An increasing number of articles on secondary schools and tertiary colleges are being proposed for deletion. The proposers and their supporters are generally the same hard core of editors, often self-identifying as deletionists, and the opposers are generally an equally hard core of editors, including myself. In general, these articles have traditionally been kept, but they continue to be nominated, presumably in the hope that one day the opposers will suddenly "see the light".
Since I'm a bit tired of repeating myself, below I present my answers to the various arguments against keeping these articles.
Secondary schools and colleges are not inherently notable
- Well, no, I don't agree, and here are the reasons:
- Hundreds of people (often well over a thousand) spend a large part of the day at every school or college for five days a week, most of the year, for up to seven years. They are very notable institutions to their pupils.
- People retain the influence of their secondary school for the rest of their lives, since it's where they spent a large part of their adolescent years. So many people are influenced by every school or college, for good or ill. Thus they are also very notable institutions to their former pupils. This is not just a few people, but in most cases many thousands.
- Secondary schools and colleges are usually major landmarks in their community, occupying large buildings or complexes which often provide facilities to the community at large as well as to their pupils.
Information on secondary schools and colleges is often not verifiable
- That's not really true. It's easy enough to verify at least the existence of pretty much every school. And as long as the school exists then we have something concrete to put in the article.
My house is very notable to me, but surely you're not suggesting that Wikipedia should have an article on it?
- Of course not. But I seriously doubt that hundreds of people spend hours in your house every day or that many thousands of people have done so in the past.
The school only gets 3½ Google hits, so it can't possibly be notable
- A fallacious argument if ever I heard one. Google is not the be all and end all of notability. It is neither omniscient nor omnipotent. It has severe limitations. It will only bring up references to things that have been posted on the internet, and the Wikipedia policy on verifiability certainly does not state that only sources posted on the internet are valid. The fact that it is an internet search engine also means that it will not bring up any information predating a few years ago and it is far less likely to bring up information on schools that are not in developed countries. Does this mean they are any less notable? No, of course it doesn't.
If we deleted all the rubbish in the article then what was left would often only be a stub
- So what? Wikipedia does not ban or even discourage the creation of stubs. A stub saying that the school exists (usually verifiable as already stated) is perfectly acceptable.
But we don't want huge numbers of stubs, or even articles, on schools and colleges
Wikipedia deletion policy says that unexpandable stubs should be deleted
- Very few stubs are unexpandable. I would seriously doubt that any school or college stubs are.
All these school and college articles mean that Wikipedia will not be taken seriously
- Where's the evidence for this? Why shouldn't it be? A complete non-argument.
Wikipedia is not a directory
- Schools and colleges do not fall into any of the definitions of a directory mentioned in that context.
Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information
- Schools and colleges do not fall into any of the definitions mentioned in that context either.
Why should the notability standards for schools and colleges be lower than those for other organisations, like companies?
- They're not. Any company that employed hundreds of people and had employed many thousands of people in the past would almost certainly have a right to an article on Wikipedia.
It's original research
- God, I hate this lazy claim, which is growing ever more common. Read the definition at the top of the appropriate article. Original research is quite specifically defined.
School and college articles attract a disproportionate amount of vandalism
- Sadly true, but certainly not a reason to delete an article. The article on Adolf Hitler attracts a disproportionate amount of vandalism, but surely nobody is suggesting that we should delete that?
It's better to trim the number of articles than to add more articles
- Quite frankly, I can't believe that people say this. I certainly completely disagree. I joined Wikipedia to write articles, not delete them.
Nobody cares about some obscure school or college in India/Nigeria/China/the Philippines; only America, Britain and similar countries count
- Yup, some people really do say this. Try reading WP:SYSTEMIC.
The inclusionists are idiots; only the deletionists follow the one true path
- Okay, it's rarely actually put quite so brazenly, but that's often what they mean. Not really worth dignifying with an answer, since everyone is welcome to edit Wikipedia as long as they don't vandalise or disrupt it, except to say that I personally am not actually an inclusionist. There's a lot of rubbish out there that deserves to be deleted, and I'd happily support its deletion; but these articles don't fall into that category.
The RfC says that secondary schools aren't notable
- No, that isn't what it said. It isn't even what it was intended to establish. And its conclusions were highly controversial in any case as any look at AfDs since will soon show. It doesn't (and shouldn't be allowed to) override precedent and consensus built up over hundreds of AfDs over many years. It doesn't allow AfD closers to ignore opinions that take a different line (although some clearly think it should). And even its conclusions stated there shouldn't be lots of AfDs because of it, something the deletionists have conveniently ignored in their bizarre mania to get articles deleted (because, as we all should know, getting articles deleted is doing far more of a service to Wikipedia than creating articles).
- And a note to those that can't read things properly and/or would like to try to pull the wool over our eyes: the RfC did not refer to tertiary institutions in any case, only to secondary schools.
You're generalising and not addressing the issues of this particular school or college article
- Ah, the last gasp of the defeated deletionist. I am addressing the issues of this particular article, since, as I've already stated, I believe that all secondary schools and colleges are notable enough for articles (with the possible exception of schools with a few dozen pupils, although even they may be notable). I've also given my reasons. Therefore the fact that I'm not referring specifically to this particular institution is completely irrelevant.