Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article advice/Archive 4

Tagged as an essay but titled a guideline
Why is this tagged as an essay - it has been for several years - but the title says that it's a guideline? ElKevbo (talk) 12:15, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Having heard no response I plan to move this to WikiProject Schools/Article advice in the near future. ElKevbo (talk) 00:20, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Please ensure that the link WP:SCH/AG continues to work!!! --ClemRutter (talk) 01:29, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Opposing, a thorough discussion should take place before any renaming takes place. Also, the name "school article guidelines" appears in different places around Wikipedia, perhaps it would be best to look at getting this to WP:PG? Steven (Editor) (talk) 21:28, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to have this promoted to a guideline and if that is your intention then I'm happy to wait. But unless someone is going to do that then I still intend to move this so the title is accurate. We can certainly update redirects or references as necessary, too. But at best it's confusing and at worst it's dishonest for this to be labeled a guideline when it's not one. ElKevbo (talk) 21:39, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * There will still need to be a discussion before any move can take place. Pinging and, Steven (Editor) (talk) 21:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Why? It's been prominently marked as an essay for over a decade. ElKevbo (talk) 00:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)


 * I've been coord of WPSCH for a decade and I don't see any need to change anything here. Whatever the status, this page is hugely important and any such major changes to its title will require a major RfC. It's a minor detail. Can we please just leave things as they are and get on with more urgent aspects of WPSCH that have been needing attention for years? Or more importantly, getting the most famous university in the world back up to Good Article? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:33, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think it's ethical for us to have a page that has "guideline" in the title but is actually just an essay. It needs to be promoted to an accepted guideline or retitled.
 * Given its long-standing existence, stability, and widespread applicability (and presumable acceptance given that few people seem to have objected to it), I don't imagine that formalizing this essay as a guideline would be terribly difficult.
 * I'm sufficiently uneasy about this that I'm raising the issue WP:VPT to get input from others. I'm hoping that the advice will be "propose it as a guideline; it should sail through easily." ElKevbo (talk) 01:47, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Personsally,, I think your 'unease' is unfounded and your suggestion is jumping the gun. It would be more collegial, collaborative, and appropriate to get feedback from the coords and the ~300 members of this project first, and most importantly, according them the courtesy of time to respond. Otherwise I'm afraid I have to state a hackneyed phrase: 'solution in search of a problem'.  Pinging:  , ,  , . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:02, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that is a very wise opinion offered by Kudpung. He was only very recently involved in an electoral process for the Arbitration Committee, and only very narrowly missed out on being elected as a new member of that august body. We should all respect his experience. In particular, we should not describe something as a guideline if Kudpung thinks it is an essay. MPS1992 (talk) 06:34, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * First, an appeal to authority isn't helpful or convincing; the fact that one editor ran for election to ArbCom doesn't give their opinion any more weight than others'. Second, your final sentence is very confusing as you claim to be supporting Kudpung's position but your statement doesn't appear to be Kudpung's position. ElKevbo (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)


 * How about making the opening sentence

"This essay serves as a guideline for content, layout and sourcing for articles on secondary schools worldwide."

Just a thought. John from Idegon (talk) 07:50, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I think the message I have been trying to get across is that I don't think we need to do anything except move on to more pressing issues. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand that you don't think this is an issue and don't want to spend time on it; that's fine. But then don't get in the way of others who do see it as an issue and would like to fix it. ElKevbo (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I also don't think we need to do anything, there is a lot of tasks to be completed in the schools project. Steven (Editor) (talk) 18:43, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I appreciate the suggestion but I don't see how it addresses the core contradiction at all; it just rewords it and makes it even more apparent. ElKevbo (talk) 17:14, 29 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Having read the traffic above, I don't understand why righting this identified anachronism is an issue. Let it lie. I do understand the maxim if 'it ain't broke why fix it' and have no desire to be distracted from secondary schools to researching the pros and cons of a bit of bureaucracy.  I know you are an expert on HE, and have a far tidier mind than I do, but could you just explain to me- what would we get out of the change? How would it say improve schools articles in Pakistan (for exammple)? For the time invested what could I potentially save (say over a 5 year period)? How many stubs would it convert into B quality? Taking a lesson from politics- if you want to make a change, choose your timing so you are going with the flow. I can see no push factors and no pull factors. ClemRutter (talk) 18:44, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Web sites Convertors and MATs
''Many schools are academies and the websites of these schools as well as the "Get information about schools" page has a link to the controlling Academy trust/multi-academy trust. They publish annual reports and financial statements that may be of use.''

This causes problems: AFAIUI- single academies must place the trust policies and information on their web site, as the school and the academy are legally the same. While academies under the umbrella of a trust must provide a link to the controlling legal entity where the policies and statutory information pertaining the trust must be available- this will provide information on the delegated authority of each --ClemRutter (talk) 01:40, 28 December 2019 (UTC)school.


 * Starting at the bottom-- TES mag is not the same as TES proper- both are referred to as the TES- by all means abbreviate. If you like, the magazine is a supplement to the Supplement!
 * Most of comes from the experience of training: and teachers are not the easiest pupils. They know about Ofsted- what we are explaining here is that all schools will be here some where and the safe way is to look at their URN. When they want to search, they inevitably choose a school that has been refactored or renamed otherwise someone will search on the postcode. The independent sector is outside my usually editing and training scope but if we remove the note above we lose a valuable link, otherwise it can go.
 * You search on the schools universal reference number (urn), the .... again from experience, before we send trainees to a site we need to tell them the scope. Historically, say in 1975, schools all used the dfeno- a clever index that combined the local authority number and the establishment number- if your trainee is working with old source documents that is what he will have (and it was written on every payslip). This rarely appears on line- as it is replaced by the urn- I put the index sentence there to head off certain questions.
 * Over to you- top change - what information does the temporary note, about a website change ten years ago give us. IMHO it is well past its sell by date. What am I missing?

Xmas continues over here. Reciprocal Greetings ClemRutter (talk) 00:46, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Restructuring and renaming
I've overhauled WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines (which should really move to /Article_advice, since it's not a WP:GUIDELINE): I don't do these overhauls too often (it's a lot of work), but I like to move WP:PROJPAGE essays like this closer to guideline-worthy material so they can eventually be promoted. That doesn't happen too often, but I've gotten it done or helped it get done a few times.
 * Rearranged better sectionally, to group content, notability, and style advice into three sections with the proper categorization headers on them.
 * Put it all in a single MOS:ENGVAR (British, since that's what already dominated).
 * Fixed lots of typos and such
 * Added a boatload of wikilinks to policies, guidelines, and key essays
 * Updated the advice to agree with current policy, guidelines, and practices; looked like this had not been substantially revised in years.
 * Added various bits of missing advice.
 * Made some of the headings make more sense for their content.
 * Fixed formatting errors (bad list markup, HTML that's not been valid since the 1990s, etc.)
 * Moved the "coordinators" stuff to Template:WPSchools help header, where it actually pertains (though I don't know if the names given in it are current)
 * Added various examples.
 * Misc. copyediting for clarity.

I think this one would need some pruning of WP:CREEP and of redundancy with general WP:P&G material (more cross-references, less exposition), but it's in better shape than I expected. (Some wikiproject advice pages are way out in left field, and a lot of them have barely been touched since the 2000s, and/or only represent the input of 2–5 people, some of who were intending to defy P&G rather than explain how to apply it to their topic. The notability material in particular is better than average, and I'm pleasantly shocked at the lack of any "Death to the MoS! We demand all kinds of Weird Capitalization Just Because We Like It" nonsense. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  16:26, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Your edits appear sound, but it would appear courteous to have signalled your intentions, here on the talk page first and pinged the co-ordinators. You could have been more expansive than is possible in a long edit summary. You could have listed any material you were about to erase, as you are aware restructuring edits are almost impossible to check for omissions or small additions. There is clean up work still to be done as subpage links have been broken and a new shortcut WP:WPSCH/AA is now needed.

Other than that thankyou for the attention you have given to this page, and I invite other editors to first suggest paragraphs that need updating. --ClemRutter (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * For info: "Overhaul: Group the content advice under content header; add style header; use one MOS:ENGVAR; add category sorts; list & other markup fixes; re-arrange sections for clearer order and to avoid too many level of drilling down. Move and 'reshape' material to flow better and to group content vs. notability vs. style. Use cross-references as needed. Move WP:VESTED 'coordinators' stuff to the help page; and this is not a WP:GUIDELINE (yet?)"
 * ClemRutter (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Was there any discussion on this except a complete bold move of the name and changing of the structure by ? There was also a previous discussion that had taken place and SMcCandlish should have restarted the discussion. Can the changes be reverted and discussion take place? Pinging, , , Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:58, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Content restored pending this discussion, see old revision -- Steven (Editor) (talk) 20:22, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't see any "old discussion" to have restarted pertaining to this sort of cleanup work (I do see one about the page title, an entirely incidental matter, but if you want undo the move and take this to a full WP:RM, I guarantee the outcome will be moving the page back way from "guideline[s]" being in its name, because fixing such misleading names is a long-standing, non-controversial pattern of moves. And I did not move the page myself, I asked WP:RM/TR admins to move it, so some else's judgement was involved. If you want the move reverted, RM/TR is where to also request that, and we can then get on with the full RM process. I'm okay with whatever bureaucracy anyone would like to invoke. Attempting to restart old discussions ("necroposting") is generally not productive anyway (this is one of the reasons we archive, more and more frequently these days, and often formally close old threads if they've come to a decision). My intention was not to step on any toes, but a territorial reaction is the sort of thing that gives wikiprojects a bad name (community support for their continued existence being at an all-time low, primarily due to walled-garden behavior). I came here to make this material more likely to achieve broader community support. Project pages are a public space on wikipedia, editable by anyone. I don't see any point to that blanket-revert, made without presenting any specific concerns about the content, only about the contributor. See in particular WP:STONEWALL, point no. 3. A rarely revised page in bad need of cleanup (years out of step with various WP:P&G pages) is an obvious place for WP:BOLD work to get done.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:22, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

I think they should be put back, since they're a multi-level improvement, with no downsides identified to date other than tiny technical glitches (thanks to TSventon for a couple of code fixes already). If we just opened an RfC on which version to use, I think the outcome would be obvious. That said, I don't feel proprietary about particular bits of exact wording; my full expectation was that the revision would be revised further. I'd already opened a thread on the main wikiproject page, where more editors would see it, but have refactored that into this thread instead, if you'd rather it be here. There were two content specifics above (before the blanket revert) to address: "subpage links have been broken" where? I thought I'd kept all original headings names as (that was the intent, anyway, but I got tired after a few hours and may have forgotten some), and the move resulted in a functional redirect. Any such glitch wasn't a cause for a mass revert, since these pages are not frequently read and such issues can be fixed in minutes at most. "[A] new shortcut WP:WPSCH/AA is now needed": Let's just go make it then. However, not every segment of a page like this necessarily needs a shortcut (I don't see anything that the acronym "AA" would obviously refer to); and with the material entirely reverted, there's nowhere for a new shortcut point to anyway. Can't fix it if the means to fix it has been nuked. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:24, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


 * There is discussion about the title just two sections up on this Talk page and in a recent (December 2019) archive of Village Pump (Policy) that spawned from the discussion above. I agree with your reasoning but I was soundly overruled by multiple editors in the previous discussion so I advise restraint. ElKevbo (talk) 02:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Sure. I don't care much about the page title; it's a red herring. I'm perfectly fine doing a full RM on this page any other of the few remaining PROJPAGE essays which still have "guideline[s]" in their page name. The reverted content improvements, and restoring them and resolving any nitpicks in that material that others feel need to be resolved, are the important things here. The page title could simply move to smoething completely different, like "/Content, notability and style", and it wouldn't affect the central matter at all.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)


 * There is little point in pinging me anymore on WP:WPSCH issues because as I stated before above, I have have retired from coordinating it. Apart from the collaboration of the other coords (whom I have mostly brought into the project since Chris Cameron retired), this project is pretty much as effective as herding cats. The traditional schools and values I upheld for Wikipedia school articles have been diluted in recent years by waves of new stubs about schools of dubious notability in the Himalayas or commercial cram schools in the streets of South Asian cities. Neither of which are within my sphere of interest or expertise. Pinging, , , . Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:58, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Emoji Twemojistyle herding Wikipedians.svg ClemRutter (talk) 21:24, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

I started this, so perhaps I should comment. It was not the content of the changes that problematic it was the nature of the process. That was one hell of a big edit to arrive on your watchlist when you were not prepared. The first paragraph of this section assuages most of my fears- and could have eased the passage. What you have done is a huge job but doing a line by line check of such an edit when you have no idea of the scope of the intentions is also challenging. It really is a obligation not a territorial reaction. If you had published your intention- then it would be a territorial reaction. I am pleased you have defined your position so clearly as it leaves it open to consult (ping) you on these matters in the future. Our skill here is herding cats'ClemRutter (talk) 09:59, 10 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Coolio. Herding cats requires a large supply of tuna.  I await details on "subpage links have been broken" – where?  And "[A] new shortcut WP:WPSCH/AA is now needed" – what section would that be for?  If we fix these can we proceed (with TSventon fixes integrated)?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Those two examples are minor in the context of things- with the plethora of renames and reverts I don't think I could find the redlink again. I would suggest you leave this for ten days, to allow the full discussion above to be internalised, and I will post a proposal here suggesting that your revisions are adopted in full. ClemRutter (talk) 09:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I want to say thank you again for your work, but I agree with 's words and the nature of the process. It was indeed one big edit to arrive on your watchlist when you were not prepared. The school article guidelines has been around for a long time, it's mentioned in many different places; talk pages, edit summaries, project pages etc. I don't think I have seen you edit in the school's project before, but when I seen your username, I was thinking "where did this user come from?" (you know what I mean, nothing against). Things like fixing typos and formatting errors are ok, but there should definitely be discussion when making changes, removal or additions to the content. WikiProject Schools is a very active project and there is a lot of work to be done (like elsewhere on Wikipedia), not to mention being busy in real life. I propose three things:


 * 1. The title is reverted back, what about all the others that have guidelines in its name, why only WikiProject Schools? You said above SMcCandlish that you're perfectly fine doing a full RM on this page and any others which still have "guideline[s]" in their name, I think you should do this?
 * 2. Changes/removal/additions to the content is done as a step-by-step process, not a huge edit and like you said on the WikiProject Schools talk page SMcCandlish, "WP:NODEADLINE" — you said above "A rarely revised page in bad need of cleanup (years out of step with various WP:P&G pages) is an obvious place for WP:BOLD work to get done." but again this is a very active WikiProject with multiple editors watching, also you can see the recent edits made to the page and discussions on this talk page
 * 3. The school article guidelines is very very useful, especially to new editors. Do we work together to bring this up to a guideline? Thorough checking and time
 * Steven (Editor) (talk) 19:56, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * 1. It is on the overall to-do list. 2. Huge edits often work quite well (e.g., I completely overhauled the stub-sorting guidelines in the same way many years ago, and did the same about 18 months ago (? something like that) in consolidating all of MoS's biographical material into MOS:BIO). If it's not going to work well in this particular case, that's okay.  3. See how this page having "guideline" in its name already confuses just this conversation? I think some or all of this PROJPAGE material would be good as an actual WP:Guideline, and moving in that direction was the main reason for the overhaul. That said, it doesn't always happen, or at least not wholesale. E.g., part of such a PROJPAGE may get integrated into a guideline (or put in a draft guideline page and run through a WP:PROPOSAL), while some of it might not make the cut. There's a strong community feeling against WP:CREEP material these days, and it's nothing like the 2000s, when wikiprojects were just declaring all sorts of topical rule cruft to be "guidelines". Some of that stuff has been explicitly marked  in recent years, or moved away from "Wikipedia:Foo" names back to "Wikipedia:WikiProject Bar/Foo" with a  tag put back on it.  There's something like this going on at WikiProject Rugby Union right now, though even more complicated. WP:NSPORT actually has a section for this topic already (based at least in part on a PROJPAGE). But the project has two conflicting notability PROJPAGE's still in existence.  I've proposed that one be merged into the other (or just redirected to it), so that the consolidated remainder can be proposed for fuller integration into NSPORT. It's not helpful to have an actual guideline and a non-guideline (which say different things), and different people trying to cite each of them as authoritative at AfD, and so on.  Project advice pages like this one which have significant "buy-in" probably should be guidelines, but it's a process, and it starts with WP:Policy writing is hard. :-)  Get the material into shape first, or nit-pickers will reject any proposal relating to it, out of hand.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:05, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Infobox Change
This is, at best, significantly different in tone compared to WP:ARBINFOBOX. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 21:14, 9 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It will of course be different in tone, since pseudo-courtroom ArbCom rulings and wikiproject advice/Wikipedia guideline material are very different contexts. I'm working up an across-many-cases overview of this, to put in a separate information page. The question comes up frequently enough, in many topics, that having a shortcut to an index of the relevant case material would be useful (but doing this work is tedious, going over years of legalistic ArbCom utterances). The short version is that ArbCom has repeatedly addressed (not just in those two cases, the ones that immediately popped into mind) conflicts between wikiprojects and the broader editorial pool, and the result is always the same. They are generally not worded at the decision level as being about "wikiprojects" but about "an editor or a group of editors", etc., because ArbCom is mindful about WIKILAWYER/GAMING loopholes and about CONLEVEL also using general wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:42, 11 February 2020 (UTC); revised 22:19, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
 * With respect to infoboxes, I would not object to the verbiage proposed at WikiProject Schools/Article advice/sandbox.  — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 22:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Sandboxed re-draft
I've put a copy of my overhaul, with TSventon's fixes, at WikiProject Schools/Article advice/sandbox to facilitate examination and direct revision of it. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:19, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Administration Inclusion
Should administration, other than the head/principal, be included in a school article? I've encountered mentions of assistant principals, directors of clubs and organizations, directors of a school's academy, and coaches. When is an administrator/director/leader considered unnotable to mention in an article? TheGEICOgecko (talk) 23:04, 4 June 2020 (UTC)


 * There is a emerging problem in English academies, and large MATs. There is a Executive Principal, and a local headteacher. In all-through academies there can be 3 local headteachers (Primary School, Main School and Post-16) who do the work and take the wrap for the policies and an executive principle who is occasional seen on site but is paid far more and has 2,3 or more schools under his jurisdiction. ClemRutter (talk) 13:15, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Scope of schools and content of this page
In the advice sections there are references to 'Student Unions'. I thought that our scope was limited to 4- 16 year olds- with maybe the 16-18s who choose to stay in a 11-18 school. When editing I am comfortable to refer to 4-12 yr olds as pupils, and 11-14 yr olds UK:Key Stage 3 as both students or pupils, and then UK:Key Stage 4 as students- but certainly student unions only occurs for the over-sixteens outside the school sector- those in the college sector. Anyone mind if I make a few gentle deletions- or anyone who would like to clarify in this advice essay. --ClemRutter (talk) 13:31, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Lists, Verifiability, and Notability
The "Alumni" section contains the following statement: "When alumni have their own articles in mainspace, it is not necessary for their notability to be referenced, as long as it is done in the biographical articles." The last bullet is a direct quote from Wikipedia policy. This essay can say whatever it wants, but has no effect or applicability in areas where it contradicts Wikipedia policy. Anyone wondering if an alumnus needs to be referenced or not in the article about their school or university, should understand the difference between a Wikipedia policy and an essay, and consult WP:UNSOURCED. Mathglot (talk) 22:32, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * We don't "reference notability" at Wikipedia; we reference for Verifiability.
 * Content in an article does not need to be notable; non-notable alumni may be added per WP:NNC, if they meet other policies and guidelines, including those governing list inclusion.
 * Per WP:UNSOURCED, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source."
 * To the extent that policies are descriptive and not prescriptive, that is out of step with how many - perhaps most - articles are written. I agree that it's a best practice to include citations that explicitly establish that the person is noteworthy and connected to the institution. But as a practical matter this is not often done and rarely challenged when the person has an article that is relatively well-sourced and includes the alma mater in question. ElKevbo (talk) 22:42, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Awards achieved by the students
Hey guys I was wondered if we should included students' participation of winning in international nor national competition, for examples public speaking and etc.? Or should the award specifically just awarded to the school? CyberTroopers (talk) 06:04, 28 February 2021 (UTC)
 * We don't mention non-notable students by name, or individual accomplishments. Meters (talk) 06:07, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

South Brunswick High School (New Jersey)
,, what do you all make of this article, specifically the sports section? I often leave those alone, but there's a whole bunch of unverified material, and a whole bunch of primary sources. BTW I'm thinking we should go through and cut out all those quotes, as non-free material. , what do you think, after glancing over the references? Too much quoting? Drmies (talk) 22:22, 18 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It's awfully detailed so I can see why it would raise eyebrows. I wouldn't object if someone were to trim much of it. On the other hand, it does have quite a few decent sources and the writing isn't horrible so personally I'd be inclined to focus on the many articles that are in much worse shape. ElKevbo (talk) 00:44, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Some unsourced content, some puffery, some pure trivia, and too much detail in my opinion. We don't list non-notable coaches, we don't list anything but top level finishes (no conference or division titles, or less than state championship wins), and I don't see the need for details about who plays in their conference, or the scores or competition or number of spectators at particular games. This is of no interest to general readers. Lines such as "The 2010-11 ice hockey team went on to win the inaugural GMC Championship. South Brunswick beat perennial powerhouses Old Bridge High School and St. Joseph High School to reach the final. South Brunswick then went on to be seeded #20 in the NJSIAA Public A Tournament and lost by a score of 3–0 in the first round to Tenafly High School" hits several of those reasons, for example.
 * I'll take a pass through this tomorrow (later today actually). Meters (talk) 08:37, 19 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both of you! Drmies (talk) 18:22, 19 May 2021 (UTC)