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. HighInBC ^{(Need help? Ask me)} 18:43, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

South Otago High School[edit]

South Otago High school (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Nothing about this school -- including the two notable alumni listed, and the 2002 local menigococcus outbreak leading the government to vaccinate its students -- indicates that there would be non-trivial external sources that we could use to write a good article about it. Tagged for notability since June, but no one has addressed the concern. Looking through the first few dozen results of a Google search (yielding 169 unique hits altogether), I see nothing promising. Prodded and de-prodded. Pan Dan 21:49, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment Trying to put this AFD together I noticed that the article I am nominating is South Otago High school, but there is also a South Otago High School about the same school. Participants in this debate will want to look at both articles. Merged. Pan Dan 21:57, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of New Zealand-related deletions. -- gadfium 22:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep for main article, delete the lower-case version. Secondary schools are normally considered worthy of articles.-gadfium 22:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • That depends on the school. Looking here, I see that most recent high school article AFD's resulted in no consensus. (And one recent AFD actually resulted in delete.) But anyway, outcomes of past AFD's don't have anything to do with whether an encyclopedic article can be written about this school. Pan Dan 22:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, that's an interesting link. I believe that all normal New Zealand secondary schools are worthy of articles. I can't say that for all secondary schools around the world, because educational systems differ. I've added the word "normal" without being able to say exactly what I mean by it. However, a proposed school would not usually be worthy of an article. My reasoning stems partly from a back-of-the-envelope calculation: a school of 500 students must have an intake of at least 100 per year (probably more, because a large proportion don't stay a full five years), and when it's existed for 80 years, that's 8000 students (assuming a constant roll, which is not a very safe assumption). There are also quite a number of staff who will have worked there over the years. Many parents will also have had significant interactions with the school. Any place which has affected so many people on a daily basis seems notable. Another part of my reasoning is that school articles are often a place where Wikipedians start editing, and they then move on to more diverse articles. I've seen a number of New Zealand editors get started through their secondary school article. I realise that many editors also get started by editing articles on garage bands and that this is not a reason to keep the garage band articles, but schools invariably have official listings and websites, providing some verifiability, they are regularly reported on in local newspapers, and the articles are not (mostly) driven by vanity. It's not at all unusual for a long-standing secondary school such as this one to have a book written about their history. Such books won't be widely available outside the town that they're in, but they can be ordered through interlibrary services within the country.-gadfium 23:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You make some thoughtful points. The question of notability remains though -- are there external sources about this school that we could use to write a good article about it? To speculate that there may be books out there, somewhere, is not enough -- someone has to actually find those. Searches on Google books and on Amazon show nothing. Pan Dan 14:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changing to full keep, per Grutness' edits and arguments.-gadfium 21:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Notable school, more notable than many that have had keep votes here in the past. Will try to expand and clean up the article when I get a little time (hopefully later today). Grutness...wha? 00:30, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hopefully I've managed to spruce it up a little... Grutness...wha? 03:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, the article looks much better now. The question of notability remains -- I could write an equally detailed article (with pictures!) on many local businesses, using their websites as sources. But these are not good candidtates to be Wikipedia articles -- to show notability the sources have to be external. Pan Dan 14:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Given the opportunity in the next couple of days to get to the local public library, I'll add considerable external sources. Not all sources exist online, you know. There are a considerable number of books that I know of dealing with the area, many of which have more information on the school which - as I said earlier - is one of the most prominent schools in the region. (And before you ask, no, I'm not an ex-pupil of there: quite the opposite, SOHS were my alma mater's biggest rivals!) Grutness...wha? 05:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Your effort is to be commended, and I notice the improvement to the article. However you didn't list the publisher of the reference you added. I guess it's self-published? If so it would not indicate notability. Pan Dan 14:11, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Published by the Clutha District Council, I think, though the copy I read was missing the page which would have provided the details, unfortunately (hence no ISBN either). Grutness...wha? 08:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Chance of multiple independent reliable sources is high due to nature of subject. --- RockMFR 01:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the contrary, I would think the chances of sources would be low given that this is a local high school -- most local high schools aren't the subjects of non-trivial external sources, and nothing indicates that this one is an exception. (Many high schools have famous alumni -- why would famous alumni induce external publishers to publish articles featuring the school? And the disease outbreak was really something that happened in the town, not the school.) But anyway, what's the point of talking about the chances that there's good coverage out there? To show notability someone has to actually find the sources. I looked and found none. Please do a search yourself instead of speculating. Pan Dan 14:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep as per RockMFR and also a general feeling pro-schools in WP --BozMo talk 13:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep per precedent, and because it meets my personal notiability standards for High Schools (since WP:SCHOOLS is still not a consensus standard.) — RJH (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • (1) "Per precedent" is not a valid reason to keep or delete any article. (2) Even if precedent were a valid reason in general, it makes no sense for high school articles, as most AFD's on those result in no consensus, and a recent one even resulted in delete. Pan Dan 21:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the majority of high schools brought to AfD in the last few months have been kept, in some cases speedily. Most of the no consensuses shown at the link you give are for middle schools or lower, though i do admit there are some high schools revceiving that decision. the one deletion you mention was a special case that actually ended up being redirected and smerged into the company which ran that particular private school. I make the tally 16 keeps, 9 no consensus and two deletes in the last month and a half once middle schools and the like are removed from the count, with one of those deletes being for a nineteen-word stub. To claim that this is a case of "mostly no consensus and even deletion" is misleading, to say the least. Grutness...wha? 05:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Granted, but my first point stands -- citing outcomes of past AFD's doesn't give a valid reason to keep or delete anything. Pan Dan 16:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete I agree with nom. To keep this is in effect to assert more of the highly debatable "all schools are notable" line. Eusebeus 01:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually, it's more a case of "all high schools with notable alumni are notable". Grutness...wha? 05:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • To say that notable alumni (or anything else about the school) automatically confer notability on the school doesn't make any sense -- at least given what notability means on Wikipedia: see WP:N. Notability means that the topic is the subject of multiple non-trivial outside sources. If having notable alumni induces external publishers to publish non-trivial things about the school, then that would show that the school is notable. Pan Dan 16:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Meets WP:SCHOOLS and has multiple notable alumni. Silensor 05:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep cleaned up version is good... passes WP:SCHOOL.  ALKIVAR™ ☢ 06:42, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep The New Zealand Herald shows a dozen stories about the outbreak, plus a few about other, potentialy "notable," topics. I can't read more than the intros online, but locals can look them up in the library, using an aparently reliable source, and can polish up a reasonably good article, I think. "Verifiable" doesn't mean that it has to be available to us online for free. Because of its size and age, this high school has inevitably been the subject of non-trivial third-party coverage, in addition to the dozens of government reports that show up in the first few pages of a seach. There is no reason to think that it can't be expanded and improved. --Hjal 07:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The publication of government reports has nothing to do with notability, and their content is nothing we can use to fill up an encyclopedia article. As for the disease outbreak, that's really something that happened in the town. Info about that should go in the article on the town. Pan Dan 16:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete per original nom. WMMartin 16:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep the current version does meet WP:SCHOOLS and conveys a sense of notability as well. Yamaguchi先生 03:04, 15 December 2006 (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.