Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article advice/Archive 3

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University of Chicago Law School

Off-topic. John from Idegon (talk) 15:42, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Can I receive some help on University of Chicago Law School? An SPA has been edit warring and promoting his content by linking to school's own website just every single day. Lorstaking (talk) 04:34, 9 May 2018 (UTC) This project focuses on secondary schools. Since this is a post-secondary school, it would be best to ask at WP:UNI. BillHPike (talk, contribs) 04:45, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Billhpike, I've put the article on extended-co0nfirmed protection for a week, but strictly speaking you should have started a dialogue with the user on the article talk page or his talk page. That's what you'll have to do when the protection expires, and if there is no satisfaction, then you'll have to take it to DRN. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:00, 9 May 2018 (UTC) @Kudpung: I think you intended to ping @Lorstaking: BillHPike (talk, contribs) 05:02, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Probably, but it doen't matter. You've both got the message and the article is protected. Now you can go ahead and discuss it without any edit warring. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 05:22, 9 May 2018 (UTC) Help is needed as this article is now going through some major discussion concerning the present version that what needs to be preserved and what needs to be removed. Discussions can be viewed here: Talk:University of Chicago Law School#Let's get to work - 2018 updates. Lorstaking (talk) 15:30, 30 August 2018 (UTC) And again, this project has nothing whatsoever to do with university articles. Why do you keep posting here about this, Lorstaking? Try at Wikiproject Universities or Wikiproject Chicago. John from Idegon (talk) 15:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest guidance

We have a new subsection, written in the attempt to clarify a knotty problem. CofI can be substantial/insubstantial, direct/indirect pecuniary/nonpecuniary giving 8 levels to consider. The extreme levels are easy but it is the ones in the middle that are contentious.

In local government, we would declare an insubstantial indirect non-pecuniary and reserve the right to speak but not to vote. If you had got as far as working that out, then you had considered the problem and were worth listening to.

The press report of the meeting ie the independent account that WP would use as the official secondary source often misreported, but savvy councillors would hand over a press- release on a memory stick which was quoted verbatim.

I think that the dividing line is between fact- which any staff or alumni should be open, after a COI declaration, to contribute, and judgement. Fact from the website, yes, even though that is promotional material or published research- but smarming from the educational press no.

It is essential that everyone edits this section and places comments here. Hope this is helpful.--ClemRutter (talk) 08:20, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Everyone? I'm not sure what you mean. Anyway, there are a number of problems including the fact that because in some countries "school" also means university, it's being applied to universities.[1] I don't think as worded it's a good idea. It encompasses too many people - possibly hundreds of thousands. It states that self-published sources are fine, while we deprecate them at WP:SPS. It says facts from the school website can be added although the guideline goes on to say that certain things should not be added. It says " It is not acceptable to add judgements, opinions, or motivations found in those sources" where the sources are the school website and self-published sources. Fine, but I think the intent was to cover reliable sources. I'm not sure how to rewrite this (and I doubt it will have much effect). And of course it needs a link to WP:COI. Doug Weller talk 11:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree that this needs to be rewritten to be in line with the broader project guidelines and practices related to COIs; I appreciate the boldness of adding this material but it seems like it would be better to not add new material to this advice without workshopping it first. I would hope that few people try to apply this advice to college and university articles because we have more specific set of advice written explicitly for those articles (which doesn't have a separate COI section but probably should). ElKevbo (talk) 15:36, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

I agree with ElKevbo and Doug Weller that this is needs some work. Well written project guideline are drawn from the overarching Wikipedia guidelines with suitable modifications and specific examples for the particular project, but this Tara simply like someone's opinion of what should be a conflict of interest.

The definition of conflict of interest needs to be the same as WP:COI. There is no substantial/insubstantial, etc. You either have a conflict of interest and shouldn't edit (except in very limited circumstances) or you don't. If you have "any connection to the school" is not a conflict of interest as per WP:COI, it is a situation that could trigger a COI. See WP:EXTERNALREL. The critical point is: "While editing Wikipedia, an editor's primary role is to further the interests of the encyclopedia. When an external role or relationship could reasonably be said to undermine that primary role, the editor has a conflict of interest." That is a far cry from "any relationship".

The second paragraph actually has little relation to COI. In fact, it seems to imply that using self-published sources is fine of you don't have a COI, which is not the case. Self published sources can be used for some things (see WP:USESPS), but that's not relevant here. Someone with a true COI shouldn't be editing whether they're getting material from a self-published source or an independent, reliable third-party.

I can also see how people could be confused by these guidelines when editing university page. As they're not drawn from WP:COI, they are not consistent. According to these guidelines I have a COI for an article on the school I left in 37 years ago, how then could I not have a COI for a university I left a mere 17 years ago? Also, "Alumni" in British English almost exclusively refers to people who attended a particular university, so should be avoided here.

I would suggest a re-write along these lines:

Many of our school articles were created by current or former students. That's not necessarily a problem, but you need to be aware of what Wikipedia calls Conflicts of Interest. This applies if your relationship to the school could reasonably be thought to undermine your role on Wikipedia as an unbiased editor. How close a relationship needs to be to trigger a conflict of interest is defined by commonsense, e.g. would you trust what someone in your position told you about their school, or would you assume they were talking it up (or down)?

If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid making anything but unambiguously uncontroversial edits to pages on that school and should make your COI known whenever you discuss it on Wikipedia (not just on the talk page of the school, but anywhere the school is discussed). You can make edit requests on the talk page of the school using the {{request edit}} template.

More guidelines on conflicts of interest can be found in the Wikipedia:Plain and simple conflict of interest guide.

Robminchin (talk) 06:16, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

I am following this conversation but choose to keep my head down at the moment. ClemRutter (talk) 20:32, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

Pretty much what I think too, ClemRutter. The problem I had with the since reverted change was it was not focused. It was titled "COI" but primarily talked about reliable sourcing. I'll draft a bit on COI in the next few days and link it here for comment. It is important to recognize that editing one's alma mater article is an important gateway to Wikipedia. It is also my feeling that COI isn't an objective state of being, but rather a subjective comment on an editor's editing style. We could also use some more specific language on how to use (and not use) connected sources, but that should not be co-mingled with advice on COI. One is a behavior issue, one is a content issue. John from Idegon (talk) 20:44, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

What about an omnibus article about the various middle schools of a public school district?

This evening I unexpectedly discovered that a WP article I wrote/edited (really don't remember which) and documented 10 years about a local middle school was gone, due to these guidelines. While I understand the purpose of the guideline with regard to articles on individual middle schools and can respect it, I wonder if there's a middle ground, particularly for large school districts such as Dallas Independent School District. Would there be a place for creating an article -- perhaps even just a list article -- that had segments on each of the middle schools giving details such as when they were founded and for whom they were named, perhaps with any significant historical details? (I know there was a suggestion many years ago for such an article about streets of Dallas.) In the case of the Marsh Middle School article, it had three historically-documented paragraphs with seven cited newspaper articles from the 1960s and 1970s about the commission and construction of the school, including the fact that at the time it was constructed in 1962, the Dallas ISD had yet to integrate its schools racially, eight years after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision mandating desegregation; it also mentioned the school's Leadership Cadet Corps winning the first national military drill competition for middle schools, an accomplishment they repeated three more times over a seven year period. Here is a link to article as it stood in its last full version.

I am posting this question here rather than in WT:WPSCH because it is a question about whether the Article Guidelines' recommendation against articles on individual middle schools extends to an omnibus article/list article presenting key historical information about the 41 middle schools. Lawikitejana (talk) 06:02, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

The guidelines on schools are advisory not prescriptive. If the school was notable in its own right it should not have been deleted.

Middle schools have always been ambiguous- but to me the crucial dividing line is between ISCED 1, and ISCED 2. If the school had any part of ISCED 2- it deserves an article. In the UK we had middle schools deemed secondary, and middle schools deemed primary depending on the county. The former would stay and the latter would be merged into an article Middle schools in XXXXXshire. More straightforwardly- if the kids transfered at eleven +, WP deems as primary so merge into Primary schools in XXXXXshire, if the transfer is at 12+ then WP deems them to have a secondary component so they are notable in their own right. So here:grade 6 (ages 11–12), year 7 to grade 8 (ages 13–14), year 9 ->ISCED 2, a junior high school.

In this case, where Dallas was prominent in fighting segregation, even kindergardens that were on the front line may be able to prove notability. I would say, get an administrator to reinstate the article. ClemRutter (talk) 21:51, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

"List of middle schools in X school district" are not uncommon. They shouldn't be created for small districts obviously, and also the amount of copy on each individual school should be limited. The reason why middle schools are generally not notable and high schools generally are is that there is very little coverage of middle schools in reliable independent sources, whereas for high schools there almost always is. Please let that thought guide you if you decide to create one. If you choose to ask for a WP:REFUND of the specific article, please remember that it isn't what the school did that makes it notable, it is what was written about what the school did. I'd appreciate it if you could give us a wikilink to the deleted article, Lawikitejana, so we can get an admin who can see it in this conversation. John from Idegon (talk) 22:02, 15 August 2018 (UTC)

It is in the posting. See: link to article as it stood in its last full versionClemRutter (talk) 07:42, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you each for your responses. They are quite helpful. As noted, I did include a link to the Marsh article, and also, I (or others) had found reliable verifiable sources for the article(s). It helps that with Dallas being such a large school system and the school in question having been built back when Dallas had fewer schools, there was more coverage. As for the grades included, it has varied historically as the junior high/middle school concept has evolved. Presently it comprises grades 6-8 (approx. ages 11-14) in Dallas; in the '70s and '80s when they were termed "junior high" it had only 7th and 8th, and I'm not sure what grades attended in Marsh's earliest years. Lawikitejana (talk) 17:32, 22 August 2018 (UTC) ETA: I'd appreciate if someone could put a link here to an article on "List of middle schools in _____" you think is correctly done, to use as a model.

List of Houston Independent School District schools looks to be pretty good. John from Idegon (talk) 19:15, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Alumni do not have to be independently notable

This essay previously stated that "Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria." That is not what that policy says. What it actually says is:

Inclusion in lists contained within articles should be determined by WP:Source list, in that the entries must have the same importance to the subject as would be required for the entry to be included in the text of the article according to Wikipedia policies and guidelines (including WP:Trivia sections). Furthermore, every entry in any such list requires a reliable source attesting to the fact that the named person is a member of the listed group.

Further, our core policy of notability is also very clear on this subject: "The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article."

So the guidance on which alumni to include in school articles must be changed to bring it in line with these site-wide policies. ElKevbo (talk) 05:52, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

This has been part of the school article guidelines as long as I've been here (almost 7 years). For some reason, Wikiproject Universities also subscribes to it. I have no idea why it was written this way originally, but it serves very well as guidance for secondary school articles. Perhaps simply divorcing Wikiproject Universities from it would serve your purpose? Think about it...I need to think about my response too, and it's bedtime. And other than policies with legal implications, you know as well as I that there are none that must be followed. Indeed, that is one of our pillar policies. John from Idegon (talk) 06:07, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm sure that we can come up with something that still meets our needs without providing guidance that explicitly contradicts a core policy! ElKevbo (talk) 06:14, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate what you're trying to say here, ElKevbo, but let's be civil, and work it out on the talk page rather than shouting profanities in edit captions and conducting an edit war.Jacona (talk) 11:32, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

So let's review where we are. We have an essay that directly contradicts WP:N and WP:BIO (while also citing WP:BIO as the source of its authority, too). I have proposed multiple alternatives that have been rejected without any discussion except "we've had this essay like this for several years." No one has proposed any other alternatives or even tried to discuss my proposals. And editors continue to cite this essay as a reason to remove or reject content from articles. ElKevbo (talk) 12:15, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

• In my opinion, an issue between the guideline for Alumni, policy, reasonable expectations, and actual practice worth review exists in the 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.

  When the connection to the school is clearly established in the wikilinked article of the individual, I believe we should respect that. Either add the reference or just leave the list entry in the article. And if the entry is not referenced, we should generally look for the reference ourself, not just remove it without review. We should also look for articles; I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone revert a list entry because it's "not notable", when the article exists but the noob editor didn't add the wikilink. Removing these carelessly and using the guideline as an excuse in my opinion, is definitely biting and borders on vandalism. (And no, I'm not pointing fingers at any of the people who commonly edit this page.) All that said, the guidelines need to include language that strongly encourages editors to (almost always) insist on an existing article, and (almost always) insist on a reference to establish connection. Jacona (talk) 11:51, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:LISTBIO states "For instance, articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who attended the school — only those with verifiable notability." This guideline states "alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria." I don't see this as a problem.Jacona (talk) 12:56, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

If you look at the Talk page of WP:BIO, there is a very clear consensus that "verifiable notability" does not mean "has an article." Further, our core policy on notability explicitly says that it "does not determine the content of articles" and this essay cannot override that policy. ElKevbo (talk) 13:51, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I've read the alumni section of this guideline multiple times and I do not see it saying "must have an article". It says they "must meet Wikipedia notability criteria." It's not the same thing.Jacona (talk) 14:20, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Thank you - that is a subtle but important issue that requires clarification. I agree that it doesn't say "must have an article" and that is a misinterpretation. But can we agree that it is still applying the notability criteria to article content which is in direct contradiction to the notability policy? ElKevbo (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Discussion reset

Let's reset this discussion. There is a direct contradiction between this essay and our core policy about notability. This essay says that "alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria." However, WP:N says that it "does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article." So those two statements are in opposition to one another and policy about how consensus works in Wikipedia says that a local consensus - an essay written by and for a WikiProject - cannot override a site-wide policy. Hence this essay needs to be changed (or you can try to change WP:N but I think that would be very difficult!).

I think that change can be pretty simple. I've tried to propose some changes but of course I'm open to other proposals and changes to what I proposed. But simply ignoring this contradiction and trying to override our notability policy with this essay is not a solution that complies with the practices and customs of the larger community. ElKevbo (talk) 15:23, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

• There may be a small number of situatuions for which the WP:WEIGHT requirement of WP:NOTEWORTHY is passed, but the subject is not notable enoigh for an article. In such cases, it should be easy to work the name into the body of the text. — BillHPike (talk, contribs) 15:28, 25 September 2018 (UTC)
• I don't have time to engage in a substantive debate at the moment, but here's a couple points for consideration:
  • With the exception of legal issues, consensus controls content, not policy. This is made absolutely clear in one of our pillar policies. Consensus is illustrated by practice, and practice is what is memorialized in this guideline.
  • School articles are frequently crufty, due to student editing. Many many school articles get used by the local students as a kind of Facebook plus. Please focus here in what we do as editors: We are here creating the most widely used reference work in the world! How does it benefit the world at large to know about Jonny Jock, the kid from Podunk High who clearly reached his peak as the QB his senior year? It doesn't and that is what you are inviting. The inventor of the Slinky, three Congressional Medal of Honor winners and an Olympic gold winner may also be in the notable list, but in order for the reader to understand who JJ is, we have to add more copy than the history section. I can see where different guidance might be needed for university articles, but to allow people in high school alumni listings who are not widely notable is a recipe for problems.
  • The notion that we cannot have a local consensus to limit certain content in an article to notable subjects is faulty, period. It does not reflect practice. It's common on settlement articles to limit listings of businesses to only notable businesses. I'm sure there are more examples. Perhaps what we have here is an instance where the policy that is being argued from here is faulty, not the guideline. John from Idegon (talk) 16:44, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

It would be very helpful if other editors would not assume that my purpose is to change this policy or enforce my personal view of the standards we should apply to which alumni merit inclusion in our articles. I fully agree that the bright line of notability is a very easy and possibly reasonable standard to apply. My point, however, is that as currently written and applied this essay directly contradicts a policy that has much, much wider buy in and consensus that this essay. Tweaking this essay, advocating for a change to WP:N, or finding some other third option would all be fine with me. It's simply incredibly confusing for editors to have such a clear contradiction in this essay.

If you believe that this project is allowed to flaunt WP:N then I strongly recommend that you modify that policy so it's clear to editors and readers where the exceptions to that policy exist. That is another very reasonable approach to resolving this contradiction. You may be able to convince other editors who agree with the "policies are descriptive and not prescriptive" philosophy if you can describe a long history of (peaceful, workable, and necessary) contradiction here and in other projects or topics. ElKevbo (talk) 18:51, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

• Comment: the issue seems to be the wording here: "Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria." To address the concerns about these lists turning into 'cruft, why not say: "Alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria, in line with WP:NOT"? --K.e.coffman (talk) 01:07, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate the suggestion but I don't see how that addresses the fundamental problem of relying on notability as the standard for inclusion. Even something as simple as "In general, alumni should be independently notable with exceptions made on a case-by-case basis by consensus of editors" would be a way to fix the problem with this essay while retaining the common practices already in place. ElKevbo (talk) 13:30, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

• The claimed contradiction does not exist. The WP:N guideline says of itself: The notability guideline does not determine the content of articles, but only whether the topic should have its own article. The content of articles is left to other guidelines and policies. In the case of lists of people, there is WP:LISTBIO, which contains specific guidance about lists of alumni/alumnae: For instance, articles about schools often include (or link to) a list of notable alumni/alumnae, but such lists are not intended to contain everyone who attended the school — only those with verifiable notability. That is entirely consistent with the wording here: Per Wikipedia:Bio#Lists of people, alumni to be included must meet Wikipedia notability criteria. The additional verifiability requirement of LISTBIO is covered by the preceding paragraph. Kanguole 09:24, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry but I genuinely don't understand how you can say that one policy says that it doesn't do X but it's completely ok for an essay or other policies to then require that the original policy do X. Appealing to another policy or essay doesn't seem to help things. ElKevbo (talk) 13:30, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

It's quite simple: WP:N (guideline, not policy, BTW) limits what it does itself; it does not limit what other guidelines (e.g. LISTBIO) do. Kanguole 13:35, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

No, that is logically and philosophically inconsistent and confusing. This essay doesn't actually need to rely on Wikipedia's idea of notability. (It's also totally possible to make a small modification to WP:N if the rest of the community is okay with there being exceptions.) ElKevbo (talk) 16:04, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Aggressive pursuit of a POV

(two edit conflicts while writing) I am watching the debate above which is moving far too fast to research and verify a post before the context has been changed. A first warning sign- is when an editor starts quoting a policy that seems to contradict an established practice. A second warning sign is when an editor starts to get prescriptive without having a body of edit within that topic area relying solely on his experience in a seemly parallel project. A third warning sign is the use of adjectives- which amount to weasel words.

While I am happy to enter a review of any guideline- it has to be done at a speed where our most prolific editors have opportunity to contribute. Bear in mind September is the start of term in the UK so extra time needs to be allowed for very busy people. There is a massive geographical differance in educational vocabulary even to the word alumni, and indeed to notability when considering a eleven to eighteen year old. So what is our long term objective. A little calm consideration is in order.ClemRutter (talk) 14:54, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

The personal attacks are unhelpful; please focus on the content. ElKevbo (talk) 15:24, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I fail to see even the vaguest hint of PA - I'm surprised at you ElKevbo, for the second time this evening. I think an apt response would be 'Those who live in glass houses...' Don't you? Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:09, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

• I am fortunate in that my career reached full term several years ago and my life is no longer governed by the annual academic cycle of any country. Concurring with Clem, I would like nevertheless to draw to attention that whether 'core policies' or not, WP:5P5 overrides them all - something which some contributors to the discussion fail to observe. Furthermore, and as more of an aside, over the many years as one of the janitors of the schools project, I've seen the number of school articles grow until most schools of any notability (or those that want to be) in the native English speaking world on our En.Wiki are largely covered already.

Thus as far as our long term objective is concerned, I find it therefore rather odd that anyone should choose this moment in time to become suddenly prescriptive about our school article guidelines that appear, until now, to have stood the test of time. In fact, with the large number of genuinely very poor quality school articles and stubs to be addressed, improved, or even blanked and redirected, and new ones needing better vetting at NPP, I find it mildly disruptive, a solution looking for a problem, and a storm in a nice cup of English tea - even here in Thailand at nearly midnight. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 16:11, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Please don't make assumptions about my motives. I'm not prescribing that this essay be changed but that the contradiction between this essay and site-wide policy be clearly resolved. Change the essay or change the policy, whatever is better. But it's very unhelpful for editors to let this problem linger unresolved. ElKevbo (talk) 18:53, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Excuse me- why? ElKevbo Can you explain, why it's very unhelpful for editors to let this problem linger unresolved? This is a point of view- so could you give some references or simply explain how this is going to reduce the backlog of stubs or start class articles or bring on board articles on average or notable USCED 2 and USCED 3 establishments in non anglophone countries. If you watch an article grow from a stub to a GA (of which we have precious few) there are patterns to be noted.

One of the stages is for the administration to try to introduce favourable facts from inspections- this needs to heavily edited put provides positive data for the infobox- over time this tends to be refined (overwritten) but no need to WP:BITE. Another pattern is the introduction and bloating of the alumni list, which is gradually reduced and has reached consensus and compliance as it transitions from B to GA. In different legislations the concept of notable is very different- on one land is is all about hitting a ball and elsewhere the ability to hold a guitar. Acheivement as an jobbing engineer or scientist is far less important to the RSs.

I worry whether we have equal press coverage in the developing world and what the relevant ability that define notability should be. Having established that in our own collective mind, how do we convey that to an editor who is doing amazing work with stub/starts but goes no further.

The essay is a helpful tool in getting the content written, and has help create hundreds of articles, it is interesting that you have found an inconsistency with a couple of policies- I suggest you write up your concerns as an {{efn}} and keep the page on your watchlist and {{poke}} in six months or so. You could try and get a better feel for the articles by helping to maintain a couple of hundred- chair of governors and headteachers change and government interfere with the curriculum and funding and buildings are demolished and rebuilt: all time consuming but vital stuff.

The concern is about lists of notable enough alumni: to take this forward it may be helpful if concerned editors c&p a snippet or wikilink of what they consider is a good list from UK, US and a third country so we can see what and how we could improve them- and also some bad examples.

ClemRutter (talk) 21:33, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm not advocating that you begin changing articles, merely that you clarify the contradiction between this essay and WP:N. If the broader community is fine with this essay being an exception then just document that explicitly. ElKevbo (talk) 13:25, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Excuse me- why it's very unhelpful for editors to let this problem linger unresolved? I have personal opinions- but that is confused by stating this as an 'a priori' fact- that is also a personal opinion. What is the source of this opinion? I may also agree but can't until we have resolved this issue- or agreed to let that linger! It appears that you have some proposals for changing WP:N (that is way above my pay grade)- would you like to pen here a diff showing what you mean- so we can decide whether we wish to support you. To add the counter argument- due to absence of WP:RS in emerging nations and indeed remoter locations in UK/US, alumni quoted may be redlinks rather than prefered bluelinks. Please the ball is in your court- explain the 'very unhelpful' POV, then show us your proposed change to WP:N. Apologies if this offends, I just don't want to spend much more time on this. ClemRutter (talk) 19:44, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Relationship of Ofsted and DfE

@Steven (Editor):

(It's on a separate bullet point (not as a sub bullet point of DfE) and it says "Schools are inspected by Ofsted..." - Ofsted is linked to its article, visitors clicking on this will tell them the necessary info, no need to replicate info with a note. If you visit the Ofsted article, you'll see it says in intro text: "...is a non-ministerial department of the UK government, reporting to Parliament." but the infobox should be checked as it has Parent department as Department for Education.)

That is an excellent synopsis. However, this advice page needs a one line comment as it is used by newbies often writing their first article, they need something succinct and focussed- not a trip around many pages. I point newbies at this page when helping them to improve the sort of article we have all seen. It must all be available in one place. This is why I added the line.

In my experience, this advice page is incredibly difficult for new editors. All the facts are there but not where most new editors are hoping to find them- we need to introduce a little repetition to help them along. Has anyone a better solution to this Ofsted DfE problem?

I am glad you have highlighted the Infobox problem. The URN is a Ofsted reference number, while the DfE refers to schools by their LAESTAB which used to be called the DFENo. or DFENo. This was displayed in the deprecated Infobox UK schools- but no longer in Infobox schools. There is some dispute about who owns and issues the URN- as GIAS has some claim.

The Infobox schools has a wikilink to the DFE which is neither use nor ornament, but looks impressive to an overseas readers, we do need to change this. It is wrong. I propose that we display the {{{dfeno}}} again. Little work needs to be done- as most of the data is there. We could have a two line display:

[[DfE]][[LAESTAB]]{{{dfeno}}}
[[Ofsted]]{{{URN}}}

And we will need a LAESTAB redirect stub too. Other flavours are available. I suspect (excuse my syntax)

{{{#ifexist|{{{dfeno}}}|[[DfE]][[LAESTAB]]{{{dfeno}}}|}}}
{{#ifexist|{{{ofsted|[[Ofsted]]{{{URN}}}|}}}}

The DfENo is still relevant if you are researching capital grants need for school expansion- the Building Schools for the Future program etc or anything funded by the DES,DfE,DEE,DSCF etc. So again I ask for further comments but personally I favour one of the change suggest above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ClemRutter (talk • contribs) 15:05, January 5, 2019 (UTC)

ClemRutter, I’ve added the note back but incorporated with Ofsted text in the inspection bullet point. I think you might have misunderstood what I put (or I didn’t write my edit description above properly), but I was referring to the infobox in the Ofsted article. The “Parent department” parameter currently has “Department for Education” but the intro text of the article has what I said above and you said it is independent of the DfE, so shouldn’t this be removed from the parent department parameter?

Regarding Infobox school, yes we had an issue with the dfeno parameter - when the merge was initiated, you do remember the discussion that took place to ensure the merge would be a success right (which is was)? That was the only parameter we had an issue with, as it was already unsupported in the UK one and the page the parameter was linked to no longer exists. I favoured removal and other reasons for this - you wanted to keep it. So there was no consensus and this resulted in the parameter being left as is, ignored as an error and to be discussed after-merge (please go to the archive to see this if you’ve forgotten) which we still need to do. Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:21, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

I can't answer any of your questions but I want to point out that some of this confusion and mess is caused by trying to shove every possible parameter used by any country into this one infobox. We've gone way, way overboard in trying to create unified infoboxes for subjects that would benefit from being separated e.g., a U.S. school infobox, a U.K. school infobox, a generic infobox on which others can be based. ElKevbo (talk) 20:37, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, what confusion and mess? It’s easy to add the infobox to a school article, you just visit the template page, copy the basic syntax which is short and has the most common options, add any other parameters that are relevant for the school, and that’s it. The parameter issue above was already unsupported in the UK one. There is a large number of parameters/aliases that are due to be removed, which you will see in the after-merge discussion (not finished yet) but this will vastly improve and simplify the infobox. If we had separate infoboxes, that would be more to maintain, we’d have to go through existing articles to change them to their respective infobox, and there are many benefits of having the one, especially when the majority of the parameters are standard and apply to any school with just a few being country-specific. If you’re replying, if you could please continue at WikiProject Schools talk as this one is supposed to be for the article guidelines. Thank you Steven (Editor) (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@Steven (Editor):. I remember the Infobox school debate well- at least when I look at the Template talk:Infobox school/Archive 5, my physical memory is shot!. In the end there was a compromise- but the debate got pretty nasty. To have continued when I hadn't got the full facts would have just been belligerant. We can now see that the URN is not owned by the DfE (the initial assumption) which rather changes things, and we have a mistake on the template. Otherwise the template is working well.ClemRutter (talk) 13:35, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

ClemRutter, I think the Department for Education does own the URN, it would make sense too as they are the main department that oversees education. If you have a look at this page - it says "...allocated to all schools by Edubase". Edubase no longer exists as this was replaced by the Get information about schools, which if you look here - it says "...previously called Edubase" and then underneath that, "Published 18 September 2017 From: Department for Education" and then "This service replaces the Edubase service..." Steven (Editor) (talk) 17:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

@Steven (Editor):. I think I was reading some reports from the Sutton Trust, that had been criticising the government (DfE) for not authorising Ofsted to inspect Multi academy trusts since 2014. The crux then was that URNs had been started by Edubase, been adopted by Ofsted and joint (mis)managed GIAS and Osted. It was a flexible event (no I can't retrieve that source!) But this November Ofsted issued this consultation document. Consultation_document_-_changes_to_Ofsteds_statistical_final.pdf In the context of a school changing from one Academy Trust to another It says that:

Every school has two reference numbers – a local authority establishment number (LAESTAB) and a unique reference number (URN). In some cases, the school will be assigned a new URN, but keep the same LAESTAB. In other cases, the school will have a new LAESTAB and a new URN.

(The perceived problem was that Ofsted did not give statistical information of the previous URN. The LAESTAB would only change on merger)

That still doesn't help us with the question- who issues the URN, but it does confirm the importance of the LAESTAB. Up to 30.1.2017 Academies had to get their URN from Edubase, [2]. By 18 September 2017 EduBase had been replaced (DfE note), even so EduBase is described as a DfE database, so it looks as if Ofsted had lost. The value of the LAESTAB is that it gives index numbers on financial spreadshreets. dedicated-schools-grant-dsg-2016-to-2017.

Other Google searches for URNs have linked me with funeral directors and cremation services- I'll leave it there tonight. ClemRutter (talk) 19:08, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Pictures in alumni sections

I was pointed to a limited discussion about pictures in alumni sections.

Given the number of editors who edit these articles, I think the discussion was not extensive. Instead, it was limited to a very few editors (with initial editors reaching out to the editors they had a relationship with). I think this needs an RFC to have it reflect a consensus of editors. This vote of a few editors and their editor friends is not impressive.

And the thinking is not convincing. For example, the editor who closed the discussion said that images are ok in separate "list of" articles. But why? The issues raised, that he said are the basis for not including images here, are exactly the same. If the images are ok for the stand alone list, each argument that was raised against the images being in the article is not significant enough -- (the editor who closed the discussion said the reasons to not include the images were: photos of individuals are off topic; potential for NFCC violations; layout difficulties and potential for conflict over selection.) Odd reasoning.

Also very unconvincing was the argument that instructions are to only include brief descriptions. Really? Where is the word "only?" Someone simply made that up. Look at what they linked to. It only describes minimum requirements. Not maximum requirements. It says "Entries should be bulleted and have a very brief description of their notability."

Plus, of course, the thinking that "the article is about the school not the individuals who are in the school so we should delete those images" is head scratching. Are we next going to delete all images of people from country articles (United States), team articles (New York Yankees), and any other article that is not a bio? Ridiculous. When it comes to school, country, and team articles, the notability of the subject of the article is mixed with the notability of its notable people. That seems obvious to me. If consensus is otherwise, let's start by deleting all the US presidents whose images appear in the US article, or all Yankees images from the NY Yankees article. Brilliant.

This looks like a couple of WP editors contacting their friends, getting a friends consensus that is very limited, applying very flawed and inconsistent (and incorrect) reasoning, and then using that as the camel nose to make a major change that affects very many articles.

If people want this to be policy, I think we need an RFC. The earlier discussion is not enough. --2604:2000:E010:1100:F955:25EB:548E:D8B0 (talk) 21:02, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools/Article guidelines/Archive 2#Pictures in alumni sections was open for four weeks. Quite a number of experienced editors contributed to the discussion, and the consensus was clear that pictures of alumni were not appropriate in high school alumni sections. One editor argued against the decision after I removed a gallery of images the editor had added, and directed the editor to the discussion. These were the images that led to me asking the question on the projects page. Meters (talk) 21:22, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

This was far from this being a case of "a couple of WP editors contacting their friends, getting a friends consensus that is very limited, applying very flawed and inconsistent (and incorrect) reasoning, and then using that as the camel nose to make a major change that affects very many articles",. There was no canvassing. We did not make a major change. In fact, we did not make any change. I simply raised the question of whether it was appropriate to include pictures of alumni, and the finding was that the high school article guidelines already prohibited including pictures of alumni. I don't know who wrote the original guideline, but it likely was not the same editors who participated in the last year's discussion. Meters (talk) 23:22, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Only half a dozen editors responded when you started discussion. An editor called into the conversation other specific editors. That impacts who the group is made up of.

And the decision of this half dozen impacts whether images can be in (at least) all high school articles on wikipedia. How many articles is that? It must be many thousands just in the US. And how many editors have edited those articles? Many I think.

And this approach as described would seem to me to apply to universities, if it is the way we decide to go. And graduate schools. So that's many more articles, and many more interested editors.

Also, you say the finding of this small group was that the guidelines already prohibited including pictures. But I already pointed out why I think it is clear the guidelines do not do that. Saying a list "should include x" does not mean a list "shall not include y".

I let WikiProject Universities know we were discussing this. Whatever is decided, and I think a change that would effect what can be in thousands of articles should have an RFC and not be decided by six of us, the thinking seems to apply the same to universities (delete all images in the section in Columbia University?), as well as others types of articles; law schools (delete all images in the section in Harvard Law School?), and so on). 2604:2000:E010:1100:F955:25EB:548E:D8B0 (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

(ec) Please indent your replies with one : per level of indent.

user:Kudpung who is a schools project coordinator simply pinged two of the other project coordinators, User:John from Idegon and user:ClemRutter. One of them commented, and the other did not but closed the discussion after four weeks.

And again, the editors involved in that discussion were likely not the one who were involved in creating the original guideline. It does not matter if we had 6 participants or 600 since it is the original policy that applies.

No-one said anything about applying this outside of school articles but you. [ec. response to original version of above [3] which stated "the thinking seems to apply the same to universities (as well as others types of articles; churches, teams, countries, cities, and so on)"] The finding was that WP:ALUMNI already prohibited using pictures of alumni in school article lists. There is no reason to think that would ever apply outside of school articles. And university articles have their own project outside of the schools project, and the participants can determine their own rules.for content.

The wording in question is Entries should be bulleted and have a very brief description of their notability. That's not a description of minimum content as you claim. It's a description of what list entries should be. Not their full biography, not a list of every job the person has ever had, not their personal history, not their picture, not what classes they took in high school, not who they dated, and not their pet's name (and yes I have seen all these) . Just a brief description of why they are notable. Meters (talk) 00:25, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

OK - we agree. You opened discussion. One editor disagreed. Three editors agreed. One of those contacted another editor who agreed. And contacted yet another editor who closed the discussion.

For a discussion that impacts many thousands of articles, edited by many thousands of editors, that seems like too small a discussion. I think an RFC is needed.

It does matter I think if we have this small group or a larger group giving their thoughts.

The rationale given does apply equally (for example) to every university and graduate school article. Look at the photos in the notable alumni sections of Harvard Law School and Columbia University. We want to be consistent in wikipedia. If the rationale is good for high school articles, we should be deleting all photos from alumni sections of all university articles. Maybe it will be helpful for example to post at those schools and ask editors their thoughts to get fresh blood and thoughts.

I disagree very much with your reading. What you quote (from a Wikiproject page; we're not sure who wrote it and with what input, in a section called Style of entries ... this all seems like a weak basis anyway for a rule saying "delete all photos from notable alumni sections of all high school articles" ... even if it did say that) says what should be there. Not what should NOT be there. I am not sure why I am having trouble explaining the difference. I find it hard to believe that that language also means that any list that lists the person's year of birth must have it deleted. That any list that lists the person's year of graduation must have it deleted. Of course it does not, because it only says what SHOULD BE included but not what SHOULD NOT be included. There are other reasons to not include what class they took in high school, and we don't have to look to a statement of what SHOULD BE included to turn it upside down and edit it to say it really means what should be excluded. Maybe fresh eyes who have not been in the earlier discussion can help us sort this out.2604:2000:E010:1100:F955:25EB:548E:D8B0 (talk) 01:31, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

First off, we don't do universities here. Universities is another WikiProject and they make their own rules. So the comparison is a red herring or a straw man. Secondly, we are not going to overthrow a decades-long practice and overturn an RfC just because you didn't like the outcome. Finally, to save looking up, this is what I said on on the RfC:

I've been coordinating this project for around 10 years and I can't recall having come across photos of alumni in any of the tens of thousands of school articles I have on my watchlist, but I discovered that these two schools have escaped my attention. Conclusion: we don't have photos in alumni sections and the SCH/AG doesn't need changing to accommodate them. School articles are about the school, not their former students.That said, in the case of Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn), that list should be split off into a standalone list like I did for List of Old Malvernians, then there would be no objection to photos. Amador Valley High School is a different case. It's a FA, but was promoted many years ago and has been subject to hundreds of edits since. It might even be time to ask for an FA reassessment. IMO there's no reason to clutter Wikipedia with the additional bureaucracy of an RfC to confirm these issues of photos. That said, there seems to be a disturbing developing trend on Wikipedia lately to call for RfCs for every minor issue.

and

I will just add to this that school articles are about schools. Alumni sections are only of marginal interest. We realise that many people are proud of their schools and the notable people who have graduated from them, but the extent of including photos also makes the page promotional. Schools, especially government government run scvhools (i.e. in the US, schools maintained by a school district authority) have no need to be promotional. In this respect, as an aside, we come down very hard on fee paying schools that are attempting to advertise through our encyclopedia.

Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 10:43, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Incidents

We recently have had two incidents where pupils at schools have received massive press coverage- and this in turn has generated massive negative press coverage for the school.US Covington Catholic High School#2019 march controversy and UK Almondbury Community School#Controversy. We handled it by spinning off a separate article on the incident and just left a one paragraph explanation that something happened with a for-further information link. This seems to have worked. I am suggesting that we add that advice to this page. On the other hand there are events that are directly attributable to the schools actions, for example: Off-rolling weaker students to improve the exam results- rebrokering a successful school to a MAT not off its choosing (politics)- asbestos not removed. These definitely do need to included so we remain NPOV rather than complicit. I open this to discussion. ClemRutter (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2019 (UTC)

The whole thing with Covington is ludicrous. Social media blew a non event up and the for crap American journalists followed it. Rather than start a war over it while the editors bent on turning Wikipedia into a tabloid were still frothing at the mouth, I let it go. In a year or so it will be clear what a non event that was, and it can be dealt with then. I can't see any way to codify this, and even if we did, guidelines aren't binding. John from Idegon (talk) 22:34, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Oswestry School: an outside view is needed here, please

There is a determined editor on this page who seems to me to have little grasp of Wikipedia policy. After insisting on removing a list of the headmasters, he or she is now removing citations, claiming they are not needed. Could someone from here, preferably an Admin, please spare the time to visit Talk:Oswestry School and comment in the sections at the bottom? Many thanks, Moonraker (talk) 22:01, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Moonraker, this page is for discussing changes to the school article guidelines. John from Idegon (talk) 22:36, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks John from Idegon. Could you possibly give me a link to the page I should be on? Moonraker (talk) 22:47, 1 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorting alumni by birthdate.

Edited and moved from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Schools:

Currently, the alumni list for Eton College is sorted by birthdate and is split by century. However this is problematic for the following reasons:

• It does not account for people with unknown birthdates (living or deceased)
• It makes it hard to distinguish notability; and even presents opportunities like this.
• As the years go by, there will be notable alumni born in the 21st century.

I would like sorting alumni by birthdate to be deprecated.

These are the articles in question:

• List of Old Etonians born before the 18th century
• List of Old Etonians born in the 18th century
• List of Old Etonians born in the 19th century
• List of Old Etonians born in the 20th century

FoxyGrampa75 (talk) 18:41, 24 June 2019 (UTC)

I agree and more. I am of the opinion that the lists should be in alphabetical order only. I've seen them in grad date order also. That only makes sense from a viewpoint of a party connected to the school. John from Idegon (talk) 16:33, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Infobox school logo

I believe this section is out of date and doesn't reflect the current reality. The file update wizard has been revised and is much easier to use, the online resolution of images in school websites has increased too. I have run an upload test with File:Leigh Academy Blackheath Logo.png which has produced some interesting results.ClemRutter (talk) 12:26, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Attendance references for US schools

Should we preferentially use the most recent NCES attendance data rather any more recently school-published data? I've seen the argument that the NCES data is a level playing field for US schools since it is out of date by the same small amount for all reported US schools and that it's really not that important what the current exact attendance is, and I tend to agree with that reasoning. There's also a discussion of using other school reports for private school but only when they do not have an NCEs report.

So, should we use the latest NCES data for all public US high schools, or should we use more recent data when it is available? If we use more recent data what are acceptable sources? The school? The school board? The State Education department? Reliable media reports?

This came up Port Chester High School After many cycles of unsourced changes that contradicted the cited NCES source, an IP finally changed the ref to point to a school published report (albeit while still claiming that the ref was published by NCES, and with different data than the previous attempts). IP is now back to changing the data without changing the ref, so it's still cycling. Meters (talk) 22:07, 12 November 2019 (UTC)

I would endorse language to standardize NCES as a source. That would not be unprecedented. The US Census has been the standard source for population for US political divisions for quite some time. John from Idegon (talk) 00:52, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Makes perfect sense to me. I suggest that it be added to the guideline if we get consensus on this. [Oops redundant. Should read more closely]] Meters (talk) 01:45, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

If there is some very significant change in attendance(e.g., school merger/split) that is not yet in NCES we can simple add a bit of sourced prose to explain what is going on. Meters (talk) 01:49, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, please. Then let's do the same for U.S. colleges and universities. ElKevbo (talk) 04:11, 13 November 2019 (UTC)

The NCES is a fantastic source that provides a wonderful standard, and I'm happy that I helped push this standard through in the distant past. But I also recognize all of the data ultimately comes straight from the school's themselves and that the NCES has often been years out of date. Many states have their own sources that are often more current than NCES data and just as accurate; there's no reason that such data should not be used, as long as the source is appropriate, and there are other sources that should be equally valid, especially if they're more current. If someone has a valid verifiable reference for 2019-20 enrollment data for a school from a source other than the NCES, it would seem foolish at best to revert or edit war on the issue simply because the information is not from the preferred source. Alansohn (talk) 02:02, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

That's exactly the question that is under consideration. Whether we should standardize on a one known reliable source that has a common date for all US public schools. It's generally two years out of date, which normally makes minimal difference to the attendance, and I've already proposed a means by which we can handle unusual circumstances that result in sudden large changes in attendance.. Editors making unsourced updates to attendances is a very common problem with high school articles. Meters (talk) 09:06, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Another consideration: If you standardize on one source, you could then (a) stuff the data into Wikisource (I suspect it's already there) and automatically populate this field using templates or parameters in existing templates (e.g., the infobox) or (b) add this to and update it in articles using a bot. ElKevbo (talk) 12:14, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

I definitely think we should standardise on NCES, even if it is a year or two out of date is not much of a big deal. Also, NCES has its own dedicated templates that would be added next to its dedicated Infobox school parameter. This also follows in line with the other country-specific NCES-equivalent parameters (more to be added) that act as the national database on stats for schools, provided by the Government. For example, the UK has "Get information about schools" and New Zealand has "Education Counts".

I've come across a recently created {{Massachusetts High School Student Demographics}} template — is this necessary? Shouldn't there have been a discussion at WikiProject Schools? I don't think this template is needed, thoughts John, Meters? Steven (Editor) (talk) 22:01, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

In the long run the template shouldn't be needed- but on the positive side, it has encouraged one editor to improve the hard factual content of several articles and hasn't broken anything in doing so. One editor has improved her/his technical skills so becoming more flexible and valuable. It has generated discussion which may lead, with Wikidata input to global changes. I see it as harmful if WPSCH must be consulted before any inmnovation is attempted- we do not control editors, just guide them. If an innovation is to be brought for discussion to WPSCH, it is helpful if a small test run has been done so we can see the real life effects of the proposal rather than some aspirational prose. As it stands this template remains a personal tool- that need a lot of attention in the documentation department- and misses many useful tricks, the formatting seems to work though. It does seem to suggest that we have three levels of templates- personal tools, local project (schools project) standard and the refined global Wikipedia (Wikidata and documentation compliant, geographically open) standard. ClemRutter (talk) 08:34, 17 November 2019 (UTC)

Former headteachers/principals: only Notable are eligible to be listed, or NN are fine too?

Does guidance on "Former headteachers/principals" section still stand as written (i.e. no notability requirement on former headmasters)?

On one hand, quite a few WP:WPSCHOOLS#Featured articles and WP:WPSCHOOLS#Good articles include a list of former heads of school not having their own wikilink (i.e. not notable in their own rights). If the consensus is with those who support the guidance as written, let's clarify the guidance as follows: in the body of the article let's say "Former headteachers/principals – A list of former headteachers/principals, with a short description of their achievements, is often useful. The former headteachers/principals don't need to be notable in their own rights."

On the other hand, certain editors these day remove the headmasters sections from school articles saying "→‎Heads of School: lists of nn people have been depricated in school articles" or "that as non-notable individuals they have no real place in the article". If the consensus is with those who support only listing notable former headteachers/principals, let's clarify the guidance as follows: in the side box, say "Notable former headteachers", and in the body of the article say "Notable former headteachers/principals – A list of notable former headteachers/principals, with a short description of their achievements, is often useful." Yymmff (talk) 00:58, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Yymmff see WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI. Thats what we have been working with fir many years. There are no immediate intentions to change it and to do so would simply be time consuming and counter productive. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:32, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, thank you for re-affirming the current guidance "as is". So just to clarify my understanding of this guidance: WP:WPSCH/AG#OS advises "a list of former headteachers/ principals ... is often useful"; WP:WPSCH/AG#WNTI says again "naming the head teacher or principal is permitted"; and the guidance does not require that the listed headmasters/ principals must be notable in their own right. Please correct me if my understanding is wrong. Thank you - Yymmff (talk) 01:32, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

In linguistics, it is inadvisable to read into a text anything that is not clearly expressed, but clear omissions often lead to perceived ambiguities of the kind that keep lawyers in employment. I did not read write or edit that part of the guideline so unfortunately I am ill placed to characterise on it. A clear interpretation would require a discussion and a consensus. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 02:06, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

Kudpung, I am a novice here. Would you recommend starting the process through WP:EDITCONSENSUS? My plan is (1) Change in WP:WPSCH/AG#OS "== Former headteachers ==" → "== Notable former headteachers ==", and change "Former headteachers/principals – A list of former headteachers/principals, etc" → "Notable former headteachers/principals – A list of notable former headteachers/principals, etc". (2) I am pretty confident someone will revert my change. (3) Then I would change in WP:WPSCH/AG#OS "Former headteachers/principals – A list of former headteachers/principals, etc" → "Former headteachers/principals – A list of (not necessarily notable in their own rights) former headteachers/principals, etc." Does it sound like an acceptable approach to achieving a clear interpretation? If not, what path would you recommend? Thank you - Yymmff (talk) 23:52, 26 November 2019 (UTC)

You suffer from being over-prescriptive, I think of several ways that Former head teachers can be used. Schools have to take in Leigh Academy Rainham which as a headteacher designate and an executative headteacher, but has not been built to King's School, Canterbury 30 miles away, which was opened in 597 AD. A head teacher may devote their lives to one school so thus is not wikinotable where two events are needed, or may be the third son of a royal mistress so automatically notable though the notability is off-focus. In a private school, the headteacher is the unit of time. 'In Philpots day, only cricket and rugby were played- in Scotts era the round ball was tolerated and Saturday morning school was abolished'. So I suggest this would cause unnescessary bad feeling. ClemRutter (talk) 00:19, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

The guidance lacks clarity, as demonstrated by lack of consensus between editors in two school articles that I personally am aware of (I'm a significant contributor to one of them). It is not clear from the guidance whether the optional list of head teachers is supposed to only be composed of notable heads, or, on the contrary, is allowed to contain non-notable heads. I do support the latter interpretation of the guidance (non-notable heads should be allowed in the list), but will start testing the grounds from the contrary. Let's see where it goes. Yymmff (talk) 04:09, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

Dear members of the WikiProject Schools project and coordinators @Kudpung, Tedder, ClemRutter, and Steven (Editor): I propose to add this explicit clarification to the guideline to clearly state that it is OK to list NN headmasters. My reasoning for making this change:

• The guideline WP:LISTPEOPLE says "a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses can contain the names of all the people who held this post, not just those who are independently notable."
• The policy WP:NOTDIRECTORY allows "simple listings ... of ... CEOs, supervisory directors and similar top functionaries." (Note that the term headmaster is just a different name for the CEO of school.)
• The spirit of the guideline WP:WPSCH/AG#OS not only allows but also encourages inclusion of the list of headteachers, although it doesn't say so explicitly. A reasonable person can read the names of the recommended sections "Notable alumni", "Notable teachers/faculty/staff" and their descriptions (that explicitly spell out requirement of listed people's notability in their own right), and then compare with the name and description of the recommended section "Former headteachers/principals" (that does not spell out requirement of listed people's notability in their own right) and conclude that it is OK to list NN headmasters.
• The present practice of writing school articles has many featured and good articles in this school project that include the headmasters/ principals section, in which most of the listed heads are not notable in their own rights (e.g. no wikilink).
• However, because this guideline does not explicitly say that listing NN headmasters is OK, there are some editors here that interpret the guideline differently (they believe that only notable headmasters can be listed). These editors police certain school articles and remove from them the list of headmasters, pulling the contributing editors into prolonged discussions and wearing them down in those discussions.

In summary: Explicitly stating in the guideline that listing the NN headmasters is OK would eliminate those wasteful and bitter discussions, and would be in line with the spirit and the letter of the above mentioned policy and guidelines. I'm requesting your comments. Thank you -- Yymmff (talk) 23:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

I think that WP:LISTBIO and WP:SOURCELIST are the project-wide guidelines that are most applicable. Those guidelines were explicitly written to reject notability as the primary, universal criterion for inclusion in inline lists (standalone list articles are a different matter governed by different guidelines). In brief, material included in inline lists are subject only to the normal criteria applied to content in articles (WP:V, WP:NPOV, etc.) and those agreed to by the editors editing that article. To put it another way, notability only determines if a topic should be the subject of its own, dedicated article and it's generally inappropriate to apply it as a standard to determine what material should be placed in articles. ElKevbo (talk) 23:26, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, thank you. Yymmff, Wikipedia guidelines are intentionally vague. Existence of a section in the guidelines doesn't imply either requirement or endorsement. We allow lists of headteachers headmasters, or principals. The creator of an article is welcome to add one. Anyone can add one later. But anyone else can remove it and at that point, consensus becomes required. Exactly how Wikipedia is supposed to work. The needs of an article on a 500 year old private school in England and a small parochial middle school in the US are very different. John from Idegon (talk) 03:34, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, thank you. John from Idegon, the policy WP:RULES#Content says "Policy and guideline pages should ... be clear". Our guideline WP:WPSCH/AG#OS is not clear about allowing or disallowing inclusion of NN headmasters. This causes a real problem: prolonged, bitter, divisive debates on the individual school pages between editors having contradicting interpretation. Let's solve this problem. I propose to clarify our guideline by explicitly confirming the applicability of WP:LISTPEOPLE's guideline "a list within an article of past school presidents, headmasters or headmistresses can contain the names of all the people who held this post, not just those who are independently notable." Yymmff (talk) 03:21, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Can you please explain what readers are supposed to learn from an exhaustive listing of every headmaster of a school? I focus on articles about U.S. colleges and universities and many of those articles have complete listings of presidents (or similar title) but at some point I'm going to propose removing those lists because I don't know what readers are supposed to learn from them. (Please note that I'm only asking about bare lists with few or no details; lists of sentences or paragraphs that provide useful information and context to readers are a different matter.) ElKevbo (talk) 03:31, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I might add that you are trying to solve a problem that isn't a problem at all. This guideline is not the source of frequent issue. This is only the second time in the eight years I've been here that a dispute involving this has reached the point where the projects have been notified. Wikilawyer all you wish. This content isn't a useful part of an article on a school as young and poorly documented as the one that brought you here. Despite what RULES says, Wikipedia subject specific content guidelines are virtually all in agreement that the final word is local consensus. Guidelines affecting the entire project are also written that way. Long story short; even if we were to change the guideline the way you suggest, it wouldn't change the situation that brought you here. You will still need local consensus. John from Idegon (talk) 05:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Your aggression puzzles me - apparently there is some background here that I am missing - but I am concerned that you appear to completely misunderstand WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. In fact, local consensus cannot override project-wide consensus. I'm not sure that it matters in this specific disagreement as Yymmff's proposal is only to make the advice explicitly agree with project-wide consensus but it's a concern nonetheless. ElKevbo (talk) 12:13, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

ElKevbo, great question! I agree that a bare list of non-wikilinked headmasters has little value (alas, there is a school featured article with this kind of headmaster bare list). The same bare list where each non-wikilinked headmaster is individually referenced to a readily available free online source(s) providing significant details has much more value, since the reader can jump to that source and learn details; this kind of list would set a threshold of acceptability for me. And of course the list that not only has readily available online source(s) but also sentences or paragraphs that provide useful summation of that source and context to readers is the best. I really like the way headmasters are presented in a GA Carre's Grammar School#Headmasters, it sets to me the gold standard and I will try to implement this approach in the school articles of interest to me. Last but not the least I really like how they made their long list collapsed and not initially taking any vertical space - very neat. (BTW, presidents of colleges or universities have a much higher chance to have their own wiki article than school headmasters; I think we agree that even NN in their own right headmasters deserve to be listed?) Yymmff (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2019 (UTC)