- Saint Mary's Catholic School (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (restore|AfD)
Here we go again. This article does not assert any notability for the school aside from being old (which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a criteria for keeping an article using WP:SCHOOLS any longer), and this claim of age is not cited; in fact, it is not even supported by the school's web site, which makes no mention of the school before the 1880s. The article cites no non-trivial reliable sources, just the school's web site and an Ofsted report. The AfD, closed by User:Doc glasgow without any rationale given, was closed as a keep. The only rationale given by the three keep !voters is that the school meets WP:SCHOOLS by being old. Meanwhile, six people !voted for delete, in addition to one !vote for redirect (thereby noting that the school does not stand up on its own) and the nominator. This gives an 8-to-3, or 72.7%, consensus going against the closer's decision (which, again, was given without any reasoning). Overturn and delete or redirect. Kicking222 15:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Admin's rationale I hate School articles and would delete the lot. But there is no consensus to do so, as hundreds of AfDs have shown. If you want something deleted you needs a clear consensus for deletion, all other option (retain as is, merge, redirect) are editorial decisions that have nothing to do with AfD. There is no consensus to delete in this debate, which means a 'default keep' closure. If numbers matter we had 6 straight delete !votes verse 4 verses votes otherwise (3 keep and 1 redirect). (1 vote I discounted since it said 'delete or merge/redirect' - it isn't clear whether that person wishes the article deleted or not). That means 6:4, and 60% is not a consensus. Beyond arithmetic there is no policy reason to override the lack of consensus. WP:SCHOOL is not policy, and no-one was suggesting the article was unverifiable. I stand by my closure. Sure, another admin may have called it differently, but this was within reasonable judgement. Editors are welcome to merge or redirect this if they wish.--Docg 18:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, in your 6/4 count, you did not count the nominator, who obviously should be taken into account, as the nominator (by the very nature of the position) feels that the article should be deleted. Second, a redirect should not count as an "otherwise" !vote. Someone urging for redirection is noting that 1) they do not feel the article can stand on its own, and 2) there is nothing in the article that is important enough (or sufficiently verified) to be placed in another article. If there were 8 delete !votes, 1 keep !vote, and 3 redirect !votes, you surely wouldn't keep the article as no consensus even though 11 of the 12 !voters do not feel the article should exist. -- Kicking222 20:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC) The nominator was counted. I apologize. -- Kicking222 20:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC) [reply]- My, I certainly didn't realize that !voting "delete or redirect" would get me ignored by closing admins; I do so based on proposed guidelines at WP:SCHOOLS and WP:SCHOOLS3, and thought it would be obvious that my feeling was that the article should not be kept as a stand-alone article. In the future, I will simply say "delete" to avoid this kind of thing. Shimeru 21:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- You didn't vote 'delete or redirect', you voted 'delete or merge/redirect'. Merge means retain the information elsewhere with a redirect, that's very different from deleting. Since if in doubt we keep, I could not read your vote as a straight delete vote. I discounted it, I didn't ignore it.--Docg 21:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- True about the vote. My apologies. I don't particularly see a difference between being discounted and being ignored, nor how my !vote could be interpreted in a manner other than "I don't want this to remain as is," but I thank you again for pointing out the ambiguity. Shimeru 01:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Also note that on the closing admin's talkpage, there are complaints from multiple other users about his closing of AfDs as keeps when there is either a consensus to delete or no consensus. -- Kicking222 15:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Rather irrelevant, I get complaints when I close as delete too. I don't recall my closures ever having been successfully overturned on DRV - so whilst I'm not infallible, I think my judgement is normally reasonable.--Docg 18:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Surely more published sources must have written about a school that's 125 years old? Keep voters should have beefed up the article, really. --W.marsh 16:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Not raised in the debate.--Docg 18:52, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- It's sad that it has to be pointed out specifically that improving articles sourcing is a better way to get them kept than just arguing in the AfD... --W.marsh 19:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete, with no independent non-trivial coverage in the article or cited by those arguing to keep, consensus and policy both point towards deletion. AfD is not a vote and consensus is not a percentage value - not 70%, not 60%, not 99% - but with such a weight of opinion backed up by policy and no strong arguments coming the other way that make them void, there's clearly a consensus here, and not to keep. "It's old, there must be sources somewhere" is not good enough. The burden of proof is on those adding material or supporting its inclusion, this is non-negotiable policy. If there must be sources, find them - they should have been found before the article was created. --Sam Blanning(talk) 16:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- WP:V is indeed non-negotiable. If something is unverifiABLE then we delete it. But, currently not being sourced != unverifiable. If it did, we'd be deleting half of wikipedia. Further, no-one raised the issue of verifiability in the debate. If the article is unverifiABLE it should indeed be deleted. Is it?--Docg 18:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The issue with verifiability is raised the moment someone says "non-notable", "nn" or any variation thereof, as verifiability is the cornerstone of the concept as it applies to inclusion in an encyclopaedia. And it doesn't get more unverifiable than no non-trivial sources in the article or the AfD. What else is verifiability? The burden of proof, as it says in WP:V, is on those including information, and by extension those arguing for its continued inclusion.
- The "it's old/a school/big/important so there must be sources somewhere" argument, sans any actual sources, is rather like saying
"Look! A 200 foot high invisible dinosaur! Can't you see it?"
"What? How am I supposed to see something invisible?"
"Because it's 200 foot high!"
- And half of Wikipedia either needs to be deleted or sourced/cleaned up. We're fixing as much as we can, and in the meantime, bad articles do not justify further bad articles. --Sam Blanning(talk) 22:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- As I point out in the review of South DeKalb Mall below, not only does WP:V state that the burden of evidence is on the editor who creates or adds unsourced content - and not those who remove material or nominate forafd - but WP:V also asserts that, at the same time, those considering removal should be "aggressively" removing unsourced material - representing all kinds of information not just that under WP:BLP. Bwithh 01:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- What you 'point out' is plain wrong. But also irrelevant. WP:V has nothing to do with this debate as 1) It was never raised in the AfD 2) The Schools is not only verifi-ABLE (see the links I give below). It is, in fact, verifi-ED and sources. See the ones at the bottom of the article. This is a red-herring. And if you want the debate, I invite you to list the article on AfD for a second time.--Docg 01:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm not sure how its plain wrong when I'm citing the policy directly, unless you mean the policy is wrong. Kicking222 and Sam Blanning have raised WP:V issues here. I don't see the South DeKalb deletion review as a "red herring" comparison. In that afd, you closed as keep when there was a 8-to-3 majority against keep as well, and lack of non-trivial sources are at the centre of that review debate too. The references in the school article are currently: 1) the school's own website and brochure 2) reports by government school inspectors. If this is sufficient sourcing then every school has its own publication about itself and has been inspected by a government authority is supposedly encyclopedically notable. By extension, any business or institution which has its own publication and has been inspected or otherwise subject to published administrative oversight by a government authority would be admissible. I don't believe there is any where near consensus in the Wikipedia community for such an expansive view. That's why WP:CORP exists. As for the South DeKalb Mall article's sources, we currently have the mall's official website, a 6 sentence newspaper item about a coat store opening and a directory listing. Bwithh 02:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Merging and redirecting remains an editorial option even if an AFD is closed as a keep. I don't evaluate the strength of arguments actually made as strongly favoring one camp - the strength difference comes from those citing WP:SCHOOLS failing to remember that the criteria they referred to says "distinctive in any one of the following areas, or in any other areas for which it has received press or other coverage" [emphasis added], and not showing any evidence of such coverage. The strongest I'd be prepared to go would be overturn and close as no consensus, which I expect was what the closing admin actually meant anyway. Since the net effect of that is not to change the status quo ante, I endorse closure. GRBerry 16:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Even after the closure, a user attempted to turn the page into a redirect, but this was reverted as failure to adhere to the AfD closure. -- Kicking222 17:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and Delete when both policy (WP:V) and numbers point in the same direction, consensus is clear. Eluchil404 17:02, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- If the debate had shown the article as unverifiABLE, I would have certainly closed it as delete, irrespective of numbers. However, in fact the question was never raised in the debate. Is the article unverifiABLE? --Docg 19:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete or relist. Although there was little in the way of argumentation (including by me), whatever this was, it was certainly no "keep" consensus. I'd probably have closed it as a narrow "delete", although a "no consensus" would also be defensible. Sandstein 17:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- You don't need a 'keep' consensus. If there isn't a delete one, we keep.--Docg 19:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. No third-party sources. Generic Victorian primary school, some towns have dozens like this. Guy (Help!) 19:20, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. I saw the closure of this AfD but really didn't care enough about it as it wasn't a big deal. However, as this has now been nominated for DRV, I'll add in my $0.02. In short, I didn't think that the reasoning in the discussion resulted in a lack of consensus. For the most part, I agree with those who have also endorsed overturning (except the number crunching, given that an AfD really isn't a vote). Agent 86 19:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure, obviously. Mind you, I dislike schools and try to delete them all the time. However, there's obviously no grounds to delete. It is verifiable, it has at least local notability, and going strictly by the numbers people were divided. Most delete !voters lined up behind the assertion that lack of notability was grounds for deletion. That's a weak rationale and does not stand alone. Again, there's no consensus here. Mackensen (talk) 19:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure it passes WP:SCHOOLS, its had governmental documents reference it, its verifiably almost 200 years old See page 4 of the prospectus. Lacking additional content and sources is not a valid reason to overturn a validly closed afd. I too agree it was probably more of a no consensus close than an actual keep, but in either case we default to retaining the article. We should stop wasting time better spent elsewhere. ALKIVAR™ ☢ 19:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Reasoning such as that are why I'm going to simply shy away from school discussions from now on. The above opinion, presented by someone who !voted to keep the article, first claims that the article passes WP:SCHOOLS- which it does not, as there is no non-trivial, third-party coverage- and then claims that "it was probably more of a no consensus" when there was a consensus, before noting that "we should stop wasting our time," thereby claiming that the eight or so people who have already commented should be told how to spend their time on Wikipedia. -- Kicking222 20:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. Deletion nominations in which nobody presents a policy-based reason for deletion should always be closed as keep. AFD is not a vote. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:01, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- The policy is that the information is not verified through reliable sources- which it's not. -- Kicking222 20:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Which policy is that? And where was it raised in the debate? We don't delete things for currently lacking sources, only if they prove to be unverifi-able. But, as I say, no deletion !voter ever asserted that the article was unverifiable.--Docg 20:12, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn Guidelines, too, are a basis for deletion, though not as strong as policy; otherwise, we wouldn't delete the hundreds upon hundreds of non-noteworthy but verifiable companies and biography articles we do. This article does not meet the guidelines WP:N or either proposed school-specific guideline. It arguably does not meet WP:RS or WP:NOR, because it draws its information from primary sources. It offers no clear claim of notability, and any claim that might be constructed centers on the first paragraph of its 'history' section, which is completely uncited. Do not particularly care whether it's deleted outright or relisted for further consensus, but the article should not be kept as a separate article as long as no reliable secondary sources have been found for it. Shimeru 21:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Guidelines are not 'a basis for deletion', they are merely an indication of what the community tends to do, and are there to inform participants. If it doesn't meet WP:RS, then find some - if you can't then it does get deleted under WP:V. Have you tried? Is the article unverifi-able. If it is, I'll delete it right now.--Docg 22:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Guidelines can be a basis for deletion, because they are actionable, and they can call for deletion as one of those actions. Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#The differences between policies, guidelines, essays, etc. says "A guideline is any page that is: (1) actionable (i.e. it recommends, or recommends against, an action to be taken by editors) and (2) authorized by consensus. Guidelines are not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." Additionally, Wikipedia:Notability and all the subject-specific notability guidelines operate to explain how the policies WP:NOT, WP:NOR and WP:V jointly interact to determine whether a policy compliant article is reasonably believed possible on a given topic. GRBerry 22:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I do not need to try. It is those who wish to include information who need to provide sources which support that information. Quite aside from the difficulties of proving a negative, I do not see why it should be up to me to perform an exhaustive search for secondary sources. (I have, of course, done a basic level of research, including the usual web searches, where I turn up nothing at all relevant. Yes, I am aware that the nonexistence of web sources does not imply the nonexistence of sources. I do not feel it is contingent upon me to pursue all possible offline options, however. If I were in favor of keeping the article, then yes, that would be an appropriate step.) And again, we delete verifiable articles all the time, based on notability guidelines (which mostly boil down to lack of reliable secondary sources). Perhaps we are incorrect in our application of deletion policy, and should keep every garage band, start-up company, or individual person's article on the basis that they exist... but I do not think you would find consensus for such a decision. Shimeru 01:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This is getting silly. 1) Issues of verification were NOT raised in this debate. Had the debate indicated it was unverifiable I would have deleted it. 2) The existence of this school is self-evidently verifiable - BBC [1] - OFSTED [2] - schools' website [3]. Two of those are given on the article. Try varying your google search criteria [4]. OK, you don't think it is notable (actually I agree - but I didn't find a consensus) but WP:V or WP:RS never had anything to do with it.--Docg 01:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, this is getting silly. You are arguing as though you believe I am suggesting that the school is not verifiable. I am not. I am suggesting that verifiability is not the sole reason articles are deleted, and pointing out the many verifiable articles that are deleted on the grounds I did mention. You have chosen not to address the assertion. That's fine, but please stop pretending I am making a verifiability argument. I am not. I am making an argument based on lack of secondary sources, ergo lack of notability. Shimeru 10:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse Closure. Why are you picking on a Catholic school? What is everybody's problem with schools, especially religious ones? There are plenty of public schools with lower quality of work then this. Time and time again schools have shown to be notable so why is this one not? No one is even trying to delete Florida State Road 922 as well as many other roads in Wikipedia and a lot of them do not even have sources. The minority should be able to keep this article from deletion as we should lean on the side of keeping aricles instead of deletion, proceed with caution when deleting, and give articles the benefit of the doubt. The five day AFD does not always reflect consensus so it is entirely fair for DOC to close it with a keep.--Jorfer 23:10, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete. It does not have sources, and I can find none. The idea that new issues must be brought up in a second AfD is absurd, because a second AfD so soon will immediately be speedy kept. I also take issue with the above !vote implying that we are somehow biased against religious schools. -Amarkov blahedits 02:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. While I would have deleted based upon this debate without batting an eyelid, Doc was fine to decide not to do so. Rather than re-running the debate here, better to re-list and have a fuller discussion. It won't be speedy kept if we have a sane sensible occasion where the same people voicing their opinons here go there. - brenneman 02:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes it will be. You underestimate how much people complain when something is nominated soon after another one. -Amarkov blahedits 02:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Don't underestimate either people's ability to be sensible or the power of the Dark Side. I've renominated things within days and had them gone, and even extended debates past five days that were almost all keeps and had them deleted with a good argument. And as a closer, I routinely
ignore consider carefully arguments that fail to adress the issue of the deletion nomination: Things like "obvious bad faith, nominator is Nazi Midget Clown," "flipping two-face coin -> keep," "I'm sure there are sources somewhere, look at the google hits," or "recently nominated, nothing has changed" all sound to me like "blahblahblah."
brenneman 02:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. Quit whining, please. The school is completely notable and verifiable, in triplicate even, which is much more than I can say for 99% of the rest of Wikipedia. If you think the article is too short, no one is stopping you from merging, but this DRV is wikilawyering plain and simple. Silensor 02:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Next time you tell me that I'm "whining", or that I'm trying to wikilawyer, I'll gladly open a Request for Comment. My "whining" is no worse than your "whining" every time a school article is deleted, and in addition, I don't think arguing that a closure as "keep" with a very clear consensus to delete counts as wikilawyering. Don't you dare throw that word around without any basis for it. --
Kicking222 02:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- This entire DRV is nothing but, so file away my friend. Consensus was lacking to delete, the close was technically correct, and this is an abuse of Deletion review. Full stop. Silensor 02:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I know this happens about every time a school AfD happens, but calm down people. It's not the end of the world if a school article is kept/deleted against your wishes, acting like it's some battle to be won is contrary to what WP is about. This school appears to be sufficiently verifiable. The lack of verifiability would be the major reason the deletion would be overturned. Whether there's enough information is a matter of debate, and you could really make a case either way based on evidence presented. This is one of those cases where keeping is harmless, and the axiom "when in doubt, don't delete" makes sense. But please stop bickering at least... fat chance but whatever. --W.marsh 03:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. Well within reasonable admin discretion. Most of the "delete" rationales were simply "non-notable" without little to support it, the "keep" rationales at least mentioned the school's age. With no big WP:V issues the result is fine as is. Sjakkalle (Check!) 08:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn and delete, there are not multiple non-trivial, third-party sources (and two of them are primary - WP:RS and WP:NOR), and none were presented in the AFD - all keep arguments simply cited the school's age (no longer a factor in the proposed WP:SCHOOLS, and age does not necessarily make a place notable, particularly in Europe) and nothing else. AFD is not a vote. The article can be replaced with a redirect if needed. --Coredesat 08:22, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Proposal This debate is turning into a mess - and full of red herrings. Continuing it will produce sound not light. My my keep for lack of consensus call on the AfD was borderline. I could easily have jumped the other way on a different day. But I was moved by the maxim 'if in doubt (which I was) don't delete (which I didn't)'. Continuing the debate here is pointless, because if the deletion is overturned, it will be sent back to afd for a re-run. If the deletion is upheld, there will almost certainly be a second nomination afd sometime soon. We go back to AfD either way. Unless anyone objects in the next few hours, I'm going to relist this article on AfD, without prejudice, and let's hope for a clear consensus there. (Personally, I'd be happy to see it deleted, but whatever.) Someone can then close this debate as inconclusive or something. Any problems with that?--Docg 13:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe that this DRV has mainly raised valid points and continues to do so on both sides, and see no reason why it should be closed early. --Sam Blanning(talk) 13:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I feel slightly differently: During this process, nobody who has !voted to endorse the closure has attempted to find non-trivial, third-party sources. I would be all for a merge and redirect, as if and when independent sources establishing notability are found, then turn this back into a full-fledged article. I have been saying "redirect" all along, and I could certainly live with a merge of verifiable information (and an unmerge, if you will, when more sources are made apparent), but at this point, the WP:RS issue is still unsolved. -- Kicking222 20:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Overturn, delete. No assertion of significance or importance is provided in both the article and the AfD - in fact this is a borderline A7 speedy. The closing admin is encouraged to give a rationale when a decision will predicably evoke controversy.
- Guy has already commented on the significance; even though DRV is not AfD this should be expanded a little further for the participants here who are not English. In England education did not come under the purview of the government until the Forster Act of 1870. Before that the responsibility of providing education lay with the parishes. Judging from the name, this school was set up by a Catholic parish to provide primary education to the children of (presumably Irish) labourers. In a time when the population in the Midlands rose quickly, this was one amongst hundreds. There are no sources for any of this in the article, though. Dr Zak 20:54, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not going to !vote in this discussion, because trying to convince the SCHOOL cartel that not every school in the world is notable is futile. However, it seems to me that "St. Mary's Catholic School" should be a disambiguation page, shouldn't it? User:Zoe|(talk) 21:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- endorse closure please there was no consensus to erase this and the school is over 200 years old plus has reliable sources Yuckfoo 02:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure - There has been no suggestion that the article breaches any WP policies. I agree that we should be tough in applying guidelines to vanity articles and promotional articles for commercial organisations. But this is a school with a lot of history and useful information to which people might want to refer. So why delete? It is not harming the project and anyone coming here looking for information will be delighted to find this article. BlueValour 03:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I see no history. According to the article, it existed. It may not harm the project as long as the writers keep watching the page, and as long as the school prospectus isn't false, which it very well might be—even if they aren't aggrandizing the history of the school or mutating it, I doubt it their prospectus is the product of a historian. Then, once these people stop watching the article, the article will decay, people will spend time reverting it—or not—until finally some students start adding nasty remarks about their teachers and the article is protected. Then it will be deleted in a year anyway because, shockingly, no one adds any reliable sources. —Centrx→talk • 01:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse closure. Closed within policy. The school has a few hundred years of history behind it, and this is not the proper forum to rehash notability discussions anyhow. RFerreira 04:31, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- According to the article, nothing ever happened there. It was found 192 years ago, then the location was moved to a new building 40 years later, then it "remained in the same location from 1863 through 2002." Fascinating, all that history. Just when I was on the edge of my seat reading about all that momentous history, I read the next paragraph. Lo and behold, the school moved again! Very historical. —Centrx→talk • 01:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- I guess for fascinating you need to go somewhere different. Perhaps 'boring; should be a deletion criterion? ;) --Docg 01:39, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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