Talk:St. Peter Catholic High School
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editRemoving the "Alumni Section": -I removed the reference on Monday November 8, 2010 to Keshia Chante being an alumni. To begin with, as she was the only one listed, it would have been more correct to refer to her as an "alumna" or "alumnus"; but notwithstanding the grammatical technicalities, to my knowledge she had not actually graduated. Most definitions of "alumni" refer to those who have received a degree or diploma from an institution, be it college or high school. If someone wants to re-add a link to this knowledge under "Interesting Facts" or something along those lines, then I wouldn't have an objection.
-As to the concept of an Alumni section generally, I see no real issue with it except the tremendous difficulty in researching this data... The school has only had graduates since 1992 - so even it's oldest graduates figure only to be in their late 30s or early 40s. It's unlikely that many of them have, at this juncture, gone on to do great things; and even if they have, the odds of being able to verify they were students independently of their volunteering the information might be a challenge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.234.118.115 (talk) 21:47, 8 November 2010 (UTC)
The wikipedia 'rules' are something of a barrier to precise information at times! Our school page has now got three flags on it, none of them warranted or even rational.
First, to say that a contributor to the page has a 'close connection' with the school, is entirely correct. Who else but staff/admin at the school would ever even have the information? This is not a 'conflict of interest'. It is people who know the information passing it on. No staff or admin 'benefit' in any way from the information being on the wiki page, so it is not a conflict of interest in any meaningful sense at all (I am a lawyer, and know exactly what constitutes a conflict of interest, and this ain't it!)
Second, nothing 'appears to be written as an advertisement". That is an accusation that could be levelled at ANY information about anything. Advertising is aimed at getting someone to buy your product or service. That doesn't happen with schools in Canada (maybe different elsewhere). Information about a school is just that, information.
Finally, and I have dealt with this thoroughly on wiki talk before, insisting on citations for information that is true and valid, but which is not newsworthy in the sense that a media source would have covered it, is not helpful in this context. If the information was a negative review or comment, then yes, a citation would be useful to back it up. But where it is simply information that is only known to the staff and admin of the school, a citation is not possible. If Wikipedia truly stresses credibility and accuracy above all else, it would not be barring useful, accurate, specific information in this manner.
Verifiability as a general rule is an excellent practice. But it is also important to use wisdom and discretion in the application of any rule. I have seen in the wiki talk pages, many times, wiki editors listening to feedback from contributors and changing their minds as a result, using discretion to avoid a blind and rigid blanket application of rules.