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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Vidyashilp Academy (3rd nomination)

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 04:51, 19 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vidyashilp Academy

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AfDs for this article:
Vidyashilp Academy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This page is extremely POV and cites no references. The only two links given are broken. DraxusD 06:47, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of India-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 08:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, because it's a real academy, and therefore notable, but trim all POV phrases -- which amounts to a lot of the article. Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 08:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete secondary schools are not automatically all notable; this school apparently gets a lot of attention from high levels (e.g The Hindu publishes their sports results and chess tournament standings), but I don't see any non-trivial discussion to support encyclopedic notability. [1] The 91 non-duplicate Google web hits [2] don't contain any additional WP:RS. Might be a "keep" if I saw evidence of a lot of notable alumni or something. cab 09:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep It is well established that all secondary schools are automatically notable. Hawkestone 11:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Schools-related deletions. —Thewinchester (talk) 15:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This school is clearly notable. (Also, I fixed one of the broken external links - to the Times of India article.) -- DS1953 talk 15:57, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete Firstly, there is no notability policy specific to schools in existence, so we have to default back to WP:N in the case of this article. The debate on school notability is still out, and I don't see a chance of a reasonable guideline gaining community acceptance anytime soon, and as the Schools deletion queue shows, the jury is still out on the matter. The notability benchmark for this article has not been met, because there has been no significant reliable coverage from sources independent of the article's subject. Further to this, the article does not meet WP:V on account of any WP:RS being provided to support the information included. To top it all off, significant portions of the article breach WP:COPYVIO being lifted word for word from the school's own website. This is another one of those great schoolcruft examples which we have come to know and loathe. Thewinchester (talk) 16:02, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - WP:BJAODN. Per TWin. Lets look at this article - some of the best b/s i have ever seen. Its so notable they dont even have an official website mentioned. No RS. Google says nothing about it. Aquinascruft all over again. Twenty Years 16:11, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Thewinchester has pretty much said it all. Eusebeus 16:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep. I've fixed the other broken link and added a link to the school website. The school is clearly notable. It offers a unique but controversial teaching programme as can be seen from the external links. The article is poorly written and needs a complete rewrite but should not be deleted. Dahliarose 16:41, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've edited the page and removed the POV parts (which someone should have done before nominating the article for deletion, in an ideal world). Tlogmer ( talk / contributions ) 20:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • If it had only been a little POV issue I would have. The article looked to be almost entirely POV, reading like promotional material. After seeing two broken external links and no references (I'm sorry, but anything "clearly notable" would be easy to locate decent references for... which nobody seems to have been able to do, even after two AfD's that somehow passed) I decided to nominate it. A fraction of the article's unreferenced material looked salvageable (thanks for doing so), and nothing even links to the article. DraxusD 21:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Don't forget that this article is about a school in India. There are no doubt multiple references in the Indian language. The lack of linking articles is more of a reflection of Wikipedia's poor coverage of Indian topics in general rather than any reflection on the school's notability. Dahliarose 22:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep, Seams like a very notable school to me, especially the facilities. Callelinea 00:08, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I have not looked at the earlier versions, but it looks OK now with sources and notability. --Bduke 00:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm glad there are a couple sources up now, but they seem weak to me. Rather than articles about the school consisting of content written by a third party, they are both very short descriptions of the school followed by interview questions and responses. They are almost entirely the school's words, so the bulk of the articles read like promotional material. Honestly I couldn't really figure out a consensus on sources such as these after looking through Wikipedia's guidelines so I may be entirely wrong. DraxusD 01:51, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I concur with DraxusD, and the article in question has been significantly cut back within the last 12 hours, and a number of the copyvios removed. However, the sources being used are essentially trivial because they are from articles where a key figure of the subject in question was directly interviewed or involved in sourcing of the content, therefore they must be treated with a reasonable grain of salt. I remember this extemporaneous AfD which amongst other editorial issues debated the issue of using newspaper coverage to determine notability where the article subject was a direct participant in the story. The consensus in that case was that the articles were deemed trivial coverage and therefore could not be used as a basis for establishing notability, a point made by the closing admin. Thewinchester (talk) 01:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • How can an interview in one of the main national newspapers in India (The Times of India) possibly be regarded as a trivial source? The fact that a national newspaper has chosen to focus on the school demonstrates its notability beyond doubt. There can be very few school heads in the world who've been interviewed by national newspapers. Dahliarose 23:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not the newspaper which is considered trivial, it's the coverage that is trivial, and particularly in this case with the ToI article being used to assert notability. The article only has a very tenuous link back to the school on the ground that one of it's trustees was interviewed about their educational vision, in which the interviewee just happens to do a bit of marketing for the institution. The article is a puff/promotional piece at best, a Q&A session at its worst (The key point of the AfD I mentioned in my previous comment, which also was from a national daily newspaper from one country). The same is also true of the article from Businessgyan, which too interviews an MD of the school and is just another Q&A puff piece. This makes both the articles trivial and therefore not meet the required standard of WP:N. Thewinchester (talk) 01:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can see how the school being covered in a large newspaper demonstrates some notability in and of itself, but the content has to be considered. The articles are just a quick prompt for a repeat of self-published content. What would really establish notability would be the author talking about the school, from an outside perspective. We haven't seen anyone actually talk about the school, be it their opinion or just facts. The only content we have is from the school's mouth. Wikipedia:Notability states ""Significant coverage" means that sources address the subject directly in detail...". The source hasn't done that, but merely provided an outlet for the school. DraxusD 04:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Both interviews are quite lengthy pieces which clearly satisfy the criterion for significant coverage. The articles are in reliable third-party publications, including one national newspaper. The interviews are conducted and written up by journalists. These journalists have no connection with the school and have made a conscious editorial decision to invite the person to be interviewed. The editor has then accepted the interview for publication. Are you therefore criticising the editorial policy and judgement of a respected national newspaper such as the India Times? I don't understand what you mean about the source providing an 'outlet for the school'. If someone is interviewed about a school where he works he's going to talk about the school. What else is he supposed to talk about? Wikipedia is supposed to provide a neutral point of view and present information from all reliable sources. You cannot exclude a source simply because you don't like the way it has been written or because it provides too favourable a view of its subject. Dahliarose 12:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trying to argue that the source shouldn't be used to obtain content for the article, of course it should. I don't think it demonstrates much notability though. I'm not asking to exclude the source because it provides "too favourable a view of its subject". The source hasn't provided any "view" of the subject, the school has. The source might as well have said "I'll ask you broad questions, you read from your wesbite.". I don't think it should be treated the same as an article with content researched and written by the source. I just don't see how the source offers any notability beyond "we know they exist". The article is only lengthy because the school has a lot of promo material, not because a third-party party chose to discuss the subject in depth. DraxusD 20:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The interviewer is the third party and the interviewer chose to ask those questions. You are therefore criticising the interviewer not the school. The school has a unique programme of education (no homework, no exams) and it is only natural that the interviewer should discuss this programme in an interview. It is hardly promo material. The school is far more notable than most of the other, mainly American schools, which come up for deletion here. The only defence for these schools seems to be that all high schools are notable. None of these schools have even had a mention in a national newspaper. Why do you have such a problem with an Indian school which has readily demonstrated its notability ? The Fairfield Union High School above has nothing more than a directory entry but you don't seem to be objecting to that. We have far too many American schools and very little coverage of Indian schools. Don't forget that there will inevitably be many sources Indian-language publications too. I have in any case now expanded the article and added further references.Dahliarose 23:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not criticising anything, it's a fine interview, I'm saying I think the coverage is trivial due to the fact that almost all of the content is not written, but published, by the source. I'm only commenting on this school because I nominated after stumbling upon it while RC patrolling. Whatever else I don't comment on has nothing to do with this AfD. I'm not targetting this school because it's Indian, I'd have done the same for a similar american school article. Suggesting otherwise isn't assuming good faith. Also, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS isn't a valid reason to keep this article. DraxusD 09:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If the interviews were published by the school then your criticisms would be valid. However, the interviews were written and published in completely independent sources, not by the school itself. Clearly school prospectuses and school websites are not independent sources and must be used with care, but schools do not have any control whatsoever over the editorial content of national newspapers. The newspaper writer has chosen to focus on the school because of its unique 'no homework, no textbooks, no exams' programme, which is hardly a trivial subject. I accept that each article has to be judged on its own merits. I therefore suggest you take a look at the current version of the Vidhashilp Academy article. I've added a few sources, and Terriersfan has also been working hard to improve the article. I fail to see how anyone can possibly think this school is not notable based on the current article. Dahliarose 20:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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