Talk:Rio Rancho High School

School articles

There are tens of thousands of school articles on Wikipedia. They vary in quality from stub to feature. Most are at best start quality. There just isn't that much encyclopedic to say about schools. Pretty much, a school is a school. Some have a little more available to say about them, most don't. The key word in the above statement is "encyclopedic." To understand that requires an understanding of what an encyclopedia is. Any encyclopedia, not just Wikipedia.

By definition, an encyclopedia is a tertiary source. That means that the content of an encyclopedia is entirely dictated by what others have written in reliable, secondary, independent sources. If those sources are not available, there is not much to say.

Another thing to keep in mind is this: This is NOT the school's page on Wikipedia. It is Wikipedia's article on the school. There are guidelines for content for school articles referenced in the gold box above. Articles on Wikipedia are to be targeted to the entire English speaking world. The guidelines reflect this. Amongst the things we do not include are:

1. Names of Non-notable individuals. The only names that should be in a school article are the principal and individuals who have biographies on Wikipedia.
2. Achievement less than the ultimate achievement in the field of competition being discussed. For most things that would be a bona fide state championship, with an appropriate reference to a source independent of the school district. We do not discuss any individual achievement, either of staff or students. The article is about the school, not the people who attend it.
3. Items strictly of local interest. For this article, that would include the school's hall of fame. How is that going to matter to Bert in Boston or Andy in Adeline or Benny in Bhopal? There is no harm in mentioning its existence, but the details are and will remain unimportant to anyone not acquainted with the individuals. Wikipedia is not the place to get your name on the Internet.

All that having been said, this article has some potential to maybe get to C level quality. Almost to a school, the article's of higher quality than that are schools that have been around for 100+ years and therefore have a lot of available sources. A mention of the Van's thing would be appropriate in much less detail with an appropriate reference. Anything that is a "Wow" thing must have a reference.

The backbone of school article editors are people connected to the school some how. Alumni, students, parents, staff. As long as there is a clear understanding of WP:OWN, that is a great thing. As one of the coordinators of Wikiproject Schools, I appreciate the hard work all those folks do. One of the most common routes to becoming a Wikipedian is by editing your alma mater's article. That's how I started. BTW, that article is still at start level. Like I said, a school is a school.

Thanks to Meters for alerting me to the dispute here. Hermanns 99, your response would be appreciated. Thanks. John from Idegon (talk) 23:41, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

I really do appreciate the work that you and Meters put in to keep Wikipedia free of misleading or false information that swamps us each and every day. My issue is that right now the Wikipedia high school pages are not really useful for anyone other than an address in the info box, and maybe a little info on school grading. Just like you I care about the information on Wikipedia, and see so many more things that could be added to the high school pages, but because of the "we've never done that before" mindset they stay status quo. The idea that a Wikipedia article should have worldwide appeal in my opinion is just not realistic as the world population is an extremely diverse organism. With that said, in the case of Wikipedia a myopic point of view about a subject is not necessarily a bad thing. The world is broken in to regions, so an ideological mindset change for Wikipedia that would focus on a regional topic would get more activity. Just like "Benny in Bhopal" doesn't care about my article, I don't care about his. I do care about articles in the United States, New Mexico and Albuquerque/Rio Rancho. Ideally from Wikipedia's standpoint if someone searches (Google's for this generation...) for something we would want the Wikipedia article to be the first thing that pops up. In order for that to happen an article needs information. Many high schools today do not have a hundred years of information right now, but what about 10, 20, 30 years from now. If you look at my sandbox I had started work on a project to get all New Mexico's State Wrestling Champions documented, regional history. Try to find information from 1957. Extremely tough. Now hypothetically, if someone had created a page in 1960 with that information it would be the first thing to come up on a search. Benny won't care... but maybe the million or so in New Mexico and surrounding states might. Sorry to be long winded, but history is not created today, it is created tomorrow, but unless we put the information somewhere today it will be gone tomorrow. In my opinion Wikipedia could be that place.Hermanns 99 (talk) 00:33, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

And everything you mention is fine and noble. It is also completely beyond the scope of a general encyclopedia. Perhaps someone has created a high school sports wiki. That would be the place for this stuff. It should be on the state's sport authority's webpage. I realize that isn't always the case. Wikipedia is not a Web Host. It is an encyclopedia, with specific policies and guidelines. Please realize however that if there is not such a thing as a high school sports wiki, Wikimedia source code is open and free to anyone who wishes to use it to start their own wiki. Again, your desires are laudable. You simply are going about it in the wrong way. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit; it is not a host for whatever information, no matter how valid, you wish to share. John from Idegon (talk) 01:55, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

BTW, the specific policy counter - indicating your additions is WP:WEIGHT. With your stuff in, nearly 90% of the article was about things ancillary to the purpose of a school, namely education. This is a worldwide encyclopedia. Sports does not have near the import in other countries it has in the US. And for any social geography article, be it on a settlement, structure, a school or a road; we do not write it for the locals. Sorry that makes you unhappy, but that is simply the way it is. Please understand that. To get all Sci Fi nerdy, this is not the DROID you seek. John from Idegon (talk) 02:07, 10 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. It is obvious that I am have a different vision of what Wikipedia is (or could be) so this will be my last interaction with the organization. For the half dozen pages I have worked on over the years I will leave it up to others to update and maintain.