Talk:Brentwood School (Los Angeles)

• Previous deletion debate

Old comments

Is this any more encyclopedia-worthy than any large US public high school? --Wetman 17:52, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes. First off, its not a public high school nor is it specifically large. The reason it has its own page is because it is world-reknown. Prominent California politicians have their children enrolled there. As well as certain major entertainment figures. The school has also produced some notable alumni. Now, I also beleive there is no problem with large high schools having their own page. How do they bother or harm the rest of the site? They add to Wikipedia's richness and are not ads or anything so they dont merit deletion.

I'm not sure how "encyclopedia-worthy" can be a measured value. Either it's worthy or it isn't, and all high schools are. anthony 警告 01:46, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi. just updated the page a bit. I will added more alumni when i get home. Alumni should not be a problem to list.

Who the hell cares about the alumni? I actually graduated from Brentwood, but I think it's sort of obnoxious to presume that the school's location makes it noteworthy.

The school was founded in 1975, and therefore has few notable alumni (yet). The reason why it is notable is because it has a reputation as one of the best (top 5) co-ed private day schools in Southern California. It has sent 100% of its graduates to 4 year colleges for many years. Its matriculation list is amazing. Example for class of 2006 (yes I have had a past connection with this school through a family member): USC 12, Stanford 6, and 26 to one of the eight Ivy League Schools (13 to UPenn). Not bad for a class of 115. It is probably most notable for the children of celebrities who attend (which for privacy purposes shouldn't be elaborated to much, but some very very big names are in there. There are more than 15 who have wikipedia pages (not stubs) written about them who currently send there children there).

My two cents: I attended what some would call a "rival" school, one whose notability is less subject to doubt. I believe Brentwood is notable; objectively, it is or should be well known in its community, and is a subject that could be of interest to anyone who wanted to know more about that community. However, the article needs to be written better to make that notability evident. For example, less about the speaker series, more about the notable alumni. More about objective measures of academic excellence or unusual demographics would also be helpful. Also, parts of the article do sound like advertising. Particularly, the inclusion of the mission statement. I would recommend that part be deleted. Non Curat Lex (talk) 08:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Famous speakers

The "Famous speakers" speakers section is disproportionately large. Can we cut it down to just a list of names? These people have virtually nothing to do with the school. -Will Beback 02:06, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

• I don't see why it's necessary in the first place.

I agree, there's no value in including the list of speakers, it has nothing to do with the school itself. Zfranklin 06:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Alumni

The singular form of alumni is alumnus for males, alumna for females, and, in theory, alumnum for the androgenous.

Editting

What's with the italics everywhere?

Response: a good portion seems to have been lifted from the school's website (which uses italics)

"Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter"

I think this segment is somewhat inappropriate, and it adds nothing to the article.

She is not an alumnus, and she is only notable by association. These criteria alone merit deletion of the segment, and privacy issues only serve to compound this issue. If no one protests, I will remove the sentence. Branman515 01:27, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Update: Sorry, but I decided to just remove it. It can, of course be added again if it judged to have merit. I'd still love input.

Fine. Good call. -Will Beback · † · 17:01, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

I added a section about notable current students of the school, with a reliable and widely public source stating it (Los Angeles Times). --Cyclopia^talk 12:47, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

There's a current discussion about the application of WP:BLP to children, and I've used this case as an example, writing now incorrectly that it was a non-controversial case. See Wikipedia talk:Biographies of living persons#Children and Wikipedia.   Will Beback  talk  12:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, the previos edit was removed as unsourced. Given that there are widely public sources on the subject, this changes things, and therefore I reinstated some of the information. --Cyclopia^talk 13:13, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I think the core issue is unnecessary breach of privacy of a non-notable minor. Also, just because they are the children of celebrities doesn't make them noteworthy in their own right. We don't generally list the children of notable people in school articles.   Will Beback  talk  13:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Per the presumptions in BLP, I've removed the material until there's a consensus for its inclusion.   Will Beback  talk  13:29, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Fine, but there is no breach on privacy. I would understand and abide if the information comes from some obscure source, but if the LA Times gives it away (and does it as if it is already known information, if you look at the source), there's no more privacy to breach. Furthermore, Arnold Schwarzenegger does no mystery of it: he even did the opening speech at the school, speech which talks of her daughter explicitly and which is publicly available on the government website (see my other edit). The notability of the minor is irrelevant: what is relevant is that notable parents have chosen it as a school. --Cyclopia^talk 14:33, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Just because the LA Times covers something does not mean that we are obligated to cover it as well. If there is nothing notable about the child, then it most certainly isn't notable as to which school they attend. It adds no information of value to the famous parents either. Tarc (talk) 13:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It adds information maybe to none of them. But it adds valuable information to the school (and that's what we are talking about), because it is for sure notable (and in fact it has been covered by RS) that many notable parents all happened to choose it. Plus, again, at least one of the parents himself (Arnold Schwarzenegger) decided to make no secret of it -quite the contrary, so we have no reason to be more careful than he himself is. --Cyclopia^talk 13:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not the yellow press and not the school's advertising agency. Which schools the children of notable people go to is almost never encyclopedic information. It certainly isn't in this case. Hans Adler 14:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't even know what does "yellow press" means (English is not my native language,sorry), and could you please elaborate on why isn't it "encyclopedic" and, overall, what "encyclopedic" means? Does it violate WP:NOT? Otherwise, I see no reason to sort knowledge into "encyclopedic" and "unencyclopedic". --Cyclopia^talk 14:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I've seen what yellow press is, and it has nothing to do with that. So, could you elaborate better? --Cyclopia^talk 15:03, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

You are wrong, this is exactly what the yellow press is about: "Human interest" stories about the private lives of famous people. They marry! They have children! Their children go to school! Here is a photo proving that one of the sons of Prince Charles has a girlfriend!! And we know the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter's school!!! There is a reason why you can't read about this stuff in Encyclopedia Britannica. That reason is not that they don't have enough space but that they are an encyclopedia. Hans Adler 15:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, that's not what I meant. Stop your bad telepathy and stick to the facts. Now, The fact that people of high social and economic status consistently choose a school is a notable information per se. I have not the slightest interest about the "human interest" stories about the private lives of famous people. What is interesting, however, is that this school seems to be peculiar with respect to others -peculiar enough so that it is chosen among many by this relevant subclass of people. This is notable, even in the (unlikely) circumstance it is a statistical fluke (we have articles about statistical flukes of humanity, after all, like this.) Please show me what relevant entry in policy precludes this kind of information to be reported. The fact that you don't like it is not a good reason. --Cyclopia^talk 17:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you reading a different source? I am talking about this Los Angeles Times article, which is the source introduced by you. It's basically an advertising piece for the school. Here is the opening sentence, the only sentence that mentions the children in question: "Brentwood School is known for its strong academics, which helps explains why the children of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson and Oliver Stone attend the school." That's a typical journalistic trick, a bit of yellow press at the beginning to make people read the article. An encyclopedia might rephrase this as: "The school has a high reputation and has been chosen by several celebrities for their children." Instead you have created a section "Notable current students" with the following content: "As of November 2008, the children of governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Oliver Stone and Jack Nicholson attend the school." It's not just the wrong tense. (One Schwarzenegger daught left the school, and surely we can't conclude directly from your source that any of these children still attends the school.) It has at least the following fundamental problems:

• The first pillar: "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." (No mention of the yellow press.) "Wikipedia is not [...] an indiscriminate collection of information." (Why not go to meta:Proposals for new projects and ask for WikiCelebrities?)
• WP:RECENTISM
• WP:UNDUE: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject." The source given only mentions it in passing. If the information is on the school's website, then I didn't find it there. Otherwise in the case of Schwarzenegger it's mentioned in things like an AP article on Schwarzenegger's tax returns (he donated to the school), on websites like extrem-bodybuilding.de or celebritygenius.com, and in articles on Schwarzenegger's speeches at the school. (When I tried to research this for Oliver Jones I found this paparazzi video instead. How about that as a source? Don't you want to add Denise Richards to your section? Absolutely disgusting.)
• WP:BLP does not specifically cover relatives of notable people, but we can infer some things from what it does say:
  • WP:NPF: "Wikipedia also contains biographies of people who, while notable enough for an entry, are not generally well known. In such cases, exercise restraint and include only material relevant to their notability, and omit information that is irrelevant to their notability." Clearly these children are not notable enough for an entry. Does that mean we can publish more about them, even material that is irrelevant to their parents' notability? Hardly.
  • WP:BLP#Privacy of personal information: Not directly relevant, but worth reading in this context.
  • WP:BLPNAME: This is highly relevant even though it concentrates on names. The second and third example make it clear that there is a high relevance threshold for facts concerning children of celebrities, even when we don't name them. If heroin possession is below this threshold, then so is attending a certain school.

Hans Adler 19:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thorough reply. Now:

• The first pillar says: Content should be verifiable with citations to reliable sources. - And it is. No mention of yellow press, right, but that's not what we're trying to do, so the remark is completely irrelevant. The fact that the information in the source is a "journalistic trick" is your POV. We're not here to question the motivations that made them report the information. Also, I do not care at all about "celebrities" (a boring subject if there's one). I care about public and relevant information being recorded, no matter how much I like or dislike it, so your witty remark is completely moot. Wikipedia however covers a lot of information about celebrities of all kinds, and rightly so, if they're properly sourced and notable. Why shouldn't it? However, I like the wording you propose, "The school has a high reputation and has been chosen by several celebrities for their children.", and I'm going to add it.
• The information is not relevant only because recent. It will be forever relevant, because it will be forever a notable information about the status of such school in this historical period.
• It is actually cited on the official Government of California website (check the link to the A.Schwarzenegger speech in the references). Also, your interpretaton of UNDUE is badly misled. The fact that notable people of unusual socioeconomical status all send their kids to the same school is not a trivial detail, and adding it is not giving it undue weight -quite the contrary, it is a unique feature of this school and as such it is highly relevant. It would be a trivial detail on the Arnold Schwarzenegger page, but this is the school page. Please refer to the relevance to the school. Again, would you want an article on Eton College which makes no mention of its notable alumni, for example?

About the BLP excerpts:

• No one is pushing for an entry on the children. They were not even named in my edit, so I don't understand the point.
• The information is not private, so, as you correctly state, it is not a relevant read.
• Names of the children were not included, again, so the policy section you cite is irrelevant.

I hope this helps understanding. --Cyclopia^talk 19:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Some aspects of writing an encyclopedia require advanced reading competence. Just because you don't understand a nuance of a text doesn't mean we can ignore it.

• That the first sentence in the LA Times article is only a marginal mention of this factoid is not my POV, it is a fact that is verifiable by every sufficiently competent reader.
• The names of the individual celebrities were an indiscriminate collection of random facts if we interpret the point in time (November 2008) as random. (Otherwise it's recentism.)
• The names of the celebrities are irrelevant now, and their irrelevance will be even more obvious in ten years' time. A section "Alumni who were children of notable people" would be pure silliness.
• Any coverage of the Schwarzenegger speech, including the interview you are referring to, only mentions the fact in passing. That might be enough to justify inclusion in a detailed coverage of the Schwarzenegger speech, but I don't think anybody wants that.
• Regarding the BLP issues:
  • This passage tells us to be particularly careful with information about people who are not well known. These children are not well known. If one of them were sufficiently notable to have their own article we would not be allowed to connect them with their school (based on the current sources). That's in any article, including this one. It makes no sense that we should be allowed to mention the others because the are even less known.
  • Regarding WP:BLP#Privacy of personal information, I don't know what you understand by private in this context. My point was that this instructs us to treat certain information as private even though it may have been published due to an indiscretion.
  • The difference between the second and third example is that in the second we may not mention the information at all, and in the third we may mention it so long as we suppress the child's name. The examples make it very clear that we may not mention certain facts about identifiable non-notable living people at all. Not naming the child in the second example is not enough. Hans Adler 21:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• Some aspects of writing an encyclopedia require advanced reading competence. Just because you don't understand a nuance of a text doesn't mean we can ignore it. - I understand it, thanks. But such understanding, apart from being of very dubious objectivity and thus POV, has no relevance to the discussion. Why a RS mentions something is none of our business; all what we need is what it mentions. The hidden and not-so-hidden motivations of the journalists who did so are not relevant.
• It is marginal mention, indeed. So what? We're not here to decide notability in an AfD discussion. A passing mention of a fact in a RS is a mention nonetheless, and as such it can be used to source a fact.
• It is not an indiscriminate collection of random facts: it is a very relevant information about a notable fact concerning the school.
• The names of the celebrities are not necessarily irrelevant. There is no harm done in including them -it details the information. In 10 years time they will maybe be forgotten, but not more irrelevant. On the contrary, the aim of a repository of information like Wikipedia is, among other things, to maintain memory of such things, even if they become obscure in a few years. We have the opportunity to put down one of the most detailed historical records ever, why should we waste it? Irrelevant information for us today could be incredibly valuable tomorrow.
• Again, the fact that it is mentioned in passing is completely irrelevant to this discussion. It is mentioned, that's all we need.
• It has not been published "due to an indiscretion". At least one is exposed on the Government of California website.
• The examples of the BLP policy section you cite are only partially relevant. What is notable are not the children, but the parents: and the parents' choice of the school is a notable information for the school. We're not talking of actions of the children, but of the parents.

Anyway, since we both agreed on a wording previously, I'd say we can close the discussion. --Cyclopia^talk 23:00, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It adds nothing to the school, either. "Kids of famous people go here", whoop-de-fucking-do. Tarc (talk) 14:39, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you please elaborate what do you mean with "whoop-de-fucking-do"? Does not look like a compelling argument. Why is this information unacceptable? Why is this unacceptable, but the alumni list is not? The fact that several notable personalities all choose this school for their sons and daughters is for sure notable, and it is a unique feature of this school. It is for sure not trivial information, and it seems to me unacceptable censorship not to include it without good reason. --Cyclopia^talk 14:58, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

These are the same sorts of failed arguments you made for that cat woman a ways back. Being mentioned in a reliable source is not the sole determiner of what gets an article or what is mentioned in an article. Where actors send their children to school amounts to gossip-style trivia; it is not pertinent or relevant to their biography. Screaming "OMG CENSORSHIP!" where there is none only weakens legitimate censorship cases, e.g. Virgin Killer or Muhammed. Choose your arguments better, please. When we have borderline trivial information, information that is about non-notable minors, it is better to err on the side of discretion. Tarc (talk) 15:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me you're missing the point completely. Look at the title of this page -this is not the actor's or director's biography -I would agree it would be severely WP:UNDUE there. This article is about a school. The fact that several notable persons of high and similar socioeconomic status consistently choose this school is peculiar and relevant in itself, and it is probably a notable symptom of the current prestige and status of this school. Of course we could have, for example, an article about Eton College which makes no mention of its notable alumni and status, but it would be a far less informative article.

Also, I am not screaming "OMG CENSORSHIP". I am, in fact, not screaming at all. Simply, it is censorship in the neutral term that it is deliberate hiding of public information, and this is unacceptable per our policy. About the discretion, the point is that this information is not regarded as private by the parents themselves -see above. Who are we to know better than their parents? If you want this information to be kept out, please enlighten me with the relevant policy about that. --Cyclopia^talk 17:21, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not missing a point; you're just not making a valid or compelling one. I'll try to make this real simple for you...children of celebrities do not inherit their parent's notability. If the child is not notable in his/her own right, then why would they be listed in an article about the school? In terms of WP:N, they are just as non-notable as the children of non-celebrities that attend, and who also would have no reason to be listed here. Again, all of this circles back to you trying to latch on to the parent's notability and extend it to the children, and that is simply doomed to failure. Tarc (talk) 19:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, you are missing the point, really. I am not saying that in an inflamatory fashion, it is probably my fault, but the reasoning you are attributing to me is not the one I am making.

If the child is not notable in his/her own right, then why would they be listed in an article about the school? - The point is, I don't want to list them. I want to list that their notable parents choose the school for them. The distinction is not pointless. Because it is true that "they are just as non-notable as the children of non-celebrities that attend". But their parents are more notable. The relevant fact is that this school, for some reason, attracts celebrities and makes them choose it among others for their kids. This has nothing to do with extending notability of parents to the children: it's the parents that make the choice, and it is their choice that is notable. --Cyclopia^talk 19:59, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

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Tone of entry

This whole entry reads like the School wrote it. It sounds like a press release or brochure.

Sajita (talk) 02:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)