Wikipedia talk:Deletion policy/schools

This is a poll held in 2003, with 31 voters, that failed to achieve a clear consensus about the issue. It isn't policy, because 1) it nowhere states that it is a policy proposal, it is only a poll; 2) the low number of people responding; 3) it is two years old and not necessarily reflects current opinions; 4) the divisions of the poll make it very unclear; and 5) only a number of special cases are given, with no general conclusion. (comments by Radiant_*)

Rebuttal: 1) It does state it is a policy proposal. The page is named "deletion policy/schools". The introduction states "rather than discuss this repeatedly on VfD every time a school article appears, it would be more sensible to gain a consensus which could be applied to all of them. That's what this page is for." 2) For its day this poll had a very large turnout, it must be remembered that Wikipedia is vastly larger today then it was two years ago. 3) This is true, but until a new poll or discussion is held is held to replace it this is still the most important decision on school deletion. 4) For the most general question "Any school about which we can write a non-trivial, non-stub, NPOV article" there was clear consensus against deletion. - SimonP 11:59, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

• Re-re-buttal:

1. It does not state it is a policy proposal. A user can make (or rename) an article as he wishes, and that doesn't make it so. It is a sensible attempt to gain a consensus, as it states, and nothing more. Unfortunately it hasn't gained a consensus.
2. I'll take your word for it, but that doesn't make it policy either. You ignore the fact that the discussion above the voting is more important, and it shows no consensus. Votes do not a consensus make (per voting is evil and WP:WIN a democracy).
3. This is obviously wrong. Again per WIN a democracy, the 'Pedia does not work on a given number of rules that are set in stone until officially amended. Policies work if and only if the consensus follows them. As such, you cannot make people obey an outdated poll.
4. First, a lot of the votes were added after the poll closed; people continue to occasionally add votes, which is pointless, confusing and distorting (hence the 'historical' template is appropriate, and please stop removing it). Second, no conclusion was ever drawn from it. Third, you apply this hypothetical conclusion to every school, while it is not a given that on any school, a non-triv non-stub NPOV article can be written.

• In closing - compare this with the 'additions to CSD' page. That is a policy proposal, with clear criterion, with clear voting, and with clear conclusions when the voting closed. This certainly is not.

Radiant_* 12:18, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

You are using today's standards to judge whether the poll is valid or not. Wikipedia was far less formal back then. We did not have votes. Rather we had polls that continued until there was consensus or lack thereof. They had no closing time and if consensus was not reached the poll continued indefinitely (See Talk:Georgia for one of these polls that continues to this day). At a certain point any Wikipedian who was interested in such issues had already voted and the polls would mostly stop being added to. Policies would be based on these outcomes, but they were mostly unwritten as everyone remembered the poll its outcome. In the long run this system proved unworkable as Wikipedia grows so quickly that there is a constant influx of people who do not remember the past debates and polls. Thus today we are in the regrettable but necessary situation where we have many hundreds of policy pages and polls that actually are votes with exact cut offs and results that are hardcoded as official policies. This does not change the fact almost all of Wikipedia's base policies were decided the old way and that if we only obeyed the policies that had been determined by the modern methods the encyclopedia would collapse. This poll is just as valid as the rules against blank pages, adjectives in page titles, or subpages. - SimonP 05:40, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

• • You are the only one claiming this to be policy. You cannot unilaterally declare it so. If it truly is policy, it should be easy for you to find two or three people agreeing with you (by which I emphatically do not mean general inclusionists who wish it were so). So far, everyone else I've spoken to about this concurs that this poll yields no consensus. And unlike the rule against subpages, this one is contested. So I do believe consensus is that this is not policy. Radiant_* 07:51, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
    • It is not policy, but it could be considered semi-policy, there is an important distinction. Who have you spoken to that found to poll reached no consensus? I have already cited several users who felt the poll was valid: Camenbert [1], Angela, [2], Cyrius [3], and Andrewa [4]. But perhaps they are just "radical inclusionists". - SimonP 13:51, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
      • Camembert's remark is a year old. Frank says there's "not much consensus". Cyrius's is nearly a year old and he agrees there's no consensus, it's merely his reading, and that it's based on recent (i.e. May 2004) VfDs. Andrewa's remark is also nearly a year old, and she doesn't cite it as policy but as a reason for voting.
      • In Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Ngee_ann_secondary_school, Thryduulf says the poll "was already regarded as out of date in October 2004", and Dpbsmith says it is "so completely and irremediably confused that no intelligent person can be expected to try to make head or tail of it".
        • Anyway this is going nowhere. I suppose we could get a RfC to confirm whether or not this is policy, if you want. We could also go for a new poll but I don't see how it's worth the trouble since we can both already see that it will not yield a consensus, nor will it become policy. Radiant_* 14:07, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Deletion policy

Wikipedia currently has articles on Pokemon characters (List of Pokémon by name), Star Wars episodes, and mundane rock-n-roll albums. Every argument presented for the deletion of schools applies to these other topics, and even more strongly. Schools are some of the most important social and cultural institutions that we, as the human race, have; schools are where children learn to become adults; these future adults take over the task of living after we are old and dead and gone. Surely this is far more "notable" than commemorating some bogus fictional Pokemon character? If we are blanket-deleting schools, we should surely blanket-delete the TV episodes from wikipedia first. linas 17:51, 18 May 2005 (UTC)