The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was keep. Ultimately, the strongest arguments were to retain the article, including one "delete" vote being struck mid-debate. Ritchie333(talk)(cont) 12:50, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article is purely promotional in tone. A web search does not show up any reliable sources and fails WP:GNG. Mark the trainDiscuss 12:21, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a secondary school per longstanding precedent and consensus. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:28, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the classic circular reasoning to keep an article because earlier an article was kept because earlier an article was kept, etc. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is disguise... The Bannertalk 14:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, consensus. The RfC did not, of course, override longstanding consensus. However much the deletionists would like it to have done. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:08, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That is your keep-opinion, Necrothesp. But the sheer fact that there was an RfC shows that your "consensus" is at best wafer thin. The Bannertalk 15:55, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You will note that consensus since the RfC has continued to favour keeping secondary school articles. Very few have been deleted, inconclusive RfC or no inconclusive RfC. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:39, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are indeed administrator do not act on the facts but listens to the ones that shout loudest. But as you stated here yourself: articles about schools DO get removed. The Bannertalk 10:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No, they act on the opinions expressed, as they are expected to do; if opinions didn't count at AfD we wouldn't bother to have AfDs at all. Occasionally they are deleted. But usually not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:26, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as a secondary school per longstanding precedent and consensus. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:12, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the classic circular reasoning to keep an article because earlier an article was kept because earlier an article was kept, etc. SCHOOLOUTCOMES is disguise... The Bannertalk 14:40, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Per this RfC, secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist. The "longstanding precedent and consensus" mentioned above always required independent, reliable sources, which have not been provided in this case. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:18, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Per the RFC from February 2017 that states (among others) Secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist. Fails WP:RS. Wikipedia is not a medium to promote a school. The Bannertalk 14:10, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete No references can be located. Adamgerber80 (talk) 22:49, 3 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have found this independent source in a high-profile newspaper which says that this is a sought-after school in a city with a high reputation for education. This is strong support for keeping the article.
Delete The subject isn't notable. Arguments from Necrothesp and Kudpung ignoring the consensus signed by Tazerdadog, Primefac, The Wordsmith, and Someguy1221 are essentially WP:ILIKEIT with a heavy dose of WP:IDHT. I don't care about schools one way or the other just like I don't care about baseball leagues in Korea. I am concerned when admins decide that their preferences overrule community consensus. Either we agree to abide by consensus even when it doesn't go our way or we really just want anarchy if it lets us have our cake and eat it, too. Chris Troutman (talk) 00:38, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Chris troutman people vote or comment at AfD whether they are admins or not. You should retract your disingenuous slur at admins. I put it to you that your reasoning is that the consensus in the RfC (for there was none - it was totally ambiguous) didn't go your way. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 06:48, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Kudpung: My "term of disparagement" against your argument is not disingenuous. You should know that I say what I mean and I mean what I say. My !votes are always in keeping with whatever cockamamie rule the consensus comes up with; I don't seek to implement my "way." That's the difference between me and those opposed: I don't substitute my preferences for Wikipedia's consensus. I struggle to fathom how anyone in good faith could come to your conclusions and I honestly don't want to make this disagreement mean-spirited. Chris Troutman (talk) 07:10, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Chris troutman:--Actually, I will have to side with Kudpung on this one, despite our gen. disagreement on the narrow topic.The RFC did not bind the !voters to vote in a part. manner.It just said that votes of a part. type shall be added to WP:AADD et al among many other things it said.It's the job of the closer to properly weigh the votes casted by different participants.And IMHO, the aspersions could be best-retracted.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 08:50, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) @Godric on Leave: That makes no damn sense. If the RfC did indeed say SCHOOLOUTCOMES is now in AADD territory, then any call to "precedence" is similar to ILIKEIT, also on the AADD list. Perhaps you think !voters are permitted to make invalid arguments but I've seen closers struggle with ignoring those invalid arguments. I have nothing personal against Kudpung but his argument defies logic. Do we collectively not care about AADD because it's an essay? I expect admins to act within the rules, not in defiance of them. These aren't even rules I made up or am a fan of. I'm just dutifully following what it says in black and white; that's what each of us owe as a member of this community. Kudpung impugns me as if I have an agenda to delete all articles about schools, so no, I won't be apologizing for discrediting his incomprehensible rationale. If you agree with him then somehow I'm not understanding what you're saying. Therefore, please leave me out of it. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I precisely think voters are permitted to make invalid/quasi-valid arguments.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 09:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Let me sum up the actual situation. For years there has been a clear consensus that secondary schools are notable. A handful of editors continually claimed in AfD discussions that this consensus was not valid because they didn't agree with it and misinterpreted consensus as meaning "absolutely everyone agrees", which would clearly make it impossible ever to get a consensus on Wikipedia. Eventually they started an RfC with the wording: "Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" The debate that followed was inconclusive, as are most RfCs. All this means is that we haven't added that wording to the notability guidelines. It does not mean that the longstanding consensus has changed or that there is anything wrong with stating that a consensus exists. It still does and AfDs since the RfC have proved it still does, since very few secondary school articles continue to be deleted. The status quo remains unchanged. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:55, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Necrothesp:"The debate that followed was inconclusive" Tazerdadog, Primefac, The Wordsmith, and Someguy1221 disagree with you. You should discuss it with them. Chris Troutman (talk) 09:11, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So, you think they said there was a conclusive result, do you? Maybe you should reread the RfC outcome ("Numerically, the respondents to this RFC were about evenly divided between supporting and opposing that statement", " leaning towards rejecting the statement posed in the RFC, but this stops short of a rough consensus", etc). I see the same lack of conclusion that results from pretty much every RfC. There was no consensus to add it to the notability guidelines; neither was there any consensus that secondary schools should not be presumed notable. The status quo where we express opinions at AfD and the closer decides the consensus has been maintained. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Analysis The RFC being referred to says "It's worth noting that this discussion does imply that schools are special" and that a deeper search than normal is needed to attempt to find reliable sources in local and/or print media. For schools in India this should include non-English sources and ideally print-only newspapers. Because this is not feasible for most editors we should cut these articles some slack, and accept articles on Indian schools with fewer and lower-quality sources that we would normally require.
There is a long-standing consensus that secondary schools are usually notable. Decisions should take note of long-standing consensus, and not go against it without good reason. This principle was not overturned by the RFC.
Nor does the RFC say that we should ignore long-standing precedent. WP:ONLYGUIDELINE says:
In particular, while precedents as defined at WP:OUTCOMES are not actual policy, by virtue of the fact that a precedent exists you should provide an actual reason why the case at hand is different from or should be treated as an exception to it, rather than ignoring or dismissing it solely on the basis that it isn't a binding policy.
Apparently it is strong in anyone who disagrees with you. How strange! -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:24, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment--The RFC closed in that part. manner because it invoked numerous outside eyes.If this had been done on the School Project t/p, the result would most probably be a snow-oppose.And the very debate that is often happening in these AfD discussions and is happening here, lies in the fact that those outsiders who !voted against the Schools=Automatic notability stand rarely participate in these AfDs and thus, what was/is the typical project-consensus continue to get aired, nearly un-abated on AfDs after AfDs and gives way to closures which in-turn reinforces their consensus.Sort of a positive-feedback-loop.And, in all reality, it takes guts to characterize arguments from long-term sysops as in-valid and closing a disc. against the so-called-consensus without being accused of supervoting.So, I don't blame the closers either.Winged Blades of GodricOn leave 09:49, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
No need to. See above. Also note that I have no involvement in the schools project. I would also point out that if people cared enough about deleting these articles then they would take part in AfDs. AfDs continue to be about opinions. If they were not and notability was determined by hard and fast rules then there would be no need to have AfDs. Admins would just be able to delete articles that went against "the rules" without discussion. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:21, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice when the administrators finally started ignoring the circular reasoning and judged the articles on their content. The Bannertalk 10:55, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That suggests you also don't like stubs, which also goes against community consensus. Also please stop attacking admins; we're all just expressing our opinions here. Not as admins or non-admins, but simply as editors. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:22, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To be true: I do not like articles that are promotional and not sourced with independent sources. But promotion and non-existing sourcing is clearly not one of your concerns when it comes to schools. You just support every school, just because it is a school. The Bannertalk 11:53, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. No sources, written to be promotional. Unless and until sources - online or off - are found, this article should be deleted. And I'll give you three guesses why they won't participate in AfDs, and the first two don't count, Kudpung, Necrothesp. —Jeremyv^_^vBori! 21:28, 4 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
there is a source. It's not a third party source, but the organizations web site is reliable enough for the basic facts about an organization. We have once or twice fo come across school articles without even that, and those do get deleted. DGG ( talk ) 06:03, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
According to WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES at least, past practice has required independent sources for a school article to be kept. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:30, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I've seen that - I was just addressing DGG's suggestion that a non-independent source alone has been regarded as enough to keep an article in the past. Cordless Larry (talk) 20:33, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Per J947's argument and the sources he provides, my argument has changed to Keep. —Jeremyv^_^vBori! 21:05, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. There is good reason for the current practice about high schools: it's part of a compromise. The compromise is that we keep articles on high schools unless there is doubt about real existence, but in exchange we do not make articles about primary schools unless there is something really special. The purpose of the compromise is to avoid thousands of arguments just like this -- before the compromise there were sometimes more than 10 a day, and the results were essentially random, depending on who showed up. These re appropriate articles to be permissive about--they good for beginners, and people may well eventually improve them. The difficulty with sources is in large part a matter of reference availability--we have no practical access to the places where such sources would be published. As for the RfC, it the confusing conclusion said two things with opposite implications: that there was no consensus that Schooloutcomes could be quoted as a reason and that the practice reported in Schooloutcomes was nonetheless an accurate description of what we did, and there was no consensus to change that. The net result is that the actual situation is just as beefore: we keep such articles. Challenging the same thing in mltiple AfDs in the hop that by chance one will come to a different consensus is taking unreasonable advantage of the inevitable inconsistency of WP. DGG ( talk ) 06:02, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
On that last point, DGG, how can consensus ever change if editors shouldn't challenge that consensus in AfDs? The argument is made that school articles should be kept because previous school articles were kept. This argument leaves little space for those who believe that schools are not necessarily always notable to challenge that consensus without initiating AfDs and arguing for deletion. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:58, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Cordless Larry, consensus can be changed by a successful RfC with a clear outcome. The RfC you refer to contradicts itself so much that people could argue for or against schools notability. What we have since that RfC are the 'I don't like schools' people trying to change the existing practice through the backdoor of AfD. Ironically, it's the 1,000s of school AfD that have been closed as 'keep' that have established the practice which we employ to achieve consistency as explained by DGG. So those who 'believe' that schools are not necessarily always notable, should start yet another perennial RfC, and while they are about it, consider soccer players who have only played one game, railway and subway stations, shopping malls, and restaurants with a Mitchelin star, none of which gave us an education that prepared us for our degrees and PhDs. And until that happens, or you can ge the next 1,000 school AfD closed as 'delete', as per Necrothesp: the status quo remains; and with it, the need to constantly attack admins is moot. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 08:32, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Kudpung, I don't believe that I have been constantly attacking admins, or indeed attacking them at all. That aside, I'm happier with the final part of your answer (about the next 1,000 school AfDs) than the first part (about another RfC), because I think that if a consensus is based on a reading of past AfD outcomes, then it should be possible to change that consensus through a change in AfD outcomes. That's why I think it is unhelpful for DGG to suggest that editors shouldn't challenge past practice in AfD discussions. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:36, 5 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep – Upon reading through the closure of the February RFCI have found that the closure is confusing and inconclusive, but from my understanding the result was 'no consensus, defaulting to status quo'. BTW, Secondary schools are not presumed to be notable simply because they exist was the status quo back then; existence has to be verified by a reliable secondary source independent of the subject. I believe though, that the correct interpretation would of been reliable secondary sources independent of the subject. Now though, school AfDs have become much further scrutinised because of the RfC, and I feel that is a slightly negative aspect. Now, here are the two sources that the RfC requires: [1][2]. This satisfies notability for third-world schools, as a contrast to this AfD. As a further note, promotional language is a content issue and ought to be discussed at the article's talk page, not here. J947( c ) (m) 22:07, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - the sources that have been found consist of an incidental mention and "it exists and has a basketball team". Hardly significant coverage. Pinkbeast (talk) 22:47, 6 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus. Relisting comment: To discuss the sources offered by J947.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Sandstein 09:25, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Pinkbeast: I agree that it's far from SIGCOV, but it's enough for the result of the RfC to be satisfied. J947( c ) (m) 18:27, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I agree, J947. The RfC doesn't, as far as I can see, suggest that school articles should be kept based on passing mentions in sources. Cordless Larry (talk) 18:33, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Cordless Larry: The RfC nutshell says References to demonstrate notability may be offline, and this must be taken into consideration before bringing a page to AfD. Also, a this is in a third-world country, less references are required. Therefore, one piece of SIGCOV and a mention in another source is enough for schools like this. J947( c ) (m) 18:51, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Urban India is hardly a backwater in terms of internet penetration, and the school is apparently relatively new, so it's not a case of having to search for pre-internet era print coverage. Indian editors Adamgerber80 and Godric on Leave have confirmed their inability to find significant coverage. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment This is the first time I am seeing so much traffic and discussion on an AFD. Every other time it is usually 2 or 3 people. As for this school, I want to provide a bit of background. Bokaro is a city built largely around a steel plant. Unlike the metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, Bokaro doesn't have such an active media. Schools will almost never find independent coverage in India, unless and until the school is a bit old or it has become famous for a good academic record. This school seems to have been established in 2005, so it is relatively new. It is recognised by CBSE as can be seen from [3]. Other than this and the small mention in a local school news, there is not much information I can gather.--DreamLinker (talk) 16:46, 9 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - We keep high schools because experience shows that, with enough research, sources can almost invariably be found that meet WP:ORG. Google is a poor tool for finding sources on schools in the Indian sub-continent. Very few have much of an Internet presence. We need to avoid systemic bias and allow time for local hard-copy and local language sources to be investigated. Just Chilling (talk) 20:27, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
So you want to keep the article based on guess work? The Bannertalk 20:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I can understand a certain skepticism over articles for schools in India that have essentially no sources at all, and about which no statement of importance can be made. But this has clear 3rd party documentation for its quality and importance, and is an appropriate short article. If we're going to start becoming somewhat restrictive it makes no sense to start here with the deletions. (and that's the purpose of the compromise, to accept them all, rather than do injustice by the happenstance of focussing on one like this). DGG ( talk ) 22:52, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Since the above !votes/comments, I have completely rewritten the article with sources. Hardcopy search is still needed to underpin notability but what is there clearly demonstrates the significance of the school. Just Chilling (talk) 23:31, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.