User:Herostratus/Understanding SCHOOLOUTCOMES

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This large page makes the following assertions, which are supported by the detailed sections:

  1. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is true. (See the section #Is WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES accurate? below for proof.)
  2. Citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES makes sense. (See the section #Does citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES make sense? below for proof.)
  3. No change in community consensus about any of this occurred in February 2017. (See the section #February 2017 below for proof).
  4. People might want to consider not obsessing about destroying article on secondary schools although they're free to continue doing so if they want to. (See the section #Squiddly Diddly is nonsense. Oh well. below for an exposition of the philosophical and practical basis for this assertion.)

We affirm that these four statements are correct and supported by the detailed material on the rest of this page. You can take our word for it or wade through it if you like.

What is WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES?[edit]

WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES (the "Schools" subsection of the "Education" section of Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Common outcomes) has for some time noted that that articles about secondary schools ("high schools", in America) were usually considered worthy of keeping, if nominated for deletion, saying

Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools are usually kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists.

It says other things too, but they're not important right now. Note that this page (it's an "explanatory supplement") does not express an opinion on whether articles about secondary schools proven to exist should or should not be hosted at the Wikipedia. It simply notes that they are, and that if nominated for deletion the community usually elected to keep them (with perhaps the unspoken implication that you shouldn't waste your and other people's time by making such nominations, although of course anyone is free to.)

And in fact this is a pretty accurate summation of affairs, although it's never been an entirely settled issue. It's something that's been discussed and considered since the beginning of the Wikipedia in the first years of the 21st century.

This and this and this -- long discussions from 2011 -- show interest and discussion of the subject.

Going back at least to 2003, it's been discussed. This 2003 email from founder Jimmy Wales ("if someone wants to write an article about their high school, we should relax and accommodate them") uses high schools as an example of one possible approach to the general subject of article retention (without necessarily taking a considered and strong stand on the particular question of high schools; it was an offhand remark).

WP:NHS, when written in 2008, opened with "Articles on high schools and secondary schools, with rare exceptions, have been kept when nominated at Articles for Deletion except where they fail verifiability" and it still does. And that's probably accurate, as we'll demonstrate below.

Articles about high schools have generally been kept, here. There are various reasons for this, and of course good arguments both ways about why such articles should or should not be hosted here, or why some should and some shouldn't -- as many opinions as there are editors, seemingly. This essay doesn't have an opinion on the "should / shouldn't" question. We're simply describing the fact of what the usual outcome of deletions has been. This is what WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES does, and linking to it is just a shorter way of saying the same thing.

February 2017[edit]

Sometime in 2016, it was claimed that some articles on secondary schools were being deleted (we're not sure which ones, but Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Arya Kanya Girls Inter College, Hardoi was pointed to later as an example) and it was suggested that the question be revisited and clarified. And the question was advanced in a February 2017 RFC:

Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?

Note that this was a "should" question, not an "is" question. If the proposition was accepted, it would have presumably justified writing a sentence to that effect, probably into WP:NSCHOOL or something (although that wasn't explicitly stated).

The proposition was not accepted[edit]

The proposition was not accepted, according to the editors who closed the RfC.

The vote was a statistical tie: 49-46 in favor of the proposition "Should secondary schools... be presumed to be notable?" It would be very, very rare, for a proposition that well attended and heavily argued and debated at that length and tied that closely to not be closed as "no consensus to change the status quo; the proposition is not accepted, and neither WP:NSCHOOL or WP:N will be changed".

And in fact it was closed that way. The closers largely discounted the headcount ("However, this is a discussion, and not a vote, and what truly matters is the strength of each side's argument"), which is unusual, but at the end of the day, it didn't matter, because the final decision was "Based on the discussion, we find that the community is leaning towards rejecting the statement posed in the RFC, but this stops short of a rough consensus... the proposed change will not be adopted".

So same result as if the headcount had been considered more strongly: no consensus. So fine, and case closed.

But the case wasn't closed.

But WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES was disestablished[edit]

In the discussion, WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES was talked about a great deal, and it was apparent that many (although not all, and probably not most) editors took the discussion to be something of a referendum on the application in AfD (not the accuracy) of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, such that an implicit question on the table could be taken to have been

Should citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as an argument be delegitimized?
Couple side notes

(And this is fine in principle. Discussion here can range widely, and questions not raised at the beginning can be brought up, discussed, and maybe decided, and this is in line with best and common practice. The closers said "Over the course of the discussion, the conversation expanded to include the proper role of SCHOOLOUTCOMES", and this is true, so no problem.)

(You want to be careful with implicit matters that you state the matter correctly, since it's not written down. You want to avoid a situation like this:

  1. ) We have always done X. Shall we do X in future?
  2. ) Long discussion ending, as most discussions here do, with no consensus either way.
  3. ) Result: "No consensus to continue doing X, so we shall stop".

when of course the question should be framed "...shall we stop doing X". See the difference? The proposed change has to be stated positively and accepted (or not). (Some people have even tried "flipping the question" this way on purpose; it's not well thought of.))

And the closers did decide that the community made a positive decision on that: they decided that, although the original proposition was not decided either way, the outcome of the discussion required, or at least enabled, them to adjudicate that "WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be added to the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions, as it is an accurate statement of the results but promotes circular reasoning." And they did (or someone did based on this). And they (or someone) also added a note to that effect at WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES itself.

Their reasoning for that was

"Over the course of the discussion, the conversation expanded to include the proper role of SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD makes the circular argument 'We should keep this school because we always keep schools'. This argument has been rejected by the community" (emphasis added).

Is that true? To be true, it means the community would have decided thus on the two questions:

  1. "Should secondary schools... be presumed to be notable?" -- no consensus
  2. "SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD... should be added to the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions... because it is circular reasoning" -- accepted by the community

The assertion "Over the course of the discussion, the conversation expanded to include the proper role of SCHOOLOUTCOMES" is true, so no problem there. At the same time, some of the commentors addressed only the proposal asked, so we need to be aware that it can be a little tricky to tease out the community consensus on questions that weren't formally proposed. It can be done though.

So anyway, was "WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES should be added to the Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions" accepted by the community? Let's find out.

Did the community reject WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES?[edit]

It didn't, no.

Looking at numbers[edit]

"Consensus" is a complicated question, and most of the guidance in WP:CONSENSUS isn't much use for cases where a proposition is advanced with a GO/NOGO result expected. In cases like this we're thrown back on usual practice, and usual practice for assessing a well-attended discussion is to look at 1) show-of-hands (or "headcount") and 2) strength of argument, particularly if and as it is germane to policies (especially) or other guidance and practice.

Let's look at headcount first.

One general practice is that when and to the extent that you're factoring in show-of-hands, you want to see a supermajority before you make a change to the status quo. It's not a vote, so a 24-21 result is considered a statistical tie for example.

How much of a supermajority you want is a matter of opinion, but one one sensible rule of thumb would be a high one for a major change to an important policy, and not so high needed for more minor changes. This situation is in-between -- not a major rewrite of WP:NPOV, but more than a wording tweak of a minor guideline, so maybe let's look for something in the 70% ballpark for starters.

So let's see... 95 participants, 70% would be 66, 67. 49 accepted the proposition, so that'd mean about about 17 "split comments" -- editors more of less of the mind "I believe that high schools should be considered inherently notable, but I don't think its valid to cite SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD discussions as it is circular reasoning" (assuming no "defections" from the converse viewpoint). 17 split comments should be easy to spot. Let's look for them.

Analyzing discussion of "SCHOOLOUTCOMES"

We'll look through the survey section looking for all instances of the string "outcomes" (which will include all instances of "SCHOOLOUTCOMES"). That should cover most discussion of that standard, although not necessarily all -- people could (and some did) refer to it obliquely; we'll discuss them further down.

We would be surprised to find a large number of editors of the opinion "I believe that high schools should be considered inherently notable, but I don't think it is valid to cite SCHOOLOUTCOMES in discussions as it is circular reasoning". We'd be surprised because most humans don't roll that way, approving of an outcome while decrying as unfair an effective argument for achieving that outcome. But it's perfectly reasonable and possible to believe these two things, and actually admirable to be able to separate outcome and tactics in this way.

Anyway, the closers did avow that they found consensus on the matter. One way would be by headcount, so let's look for that.

We're looking for three things:

  • All instances where the person used the string "outcomes", and how they felt about SCHOOLOUTCOMES.
  • "split comments" in particular -- think secondary schools are notable AND think citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES is illegitimate.
  • All instances when an editor said "SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular reasoning" or the rough equivalent ("...is self-fulfilling" or things of that nature).

We put the data into the following table.

  • Identifier -- A numeric identifier for reference. Order is chronological by time of first use of the string "outcomes". Actual identities are slightly masked, to avoid getting into personalities. But the actual identities can be easily found by searching on the strings in "Evidence" or other means.
  • Proposition stance -- Support or Oppose of the RfC proposition "Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" ("Support/Oppose elsewhere" means the person expressed that view, but not in the post which included the string "outcomes". We did not have infer in any cases, all editors we classified used the bolded term "Support" or "Oppose" prepended to a bulleted comment.)
  • OUTCOMES stance -- Does the person likely seem to think it is "OK" or "Not OK" to cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES generally, and specifically as the basis for a vote in an AfD? Obviously we have to infer in most cases.
  • Evidence -- Quotes giving evidence for "OUTCOMES stance"
  • Circular? -- Did the person say that using WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular reason (not necessarily using that wording)?
  • Posts -- number of separate posts in which the person used the string "outcomes". Not important, just helped keep track of things while perusing the source material.
Identifier Proposition stance OUTCOMES stance Evidence Circular? Posts
1 Support OK The consensus of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES will likely still be the de facto consensus for schools in these countries No 2
2 Oppose Not OK If there's a "massively low bar", then that is set by the current WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES essay No 2
3 Oppose Not OK I don't agree with WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES. No 1
4 Oppose Not OK SCHOOLOUTCOMES... is wholly out of line with our notability guidelines, namely WP:GNG and WP:ORGSIG [--Later post--] It is trivial to find concrete examples of SCHOOLOUTCOMES being used to shut down discussion... SCHOOLOUTCOMES is specifically cited as the reason to keep the nominated article, completely shutting down discussion [--Later post--] SCHOOLOUTCOMES is used as a self-fulfilling prophecy to shut down discussion Yes 3
5 Support OK we should codify what has has been de facto pretty much the case until now (editors citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, even though that's only an essay) No 1
6 Oppose Not OK the precedent of keeping all secondary school articles comes from earlier in WP history... But AfD works differently now, and all AfD discussions are essentially about whether the sourcing exists... apart from some specific topic areas, mostly sports biographies and, e.g., "school outcomes" No 1
7 Support OK I can't support just getting rid of SCHOOLOUTCOMES without an alternative, though, [as] it would make a lot of vulnerable articles subject to deletion due to the current situation at AfD No 1
8 Support (elsewhere) OK having SCHOOLOUTCOMES prevents these kinds of [undesirable] scenarios from happening [--Later post--] SCHOOLOUTCOMES actually makes it easier to write articles about schools in the developing world [--Later post--] One other reason why I like WP:COMMOUTCOMES [is] newspapers are generally [not] digitized until the 80s or 90s, and that means lots of articles that could help notability just aren't online No 5
9 (Neutral) Mixed I'm normally in favor of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES... but is WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES too Western-centric as its standards are based on Western educational systems? No 1
10 Oppose Not OK forbid SCHOOLOUTCOMES from being used in AFD discussions No 1
11 Support OK OUTCOMES... accurately documents a set of clearly evident long-time Wikipedia behaviours, and as such is indeed an acceptable a short cut to the rationale it represents [--Later post--] OUTCOMES is not mentioned and is therefore not the subject of this RfC. You can't ban its use No 2
12 Oppose (elsewhere) Not OK OUTCOMES has become a self-fulfilling essay Yes, probably 1
13 Oppose (elsewhere) Not OK [SCHOOLOUTCOMES] cannot be used in an AFD to say "well, SCHOOLOUTCOMES says we don't delete schools, so this can't be deleted" (which happens all too much) Yes 5
14 Oppose Not OK Schooloutcomes is one of the many locally (i.e. WikiProjects) invented excuses to circumvent the common rules for notability No 1
15 Oppose Not OK WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is fucking bullshit No 1
16 Oppose Not OK SCHOOLOUTCOMES must die!... [as] commonly applied these days has several negative consequences [including being] used as a weapon to summarily shut down anyone [--Later post--] the article about the [village] school, which arguably is just as [in]significant... as the temple (or clinic)... is permanently exempted from deletion by SCHOOLOUTCOMES [and this is bad] No, but weapon 2
17 Support (elsewhere) OK SCHOOLOUTCOMES [is] a representation of fact... [It] suggests beforehand that actually [an AfD nomination] is a pointless exercise... But a lot of us may just step in and !vote to keep, and in doing so will sort of prove the point. No 2
18 Support (elsewhere) OK One of the main benefits of SCHOOLOUTCOMES is that it helps to mitigate our bias No 1
19 Support OK here is the rationale behind our wise WP:OUTCOMES on schools: High schools are centers of their local communities and should be viewed as inherently notable just like occupied places, rivers, highways, and professional athletes. No 1
20 Support OK As someone who participated in school AfD's back in 2004-05, pre WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, I can say unequivocally the status quo serves the project well No 1
21 Oppose Not OK I do not find SCHOOLOUTCOMES useful, in that it documents what has happened in the past, but seems to be picked up and used as an argument for the future... because we generally keep schools is not an argument for keeping schools ~ that's circularity of argument Yes 1
22 Support OK I also believe that WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES saves us all a lot of time and effort at AFD that would be far better spent elsewhere No 1
23 Support OK SCHOOLOUTCOMES eliminates having 30 high schools in the US with 1 in India No 1
24 Oppose Not OK, at least sometimes some users are 'abusing' WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES by creating some kind of articles (e.g. about schools with some 100 students) which are inadmissible in an encyclopedia, IMO No 1
25 Support Mixed I am in favour of the criteria in SCHOOLOUTCOMES, provided it is strictly followed. (The burden of proof needs to be on the editors arguing keep) No 1
26 (Unclear) Not OK, probably, sometimes anyway Nowadays school articles which have no third party independent sources and established in less than 4 years ago are kept as WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES [I think he meant this is undesirable] No 1
27 Oppose Not OK I strongly support prohibiting WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES from being cited in school related AfD's No 1
28 Oppose (elsewhere) Not OK, I think I also looked at the evolution of the Outcomes page itself... there has never been a consensus on the treatment of secondary schools. At the very least, the Outcomes essay should be amended to reflect this fact No 1
29 Oppose Opinion not expressed Is this... an intent to require two sources rather than one for OUTCOMES? No 1

So let's see. There were ~100 commenters (95 of whom expressed an opinion on the proposal) and 29 of them (29%) had something directly to say about "outcomes". The other 71% we'll get to in a moment.

Of the 29, raw data shows

  • 15 were "Not OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES (52%)
  • 11 were "OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES (38%)
  • 3 were "other" (10%)

This showing that the subset of editors using the string "outcomes" has were more inclined to deprecate SCHOOLOUTCOMES (52%-38%) than the general gathering was inclined to reject the proposition (48%-52%). We don't think this means anything and is not the data we're looking for, just reporting.

Here's more what we're looking for:

  • 15 Oppose, of whom 14 were "Not OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES and the other didn't have an opinion.
  • 12 Support, of 11 were "OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES and the other had mixed feelings.
  • 2 Other, of which one was (probably) "Not OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES and the other had mixed feelings.

So, as expected, there were either no "split opinions" at all, or very few, depending on how you view it.

And as to circular reasoning specifically, leaving off the the two "mixed feelings" editors, and slicing the numbers another way:

  • 15 editors "Not OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES, of which 4 said it was circular reasoning.
  • 11 editors "OK" with citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES, of which none said it was circular reasoning.

One editor said SCHOOLOUTCOMES is "used as a weapon to summarily shut down anyone". That's pretty different from "circular reasoning" in our view since it could apply to any argument, WP:RS or whatever, so we didn't count it. You can if you want to.

So 4 of 29 is 14%, but that's a partial result; we'll bring this number down to where we look at all commentors and get a final result.

OK, that's the 29 editors who used the string "outcomes". What about the other 66 (actually 71 if you include "No opinion" commentors)? Let's look at them.

Analyzing discussion which didn't explicitly reference "SCHOOLOUTCOMES"

We'll look through the survey section looking for all instances of the string "outcomes" wasn't used. We're mostly only going to look at each editor's original comment (the one prepended with a bolded "Support" or "Oppose" summary). It would be hard to express a firm opinion on SCHOOLOUTCOMES without using the string "outcomes", although certainly possible (by allusion or by pointing to another comment or page, for instance) and indeed we found that several editors did allude to it by implication.

We're looking for three things:

  • Even though the person didn't use the string "outcomes", did they express an opinion on SCHOOLOUTCOMES in some other way?
  • If they did, what was it?
  • If they did, did they mention "circular reasoning" (or something similar)?
  • How many "split comments" were there?

We put the data into the following table.

  • Identifier -- A numeric identifier for reference. Order is chronological by time of first comment. Actual identities are slightly masked, to avoid getting into personalities. But the actual identities can be easily found by searching on the strings in "Evidence" or other means.
  • Proposition stance -- Support or Oppose of the RfC proposition "Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" We classified all editors by the bolded term (usually "Support" or "Oppose" prepended to their first bulleted comment.
  • OUTCOMES opinion? -- Does the person express an opinion on SCHOOLOUTCOMES? If so, what was it? ("No" means no opinion expressed; otherwise the opinion is described.) Obviously this is going to be a little subjective since the person has not overtly referenced SCHOOLOUTCOMES. We'll do the best we can.
  • Evidence -- Evidence for the previous field (if non-blank)
  • Circular? -- Did the person say that using WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular reasoning (not necessarily using that wording)? (Blank means "no".)

Again, what we are especially looking for is editors who supported the proposition but decry the deployment of SCHOOLOUTCOMES at AfD.

Identifier Proposition stance OUTCOMES opinion? Evidence Circular?
1 Support No
2 Support No ("Support keeping status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
3 Oppose No
4 Oppose No
5 Support No ("Support status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
6 Oppose No
7 Support No
8 Oppose No ("this is one of these walled garden notability things that has gotten out of hand" could be taken to reference use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".) Maybe, if "walled garden" means "circular reasoning"
9 Support No ("Support current status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
10 Oppose No
11 Support No ("see no case for changing the current status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
12 Oppose No
13 Oppose Possibly, of the "Not OK" persuasion "The support crowd seems to think we dare not challenge the status quo" could be taken to describe (and decry) the deployment of SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD discussions (could also be describing this discussion though).
14 Oppose Yes. Whether the person thinks it is "OK" or "Not OK" is not clear. "there's a longstanding precedent (of sorts) against nominating schools at AFD, but this should not be made hard policy."
15 Oppose Yes "I find the use of this essay infuriating when presented by itself to argue for keeping articles" and "It's bizarre to me that we use the circular logic" and "'Secondary schools are always notable' should be enshrined in guideline/policy, or we need to stop using this essay argument at AfD Yes
16 Oppose Well... Was "per ____, ____, and ___", and one of the "pers" did express the opinion "[SCHOOLOUTCOMES] cannot be used in an AFD to say 'well, SCHOOLOUTCOMES says we don't delete schools, so this can't be deleted' (which happens all too much)". The problem is, they expressed that opinion in a threaded discussion later on (after the "per ____, ____, and ___" comment of this editor; the "per" editor referenced had already made their initial comment, where they didn't reference SCHOOLOUTCOMES either directly or obliquely, and to which the "per" probably referred). You would kind of have to credit this editor with precognition to describe the "per" as referencing an opinion on SCHOOLOUTCOMES, so we didn't. Not in our view, because of the precognition requirement.
17 Oppose Yes "I never understood why schools got a free pass at AFD".
18 (No opinion) No
19 Oppose No (Was "per ___ and ____", neither "per" having expressed an opinion)
20 Support (conditional) No
21 Support No
22 Support No ("The current standard is reasonably efficient", coming from a Support commentor, could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since invoking that could be defined as the "current standard". Not clear enough what the editor had in mind, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
23 Support No
24 Support No
25 Support No ("Support status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
26 Support No (Referred to "the practice of treating secondary schools as if they were notable" which could be taken as a reference to deployment of SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
27 Support No (Editor pointed to his own essay on the subject, "User:Necrothesp/Secondary schools", which is extensive but doesn't seem to reference SCHOOLOUTCOMES even obliquely, if we read it right.)
28 Support Probably, of the "OK" persuasion "this seems to be the way the community generally regards the notability of schools" may be taken to reference SCHOOLOUTCOMES indirectly. In our view it probably does.
29 Support Possibly, unclear of what persuasion ("OK" or "Not OK") "I hear those who are unwilling to make further exceptions to the GNG, but the fact is that with schools that bird has flown, long ago, and I can swallow a special status for schools similar to that for villages or pro footballers"... "bird has flown" probably refers to the factual aspect of SCHOOLOUTCOMES without necessarily expressing an opinion on whether it is appropriate to deploy in AfD argument. "can swallow" could be taken that way, but is both a little opaque and rather tepid. We're on the fence on this one.
30 Oppose No
31 Support No
32 Oppose Probably, of the "Not OK" persuasion "I really never understood why secondary schools were given a free notability pass to begin with" could very well refer to deployment of SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD argument and decisions
33 Support No ("Support maintaining the status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
34 Support No ("Support the status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
35 Support No
36 Undecided No
37 Support Yes, probably, of the "OK" persuasion "This is a tried-and-true rule of thumb that has worked effectively for the past decade"
38 Support (partial) No
39 Support No
40 Oppose No
41 (No opinion) Possibly, of the "Not OK" persuasion "I have encountered AfDs where the participants almost blindly write 'keep' comments about secondary schools, seemingly as if they were inherently notable. At some point, I remember making such !votes myself". It's possible, even likely, that "blindly write 'keep'" references people invoking SCHOOLOUTCOMES. We don't know what to make of "At some point, I remember making such !votes myself". "At some point" indicates that the editor may have reformed, but its not entirely clear. Possibly -- you could possibly take "blindly write" as a reference to circular reasoning (assuming it even refers to deployment of SCHOOLOUTCOMES as an argument, which it likely does in our view).
42 Oppose Possibly, of the "Not OK" persusion "Per ____ and just about every other opposition above". The "Per ____" refers to the very same editor described above who wrote "[SCHOOLOUTCOMES] cannot be used in an AFD to say 'well, SCHOOLOUTCOMES says we don't delete schools, so this can't be deleted' (which happens all too much)". But this comment occurred after that comment, so it could be referencing that particular point. "Per... just about every other opposition above" is rather broad, so it's not clear if the commentor was really picking up on that particular point (which was buried in a threaded discussion, not part of a top-level comment). But it's not impossible. Yes, assuming that "Per ____" refers specifically to that one comment.
43 Oppose No
44 Support No
45 Oppose Yes, indirectly; Persuasion unclear Editor pointed to Wikipedia:Points to note while debating in WikiProject India related AFDs, which says "Most of Indian schools fail to satisfy the WP:ORG and WP:GNG criteria" and "Schools offering Nursery—Class XII are almost certainly notable. Schools offering Nursery—Class X are generally considered notable" and "See also: WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES for common outcome" (although the editor expressed the direct opinion "I'd say 90% of all [Indian] secondary schools are not notable", which contradicts this).
46 Oppose No
47 Oppose No
48 Support No ("We keep high schools..." may refer to SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a factual matter, but doesn't necessarily express an opinion on whether it makes a legitimate argument.)
49 Oppose No
50 Oppose No
51 Oppose No
52 Oppose No
53 Support No
54 Support No
55 Oppose No
56 Support No ("let us keep the status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
57 Support (Africa only) No
58 Oppose No
59 Support No
60 Oppose No
61 Support Yes, of the "OK" persuasion "the collective wisdom of many years of WP editors, along with long-standing common practice, supports turning this into a policy or established practice"
62 Support No
63 Oppose Yes, of the "Not OK" persuasion "Per ____", an editor who had written "I strongly support prohibiting WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES from being cited in school related AfD's"
64 Oppose No
65 (No opinion) No
66 Support No, we guess not ("If we repeal the existing guidelines for school notability..." is unclear. This would presumably reference WP:NSCHOOL, which does mention SCHOOLOUTCOMES. This is pretty oblique though.)
67 Oppose No
68 Oppose No
69 Oppose No
70 Support No ("Support status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)
71 Support No ("support retaining the status quo" could be taken as supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES, since status quo is that it is frequently invoked. Not clear enough in our view, so we counted them as "No opinion".)

Again, as with the earlier table, whether a person supported the proposition is an extremely good indicator of how they feel about deploying SCHOOLOUTCOMES as an AfD argument. There actually wasn't a single instance of a person who opposed the proposition but who also felt that deploying SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD argument was fine, or the converse either. There was one editor who didn't express an opinion on the proposal who is probably of the persuasion that deploying SCHOOLOUTCOMES as an AfD argument is not OK (it's not crystal clear). There were a couple instances where you could maybe try to find a "split opinion" if you squint pretty hard. Not enough to change the numbers in any significant way.

As far as "circular reasoning" we found 1 definite and 2 possible instances of editors citing this (and 2 more possibles if you want to be very liberal; we didn't count them but you can). We had 4 of 29 from the previous table, and so add in the 3 here to the 71 gives 7 of 100 (or 7 of 95) -- 7%. As one might expect, all 7 opposed the proposition. We can't in all frankness say that there was any kind of uprising on the "circular reasoning" front.

So that's it. A lot of editors just addressed the proposition without specifically mentioning WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES, so it's hard to figure exactly what is in everyone's head. But based on the editors who did mention it, either directly or obliquely, it's clear that there were very few editors who asserted both of those statements to be true:

  1. "Should secondary schools whose existence is verified by reliable, independent sources be presumed to be notable?" is a proposition I support, but
  2. WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular reasoning, or otherwise invalid or poor or unfair or whatever, and shouldn't be used in AfD discussions.

To the extent there were any, it's not enough to change the headcount from a statistical tie. Suppose it was found that 5 editors supported the propoisiton but considered deploying SCHOOLOUTCOMES in AfD to be illegitimate (and no editors believing the converse). With the proposition supported 49-46, move 5 of those to the "deprecate SCHOOLOUTCOMES" column and you'd have a 51-44 in favor of disestablishing SCHOOLOUTCOMES. That's 54%, still a statistical tie.

But there weren't five such editors. There probably weren't any, depending on how you view a couple of marginal cases. If there were any, it was one or two.

So it's not true that the community rejected WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES in a numeric sense.

Discussing strength of argument[edit]

Well, OK, the numbers aren't there. What about strength of argument?

The close was "Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD makes the circular argument 'We should keep this school because we always keep schools'" being cited by the community as the reason for the community rejecting future Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES in an AfD (which they didn't). But the term "circular" or "circularity" is used just four times, and two of those are by the closers. A few other commentors made arguments of similar nature using different words, as we saw above.

Much more cited as a reason for not supporting use of SCHOOLOUTCOMES in arguments is not liking the result of discussions when it's brought in.

The most common complaints were that it sets too low a bar, bypasses GNG, is too Western-centric (a couple commentors, although more editors seem to feel it has the opposite effect), is a local SNG, is "fucking bullshit", is used as a weapon to shut down opposition, there's no good reason why secondary schools should be excepted from GNG; that we are become a "mere directory", mere existence is not enough for any article, WP:WHYN was pointed to, and so forth. By far most of the arguments, by number, were that we should stick to GNG: no GNG -> no notability -> no article, Q.E.D.

(One argument that was hardly seen was "we have a lot of poor, stubby, unworthy articles because of this practice", which would have been a reasonable argument if its true. We don't know if it's true or not, but only a couple-few editors brought it up, so it doesn't seem to be a major concern.)

So "it is circular" or similar is not really something that many people mentioned.

But:if SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular reasoning, and if this point is a slam-dunk debate-winning argument, unanswerable and sufficient to overcome the fact that few people cited it and many people explicitly or implicitly rejected it, then OK.

The problem is, it's not.

What is circular reasoning?

Citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES isn't circular reasoning in formal sense (using true circular reasoning would be something like "Articles on schools are always kept at AfD because people want them kept; people want them kept because they are always kept at AfD". "Articles on schools are always kept at AfD because people want them kept. like them; people want them kept because [various reasons (good or bad)] is not circular reasoning. See the difference? Quite different.

"We should stop these endless AfDs because they never succeed and and waste time; they they never succeed and waste time because we should stop them". Circular! "We should stop these endless AfDs because they never succeed and was waste time; they they never succeed and waste time because people never vote for them to succeed". Not circular. You're introducing a third

It's tricky. "We've always done it this way because we don't know any other way; we don't know any other way because we've always done it this way" sounds like a reasonable statement, no? It's not! It's circular reasoning. Which came first? Think it thru. Always doing it this way because its all you know, or it's all you know because you've always done it this way, can't both be true.

All this is brain stretcher. It's hard to find people who can understand this. But it's important. It's basically the main objection people stated for thinking


"I vote keep because we always keep" sounds a little circular, but it's not; it's just one clause -- "A (I vote keep) is true because B (we always keep)" is not necessarily false, or illogical. ""I vote keep because I vote keep" or "we always keep because we always keep" would be. "I vote keep because we always keep", while not circular, is not a good argument though. If that was the totality of it, it would be a dullards argument. But it's not the totality of it. it's just shorthand for "I vote keep because we always keep, so I'm doing it just to end this pointless AfD which is not going to succeed

It's not a logical fallacy to want people to stop wasting your time on stuff that is not gonna succeed.

So. We've established then, that it's not illogical to say "Keep, because we always keep these, so stop wasting our time". And, it's not illogical to say "Keep, because we always keep these, and a good thing too", or even "Keep, because IMO all these schools articles are good". Now: these statements may be wrongheaded. They could beunconvincing or ridiculous or not in the spirit of this project or whatever. Entirely possible. They could also be characterized as a fair point or spot on or convincing or whatever. We don't have an opinion on that for our purposes here, as that would only only muddy the waters of what we are trying to demonstrate here.

It's also not a violation of logic to say "Yes, I know that the last 23 of these discussions have ended as 'keep', but I'm going to nominate a 24th and request that the previous 23 be ignored and let's take this one from the ground up and argue starting from first principles." You can't make people ignore the previous 23, but you can ask them to, and make an argument for it. The statement could be characterized as annoying or maddening or not significantly different that creating 'Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aaron Burr High School (24th nomination)', and therefore not legitimate or whatever. Or not, usualluAnd it could be good politics: it could be a thread in the weaving of a fabric where people no do indeed start to consider that

You may find people of the mind "I don't have an opinion on the merits, but I vote keep just to make a quick close and let's move on". You will not, however, find anyone of the mind "Ugh, I hate these school articles, they violate our normal standards and degrade our reputation without providing any benefit, but I feel feel compelled to hold my nose and vote keep because we should follow precedent". I haven't, and I doubt there

That is: essentially everyone likes or doesn't like people citing SCHOOLOUTCOMES depending on how they feel about the merits of the question. If on the merits they think that school articles should not be all kept, they may characterize SCHOOLOUTCOMES as circular because it kind of sounds like it at first glance to the people who don't know logic well, and therefore good politics. They may even believe it, because people don't like to advance arguments that they feel are actually wrong in the name of hoodwinking people because it doesn't make one feel good about oneself.

Conversely, an editor who believes that school articles should always be kept might advance the argument "We always keep these, thus this one will surely be kept, and it's just a time-waster to keep discussing them, so snow close" because being against time being wasted sounds

It sounds convincing, and the person may even believe it.

Both it's politics, not logic. There's not really anything wrong with politics, it is how things get done everywhere including here, and often aides the crafting of compromises. It's t



While SCHOOLOUTCOMES, is circular reasoning to some degree, is also a lot of other things which are probably more important. Skip ahead to #Does citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES make sense? if you want to see deeper discussion of this.

Also, if the point that SCHOOLOUTCOMES is circular really is true, unanswerable, and a debate-winning point by itself, we would look for some objective evidence of that -- specifically, in the behavior of participants. We would for instance, look for editors changing their "vote" after the point was raised. But not one single editor did this (unusual, actually, for a discussion this well attended).

There're a lot of things in this world and this life that we can't be sure of. Whether the community came together in agreement to disestablish SCHOOLOUTCOMES isn't one of them: we didn't. And we're pretty confident that this has been proved.

Moving on, the closers didn't say WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES was inaccurate (in fact, they said it was), but while we're at it let's double check and make sure.

Is WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES accurate?[edit]

It is, yes.

Detailed look at a random sample

Starting with Google on the search strings "Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/" with "high school", we got:

Turning to internal Wikipedia search, searching on "intitle:deletion intitle:high school", in order and ignoring results that aren't individual high schools:

Stopping now, had been looking for at least one Delete to end on, didn't get it. A lot of these seem to be devolving to 2005, so let's try searching on "intitle:deletion intitle:high school 2016". This gives:

That's the end of the page so let's move on. It occurs to me that use of the term "high school" might be skewing the results, lets try searching on "intitle:deletion intitle:secondary school 2016"

Let's stop there on a win for the Delete team, and let's try "intitle:deletion intitle:gymnasium". The "2016" tag came up empty so let's just not use a year tag.

That's it, for gynasiums that are schools. Let's tally.

  • 34 Keep, of which
    • 5 were "no consensus to delete" which devolves to keeping.
  • 5 Other, of which:
    • 1 was a Redirect of a defunct school, to a page where there are eight sentences and four refs about the entity. We counted that as "Delete", you might not want to.
    • 1 Delete, where nom was ""School doesn't actually exist yet" and all the arguments were around WP:CRYSTAL. We didn't count this as a delete of a high school article in the sense usually meant. You can if you want to.
    • 1 Delete, where nom was "zero independent sources to prove that the high school actually exists" and it was asserted that the article title was just a misspelling of another school, or a hoax. Since the school probably doesn't exist, We didn't count this as a delete of a high school article in the sense usually meant. You can if you want to.
    • 1 Delete, where the close was ""If evidence of this school's existence does show up in the future, there is no prejudice held against this being recreated". Since there's apparently no indication of the entity's existance, We didn't count this as a delete of a high school article in the sense usually meant. You can if you want to.
    • 1 Redirect, where it's a junior high despite being called "gymnasium", and anyway there's apparently a lot of material on the school in the redirect target. Since its a junior high we didn't count it.

So that's it: Of 35 randomly-selected qualifying articles, and discounting where the school probably didn't exist or wasn't a high school, the result by our count was:

  • 34 "Keep"-type outcomes versus
  • 1 "Delete"-type outcomes

and the "1" is a defunct small religious school where the outcome was actually not a deletion but a redirect to an article where there is a paragraph on the school. Some people wouldn't consider that really a "Delete", so 34-0 would be a valid count too. 5 of the "Keeps" were "no consensus to delete"; if you don't want to count those it's 29-1 for Keep. The period covered was 2004 to 2016, with a fair amount of recent 2016 coverage, as well as historical coverage.

Based on this, and pending a more exhaustive research and analysis, we consider that the the part of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES that says "Most independently accredited degree-awarding institutions and high schools have historically been kept except when zero independent sources can be found to prove that the institution actually exists" is factually correct.

Again: a good thing? Don't know. Factually correct? Yes.

(Additionally User:Milowent/History of High School AfDs is a database results from 2003 to 2011 and a few later ones. There's no summary and we haven't analyzed it thoroughly, but seems to sustain the same conclusion. The last year with many entries, 2011, shows a 11-1 "Keep" result, with the one "Delete" being actually speedy-deleted a couple days before AfD close under WP:A2 as it was not in English.)

Does citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES make sense?[edit]

It does, yes.

Note that "citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES make sense" is not the same as "citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES necessarily proves anything" or "citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES proves that other points and voices don't count" or whatever. It's a piece of data, and its an argument. It's reasonable data point and a reasonable argument to bring into the mix, and here's four reasons why.

There are de facto SNG, and this is one[edit]

SNG (Special Notability Guidelines) have a fraught relationship with WP:GNG. WP:N lists the SNG. Whether the SNG supersede the GNG, are inferior to it, or stand in some other relation, is not a settled question and depends on the particular SNG, the particular circumstance, and the personal opinion of the person writing.

Some of the most used are are Wikipedia:Notability (sports), [[Wikipedia:Notability (people), and Wikipedia:Notability (organizations and companies) The others are Academics, [[Wikipedia:Notability (astronomical objects)|Astronomical objects], Books, Events, Films, Geographic features, Music, and Numbers. Some of these have many subsidiary SNG (such as Wikipedia:Notability (sports) with WP:NFOOTBALL etc.), and some don't. Some SNG are treated more or less as case-closed gospel while others aren't.

However, some entities are treated as if they had an SNG. There is no SNG for railroad stations (WP:GEOFEAT offers them no protection), but the many railroad station articles with no independent in-depth coverage are not routinely nominated for deletion, and any attempt to mass-delete railroad station articles would provoke an immune response and not succeed. Since it would not succeed, railroad stations have a de facto SNG. There is no SNG for species of living things (in fact a proposal for one, WP:NSPECIES, failed), but the many articles about species of living things with no independent in-depth coverage are not routinely nominated for deletion, and any attempt to mass-delete articles about species of living things would provoke an immune response and not succeed. Since it would not succeed, species of living things have a de facto SNG. There is no SNG subset of WP:BIO covering military people, but the essay WP:SOLDIER is often cited as de facto SNG. And so forth.

What has a formal SNG and how respected that SNG is, what has an essay or informal or de facto SNG, these are artifacts of the creation and nature of the Wikipedia, including the fact that it's hard to get consensus to agree to written rules, and so on. You can't let that worry you too much.

WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is a de facto SNG since it points to actual practice. Rules codify practice, and if the Wikipedia ran differently we would have a formal written SNG for secondary schools. Because of the way the Wikipedia operates, we can't do that. It doesn't mean that there isn't an SNG for secondary schools (there is: WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES), it just means its not written down exactly that way. Don't let the difference throw you.

It's OK to keep doing stuff that works[edit]

Citing WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES has been described as an example of circular reasoning -- "We should keep this school because we always keep schools" -- and that this is nonsensical, or anyway poor.

But it's not that simple. "We've always done it this way and should continue to do so" is not necessarily a poor approach in and of itself nor is it really circular reasoning. If you do things a certain way and you are successful, then that's a possible indication that you should keep doing things that way. If you're unsuccessful, that's an indication that maybe you should do things differently. It depends on whether the outcome is desirable, not that the concept "keep doing what you're doing" is inherently foolish.

So if the result "The Wikipedia has lots of articles about high schools" is inherently a poor outcome, then and only then would "We've always kept these articles and let's keep doing that" be a poor approach. That the Wikipedia having lots of articles about high schools is a bad outcome is not proven, we think.

Another reason to cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is to save time and energy.

WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is just shortcut way to make a valid point[edit]

Think of it like this. If somebody keeps nominating an article for deletion, such that you have Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Article That Is Obviously Going To Be Kept (7th nomination), it reaches the level of being pointless and annoying. A response of "You know, I'm not going to take my afternoon and go over this again. We get that you don't like the article. So what? Lots of people don't like things. I'm voting Keep per the past years of precedent, and on the principle of 'give it a rest and let's go do something' productive', and moving to my next task" would be reasonable, in the opinion of this essay.

Well the same response would be reasonable for a class of articles. And that's all that "Keep per WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES" says. It's not necessarily a declaration of "I think that secondary schools should be notable" (although it is surely true that most people invoking it also think that having secondary school articles is not a threat to the Wikipedia). It's just a declaration "Article is not likely to be deleted, so Keep and let's go do something else", by invoking a shortcut without having to actually paste a hundred examples into the conversation.

Another way to say this would be "Jeez, not this shit again". That would be less polite and so we don't want that. But somebody nominating a high school that doesn't have a special disability -- dubious existence, is not actually a high school, is extremely small, has not yet been built, is really just a home school academy, whatever -- is wasting her, your, and everybody else's time. If we were less polite we might call it "this shit again".

And it's reasonable to think that and functional to say so (but politely, of course).

It's a wiki, and a community, and your voice matters[edit]

And, to be realistic, a lot of people who cite WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES also think that having articles on high schools is generally fine, on the merits -- not all, but the great majority, surely. "Think it's fine" does not exactly prove anything one way or the other, but it's not nothing. At the end of the day, we are a community, not employees at ExxonMobile. What we think, matters. There are exceptions -- if a majority of editors were to "think its fine" to ignore WP:NPOV or WP:BLP, we would have an existential problem, and a strong community and institutional push back against that would be justified.

High schools? Not so much. Serious, existential harm hasn't been demonstrated by the existence of these articles, so far. Absent that, some respect might be paid to the opinions of the community as expressed consistently over the years.

And sure, "I like it" is not considered much of an argument. But WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES is different: it is "We all like it" (or many of us, over the years, notwithstanding that most of us can't be here today). That's quite a different thing, in the same sense that "I voted yes, so it shall be done" is a very different thing from "57 editors voted yes, so it shall be done". See the difference?

And beyond all that, there is the argument on the merits[edit]

Of course WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES does not express an opinion either way on whether we should have a relaxed bar for secondary school articles, but there are arguments for that also on the merits, such as that it's helpful to countering first-world bias (A high school in Houston has plenty of on-line English-language sources, including a big football program and other programs that are written about, while a school in Cote d'Ivoir might not), or that secondary schools are for various reasons appropriate subjects for a very large encyclopedia (a matter of opinion that can't be proven or disproven), and other arguments both for and against. We're not judging these arguments, just noting that they exist, in addition to existence of WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES as a fact on the ground. User:Necrothesp/Secondary schools goes into this in a lot more detail.

There are a probably a lot of good reasons to have articles on high schools, and a lot of good reasons not to. It seems to depend partly on your answer to "what are we trying to accomplish here?" and so it comes down to personal opinion. The personal opinion of a lot of people seems to be "Yeah, we should have articles on most secondary schools", though. Right or wrong, it's foolish to pretend it is not true.

Squiddly Diddly is nonsense. Oh well.[edit]

Some people hate that we have articles like Squiddly Diddly (a cartoon "octopus" with only six arms). Other people love to work on articles about old cartoon shows, but hate that we have articles like Ed Brown (a 19th century ballplayer about whom essentially nothing is known). Other people love to work on baseball player articles, but scoff at articles like Cape Boothby (a chunk of barren rock which has never been visited by humans). Other people love to work on geography articles but hate that we have articles like Texaco Doodlebug (a 1930s truck of which six were made). Other people love to work on articles about early 20th century motor vehicles but consider it silly that we have articles like Yevdokim Zyablovskiy (an utterly forgotten 18th-19th century Russian geographer). Other people like to work on articles about 18th century academics, but consider articles like Hunger (an extremely obscure 1960s band) to be utter cruft. Other people like to work articles about garage bands, but are appalled by articles like Düsseldorf Cow War (casualties: two civilians, and a herd of cows taken prisoner, in 1651). Other people like to work on articles about historical events, but think it's ridiculous that we have articles like Vendomyces (an extinct and barely-described lifeform that may or may not have been a fungus). Other people love to work on articles about fungi, but despise articles like Vodka eyeballing (an obscure, useless, and dangerous fad). Other people enjoy documenting 21st century memes, but dislike articles like Rubidium hydride (an obscure, useless, and dangerous chemical compound). And so it goes.

Oh well. Everybody doesn't like something.

Somehow it all works and we have a large, widely read encyclopedia generally considered to be a success, which serves not only as gigantic and functional knowledge database, but as an ornament to humanity in which intelligent people can find joy. Because that is true, it might be that a reasonable approach to all this might be "work on the material that you find pleasing and useful, and leave alone the material that you don't but that other people do, unless it is genuinely dreadful or actually harmful."

Some people don't roll that way though, and it's not something you can change.

Some people just hate the idea of the Wikipedia having articles on secondary schools. We don't know why, but they do. And there are lots of them (though a minority), and they are relentless. They have always nominated secondary school articles for deletion, and they probably always will. There's not anything anyone can do about it, so its not worth worrying about.

On rare occasions, a valid secondary school article will get improperly deleted, and then you have to go to deletion review. It's annoying, but there's not anything anyone can do about it, so its not worth worrying about. Maybe a deletion review itself will be improperly closed, or maybe a valid secondary school article will even get properly deleted -- no "Keep" commentors come to the discussion, or whatever. Oh well -- it's rare that a faction always loses. Even the 1961 Phillies won sometimes. (And of course, some secondary school articles aren't valid -- hoaxes and so forth -- and bringing those ones up is a service to the ecosystem.)

Don't worry too much about it. Just do what you can, and attend those AfD's or deletion reviews that you can, and invoke WP:SCHOOLOUTCOMES and stand on your right to do so.

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