodemus75 09:16, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Hi Nicodemus75. I can really understand that point of view (although I do disagree with it). I hope you will understand, for your part, the view of those who feel that WP is best when its articles are well-referenced, excellently composed pieces— and if they aren't (for example, if they are stubs), that it is patently clear they have the potential to be such pieces. The problem for many "moderates", and perhaps this is not realized often enough, is that school stubs are not like a stub on, say, Erwin Schrodinger. Schrodinger was an immensely important physicist, and there are a huge number of works that have been written about him and his work. If I were to come across a stub on Schrodinger, I'd be willing to keep it even if it was abysmally written and referenced at that time because I know its potential— in fact, I'd probably simply expand it right then; it would be so easy to do because of the availability of good sources. But here we're being asked to keep a stub on something that most people in the world, and a significant number of WPns, cannot see the notability of; far more importantly, it is doubtful that there are any independent, reputable sources focused on the school that may be used to write an encyclopedia article. In such situations, it's fair to ask that the usual standards be applied, and that the article be judged for what is on the page. With very best wishes— encephalon  έγκέφαλος   22:43:59, 2005-09-10 (UTC)
 * The whole begging of the question here is really a red herring by everyone that uses it in the first place. Non-notability simply is not a legitimate criteria for deleting schools (only for deleting persons). It is merely unfortunate that deletionists use notability as a criteria for other deletions improperly. For those of us who hold that schools are inherently notable, it doesn't really matter a fig if some other editors "feel" that an article on a school has to be "notable" or "well-referenced, excellently composed".  All school articles will eventually be, since all schools are notable. --Nicodemus75 14:05, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Proof by assertion comes a few steps below proof by authority and way below any valid form of argumentation. Non-notability has been held to be a valid criteria to delete any article, including by long established precedent bands. Does non-notability really not apply grocery stores or churches? Other editors don't "feel"; they reason from analogy. If Lichenstein's (hypothetical) greatest rock band that has been drawing crowds of hundreds of Lichensteinians for decades doesn't qualify, why do all of the probably dozen schools in Lichenstein qualify?--Prosfilaes 18:51, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * With all due respect, that is just more horse manure. "Non-notability has been held to be a valid criteria" - by whom, exactly? It is not a valid criteria for deletion of schools, per Wikipedia policy - PERIOD. I couldn't give a fig if it is "held to be a valid criteria" by you, which is exactly what your proof of assertion is, and nothing more. The reason this debate exists in the first place, is because those of us that believe schools should have articles do not agree or have any concensus with people who believe as you do. As to bands in Lichenstein, who cares? We are talking about schools here - to somehow bring in some totally false analogy about musical bands is yet another way of trying to confuse the issue at hand. Apart from your assertion that because notability may apply to musical bands as a valid criteria an thusly should apply to schools, there is no relationship between schools and musical bands as you are trying to construct, except in your own opinion. In any case, all schools are inherently notable, and in summary, non-notability is not a criteria for deletion of schools articles, as per Wikipedia policy. Any "[holding] notability as a valid criteria" for deletion of schools, is merely an invention of yourself, and other deletionists. --Nicodemus75 20:34, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Link to the policy, if it's per Wikipedia policy. What things, besides schools, are inherantly notable? You're stating things to be fact, but you provide no evidence. You aren't even trying to reason here.--Prosfilaes 02:12, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * WP:DEL Lack of Notability is a not a criteria for deletion, nor is being obscure, nor is being "unimportant". As far as the position that all schools are inherently notable maybe you haven't been following along at all - this is obviously not Policy, this is what I (and others) believe. Lots of things are inherently notable, elected officials, towns and cities, battleships, countries, monarchs, sports teams, great literary works, etc. etc. etc. etc. Do I really need to go on? --Nicodemus75 04:13, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Great literary works are notable because they are notable; that's what great means. Elected officials aren't inherantly notable; they're less common and notable than the average college professor. Sports teams aren't inherantly notable; note that WoW clans get deleted all the time, and I'm sure kids T-Ball teams would get deleted just as fast. Professional teams are notable because people know about them country-wide.
 * As for the rest of them, countries are inherantly notable, because there's circa 200 of them in the world, and a soverign government has a lot of power. There's probably less than 200 monarchs in the world, and they make news across the world. The lists of battleships of the major powers are each listed on one page; I'm guessing at most 1000 ships. The only one of the above that's not likely to be completely covered by a standard encyclopedia, that is at all comparable to schools, is towns and cities. Most towns have at least one elementary school; Alva, at 4000 people, has 3 and bigger towns have hundreds or thousands. By sheer numbers alone, towns and cities are more notable than elementary schools. Morever, I have never seen the elementary school someone went to listed in a encyclopedia-sized biography, but the town they grew up in is frequently mentioned. --Prosfilaes 04:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Why does Aba, Okayama qualify to be in an encyclopedia? It has no references at all... Kappa 12:24, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * A more relevant question is why the probably two or three schools in Aba, Okayama qualify to be in an encyclopedia.--Prosfilaes 18:24, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Please try to follow the discussion. Kappa 22:48, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I can look up Aba in an atlas; I can find good sources on Aba without problem. Where's your justification for including the schools of Aba, which being pushed as inherantly notable? If you can even begin to wonder why Aba, Okayama qualifies to be in an encyclopedia, how can you justify including multiple specialized subunits of the Aba government?--Prosfilaes 22:57, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I have no problem with Aba being in wikipedia, I'm just try to follow encphalon's logic. Actually Haddersfield, Jamaica is a better comparison. I think my understanding of Aba would be greatly enhanced if its schools had articles which were as informative as the one under discussion, and I'm pretty bitter that you wouldn't want to share that with me. Kappa 23:57, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Why would the schools greatly enhance your knowledge? And why not its shrines or its garage bands?--Prosfilaes 01:35, 11 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Keep for gods sake how many more years are we going to be fighting over school articles.  ALKIVAR &trade;[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 05:22, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per encephalon. Alkivar and friends: why not create a project page called something like "Schools of the world project" in which you explain, not why teachers and schools are important (we all know that; this is not the issue), but why the world needs a Wikipedia on every preschool, grade school, middle school, high school, two-year college, and every building in every four-year college everywhere in the world?  Or, if that is not your goal, what on earth is?  If this is a long standing argument, you guys must have some rationale, but you must see that puzzled readers need to be pointed to a single page explaining what it is you are trying to do, because this is not obvious.  If you can convince me, I'll change my vote on these VfDs.---CH  (talk) 23:15, 11 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Well lets see: Schools/Arguments WikiProject_Schools Jimbo Wales' "solution for rampant deletionism"... AKA his pro school keep argument I think that comprises most of our inclusionist reasoning.  ALKIVAR &trade;[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 03:42, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete Lazy thinker's school vanity by the looks of it. -- red stucco 08:57, 12 September 2005 (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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.