Talk:Taylor Allderdice High School/Archive 1

Archive 1

Misc

I'm deleting the state takeover bit until we have further chance to discuss it. Of the PPS high schools, Allderdice is not one of the one's at all in danger of "state takeover," which itself is a misrepresentation of NCLB. 140.247.240.85 01:30, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on the pages for Pittsburgh Public Schools. I'd like to standardize on using Infobox_School. Here's what it would look like for Alderdice: [Moved to article page] Paschmitts 12:10, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

As I've seen no comments on this, I'll install it on 1 Nov. — Paschmitts 03:17, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Drug Culture of the 1970s Section

I'm not sure that this section is relevant to Taylor Allerdice as it is now. Also, as the only copy of the Forward I can find is from February 18, 2005, there is no way to verify the references. I would recommend removing this section. – Paschmitts 18:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

This is an important aspect of the history of the school and how it's come to be the way it is, just like its winning a Blue Ribbon award from the U.S. Department of Education in 1996 and being ranked among Newsweek's top high schools in 2005. The developing everyday practices of students and administration, which are barely visible via its national accolades, show how it fits into the sociocultural history of its neighborhood, city, state, and country. All my citations were taken from existing hard copies of the Foreword. Many texts cited as sources in articles of all kinds are not available in digital copies on the web, so that's an unusual standard to apply here. The article doesn't even cite its sources for its Blue Ribbon award or its Newsweek ranking, or even its notable alumni or its student body's current statistics--should this information be removed? On the other hand, my citations are double-checked, accurate, and verifiable; perhaps the school itself maintains a compendium of all volumes of its newspaper in its library if someone who doesn't possess these sources wishes to verify my citations' accuracy. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 08:49, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I am not saying this information is untrue, but here are the problems with the section:

1. It is diproportionately large for discussion of scattered mentions of drugs in a couple high school paper classifieds pages published 30 years ago. I'm not sure how well this helps the reader understand the subject. There are many, many other subjects that should be expanded for the section to be nearly as large as it is.

I agree. This encyclopedic entry for an 80-year-old institution is anemic, and so designates itself a stub. Its disproportionality reflects its youth, but ensuring the quality of its developments will eventually result in a harmonious and authentically encyclopedic entry. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article should be expanded. Surely our efforts are better spent discussing more representative sections of the history than a brief stint among student newspaper writers of sneaking references into print. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 03:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

1. Claims like this really need to be verified, and not only is the school paper an unreliable sources, I highly doubt it will cover all of the claims in the section. Additionally, how is anyone to check these sources?

I am considering removing this section rather soon and only re-adding it once the papers can be examined by another editor. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 12:52, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree that in light of the sensitivity this material has touched on participating editors that it is preferable to make the sources more easily accessible. I have scanned my hard copies of the Foreword and put them online, as they are public domain. Please let me know if the quality of any of the scans is lacking, and I can redo them. I'd eventually like to scan and put all volumes online, but time restricts me to doing just the ones I cite from. Thanks are owed to the University of California, Berkeley for providing the resources to serve these files. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Why do you believe this material to be in the public domain? The individual writers own the copyrights on their writing until 70 years after their deaths.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree that the Foreword is an unreliable source. Please examine it for yourself and also my response to Hiding below. What's more, such a quality journalistic effort provides a rare opportunity to provide verifiability for what Hiding designates "common knowledge." It will also be difficult to document alumni, as the school is unlikely to violate its students' privacy. But being listed in the staff of the school newspaper, having a byline in it, or being the subject of an article goes far toward justifying that the named person is an alumnus. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Please read Wikipedia:Reliable sources. High school student newspapers are not considered reliable because they are not expected to have a rigorous screening process.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:06, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I read the page you refer to before editing this page, and I have reviewed it again. It says nothing about high school newspapers per se, or about screening processes. The source should be examined for its quality, but I beg of you, since the section I've added has engendered such a strong reaction in you, please allow the community to mull over this issue thoughtfully. I meticulously answered all the objections raised after the first removal, but you didn't consider that, and acted rashly by removing it a second time, without due consideration or basis.

Removal

I've removed it since it is not in keeping with our neutral point of view policy. Specifically it gives undue weight to source and a topic. The school newspaper is not the best source to use when building such a section, it can be considered partisan, and it isn't widely accessible. The main thrust of the section is also that "drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life", something true of all schools in all times, and so not particularly relevant to this article or this era. Hiding Talk 13:37, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You declined to participate in the above debate, and on that count alone your unilateral removal was unconscionably rash and merits reversal. But to address your other observations:

1. The claim that this section gives undue weight isn't valid. The article plainly declares itself a stub--for now, any new information receives undue weight. Before I edited it, half the article was devoted to an entirely undocumented section of trivia, the Notable Alumni, which still remains. I have added two more notable alumni, documenting them using quality sources. This large and important school, furthermore, has eighty years of history. The article is nowhere near finished and it is unreasonable to stunt it just because its early growth will not necessarily reflect your preferences regarding proportion. I would like to see the article become more than a stub.
2. After re-reviewing it, WP's undue weight policy objects to many things, but not specifically to any quality source per se. It's more about the way that source and other sources are used.
3. Without reviewing it, you prejudge this school's newspaper as "partisan" and "not the best source." You provide no basis and don't explain what you mean by "partisan." On the contrary, the Foreword met professional journalistic standards and provided a quality training ground for aspiring professionals, just like Taylor Allderdice as a whole. The paper reported a standard mix of national political news, social and political issues of the surrounding community and Pittsburgh, and entertainment and sports events. In fact, the News Editor of several of the issues I cite from, Mr. Aaron Zitner, has had a long career as a journalist, and is now an editor at the Los Angeles Times's National Bureau. By the way, I emailed Mr. Zitner regarding this WP article and his reply to me indicates his intention to participate. In any case, the volume number of 104 in 1980 indicates fifty-two school years of publication, which dates the newspaper's establishment to the year of the school's founding. The paper's motto, "Serving Allderdice High School and the community," indicates no intention to be "partisan" and neither does its practices or content.
4. Everything in the paper was included with close administration oversight and approval, and an administration advisor is always listed as a member of the staff. The paper regularly ran large ads from respected institutions as diverse as the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, the United States Marine Corps, and Allegheny Reproductive Health Center's abortion service.
5. You say that the section's main thrust is "that 'drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life'." I agree. And you go on to say this thrust is "something true of all schools in all times," yet you conclude that this makes the thrust "not particularly relevant to this article or this era." On the contrary, WP policy states "Do not remove statements that you believe to be both true and common knowledge, simply because they aren't sourced." This clearly indicates the appropriateness of true and common knowledge. If you grant that this knowledge is true and common, then the way that such a universal works out specifically at this institution is worthy of encyclopedic collection. Your observation of universality (with which not all editors agree) argues for the material's inclusion, not its unilateral removal, or the removal of the rare opportunity to document it.

And so I have restored the material. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Hiding's removal was appropriate. It doesn't matter whether he participated in the discussion; he is an admin who saw two editors' raising concerns about the material, and he voiced his by making the move to remove the material. I have again removed the material. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:09, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

In the 80-year history of this school, the brief mentions of drug use in the supercool student newspaper are a blip and do not help a reader understand the subject of the article. If you want to expand the article, expand on the organizational, structural, academic and sports histories before adding that some dudes liked to light up doobies in the 2nd floor men's restroom. The Foreward undoubtedly did not maintain professional standards. The student newspaper, whether its staff grew up to became superfamous journalists, was still staffed by a bunch of denim-jacketed teenagers. We, the other Wikipedia editors, were not there and so cannot take your word on the editing processes at the paper. The ads that a paper runs do not have anything whatsoever to do with its quality, even if the ads are for reputable abortion clinics.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:16, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Please refrain from the kind of incivil sarcasm you use here. Hiding expressed opinions about the source without being able to review it, so I ensured that the source is now available for review. Examination of the source will reveal that it is not what guess you imply by "supercool." Examination of the source will reveal whether or not it maintained professional standards, so I don't understand your basis for "undoubtedly".

The subject of the article is Taylor Allderdice High School, and my documentation of its practices helps the reader understand how it fit into the world during that era, when attitudes toward drug culture differed from the times before and after it. Why wouldn't the history of various practices the school has sustained in different eras be relevant? What is the basis for limiting the article to organization, structure, and sports histories? Isn't the production of the school newspaper also an aspect of its academics?

We can request comment from outside editors for this situation, but I am certain you will find that they will agree that the section is unduly large. All of your sources are from a student paper. At the very least, find a reputable source upon which to hang the other references. Unfortunately, this only addresses the reliable sources problem and not the undue weight issue. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

ChrisGriswold makes no effort to examine the sources, which are now readily available. Instead, he engages in insult--"denim-jacketed" people and reporters who "sneak" material. The fact is that this is a quality source that forms a basis for a subject of substantial importance, which only examination of it will reveal, even if it may not fit your preconceived notion of what a high school newspaper is. Please take time away from this article until you can free yourself of the prejudicial views you plainly express. The section I add isn't even very large, and is only slightly longer than the section of undocumented trivia; it will fit nicely into a completed article. I see no reason for it to be removed from the article, and no amount of aggressive insult, sarcasm, and prejudice can form a basis for its removal. If the article's facts touch upon your personal sensitivities, please refrain from sanitization and take time away from the article. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:44, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Somehow I missed this chunk of text. I did examine the scans you provided, but they are very difficult to read. Additionally, I am not sure that saying someone wears a denim jacket is an insult so much as a description. The only prejudice I have is against high school student reporters. It's simple: I question their integrity and reliability. They're high school students; if they want to report on the price of milk, I'd probably believe it, but I'm going to have a hard time taking a 15-year-old's editorials seriously, much less the classifieds section. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 15:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The important thing that's failing to be considered by the other editors: my plainly stated intention is to document that "During the 70s, drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life." "Prominent" may be common, but "benign" may surprise some people. The point is that the very fact that the administration allowed the paper to publish the kind of content I cite is itself evidence of that admnistration's benign attitude toward the students' drug culture. Even if you impeach the quality of the source, the administration's approving such an impeachable source documents its benign attitude. That a quality source publishes this material makes the point even more emphatically, but even if you consider the source less than quality, it still documents the attested fact. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 08:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the source is impeachable. We do not know how rigoursly the school actually looked at material before it made it in. Additionally, your scans are horribly unreadable, and I can't even attempt to verify anything with them. You are making statements that are not even sourced in the material, drawing your own clonclusions. Please read WP:OR. It may explain why I am again removing this section. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 09:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Were any of you in high school in the 1970's? As someone who was in high school in the early 70's, in a comparable middle class area as Alderdice (Fairfax, Virginia), I can vouch that pot smoking was pretty much universal, and by virtue of it's near universality, it was considered benign. The school administration also allowed cigarette smoking (and as a result, also pot smoking) in designated areas in the school. I know, because I was one of a small minority who didn't smoke pot. So, the school paper seems to accurately reflect those days times to me. I do think it is important for readers to understand how drastically different official attitudes were toward marijuana use in those days. What other source is available? Paul Donahue: Brentwood, formerly Bloomfield—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.95.165.249 (talk • contribs) 05:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC).

• I think the best approach would be to write an article on Drug use in schools in the 1970's, and the best sources for such an article would be newspaper reports, sociological studies, academic journals, university press books and the like. Google turns up a lot of interesting hits on both its normal search [1] and its scholar search [2] if you want to take a swing at it. Relevant policies would be those on original research, presenting points of view in a neutral manner and verifiability. Hope that helps. Hiding Talk 21:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Notable Alumni References

I'm working over the list of Notable Alumni and adding references where I can find them.
I currently cannot find a reference for Vicky (or Vicki) Funari, the director, as every having lived in Pittsburgh, or gone to Allderdice. In fact, the scan of Foreword referenced looks more, to my eyes, to name the member of the Advertising Staff as VICKY FUNART.
Thanx for any help. – Paschmitts 01:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks so much for doing this. It's really great; the list looks impressive, much better than similar lists in many, many articles. We may want to remove Vicki. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanx. It's actually kind of fun trying to track down references. It gets a little frustrating when many of the references for a person come from Wikipedia. Anyway, I'll leave Vicky in a little longer and see if I can find anything more for her. – Paschmitts 02:16, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, I've been through the entire list of Notable Alumi looking for references. Jeff Goldblum got removed because his biography on his web site says he went to West Mifflin North High School. I was also unable to find references for Vicky Funari or Aaron Zitner as having gone to Allderdice. If no references are found by Nov. 30, I will remove them from the list. – Paschmitts 20:46, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Good work/ --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 03:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

AMA for 0-0-0-Destruct-0 and drug culture section of Article

Hey guys.

I'm an AMA who 0-0-0-Destruct-0 has asked to have a look at this information and see if I can't get some people chatting a little more inclusively about the inclusion of this information. Having read all of the details of the info on the article history and it's talk page I'd first like to talk a bit about the verifiability of this section and later it's weight (these seem like the two main problems people had with this section, if there are more let me know but the main concern of 0-0-0-Destruct-0 was that people were reluctant to discuss so it's unclear). A couple of comments that probably need addressing;

• I'm not sure that this section is relevant to Taylor Allerdice as it is now. User:Paschmitts

Surely history rarely is? Particularly weird history like this, and particularly history that the school probably doesn't want detailed now.

• Claims like this really need to be verified, and not only is the school paper an unreliable sources, I highly doubt it will cover all of the claims in the section. User:Chris_Griswold

If it doesn't cover all of it then yes, it should be removed to the extent it's not covered, but overall school newspapers are an OK source for this. The Wikipedia guidelines on verifiability go through this under the section of Self-published and dubious sources in articles about the author(s); If we consider the school as an author writing about itself here, and examine the subparts of

• it is relevant to their notability; - I think it probably is, any culture of a school is notable if the school itself is. It would be suitable for a school were it particularly involved in protests during the Vietnam War, it would be suitable were it to set a particular fashion trend, surely this is the same sort of thing?
• it is not contentious; - Well nobody has disagreed that this culture existed. That would define contentious right?
• it is not unduly self-serving; - No not at all, in fact this policy designed to eliminate vanity articles could not be less appropriate.
• it does not involve claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject; - And this one is designed to stop information that isn't suitable for one article as perjorative, being put in another to avoid scrutiny.
• there is no reasonable doubt as to who wrote it. - It's perfectly reasonable to assume a school publishes it's own newspaper.

I really do think this information as reported by a school newspaper as it's source is ok, as I would feel about it publishing local sports results, accademic results or improvements to the school but not local non-school related events. What are your thoughts?

•Elomis• 22:32, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts)Thanks for helping out, Elomis. I do take your point on the school newspaper. I do still feel that the section is unduly heavy in the article. It makes up at least a third of the article in its entirety. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 23:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiding's view

• Basically, you are giving the information undue weight, and no, a self published school newspaper would not in this sense be a reliable source. The culture of a school in the the 1970s may or may not be notable, but that notability is not conferred because the school may or may not be notable. You are right it would be suitable if it started a major trend, but to show that you would require actual press coverage. Whether people agree or disagree on if this culture existed is an irrelevant point. On wikipedia all we care for is that information conforms with our policies.
• Tackling the statement that we can take the newsletter as the school being the author, no we can't, that's not my understanding of how a school newsletter such as this works. This is a magazine produced by the student body for the student body, and likely has a low editorial opinion on what to publish. The material referenced is not related to the reason we have an article on the school, because we basically have an article on all schools. I think your point about contentious is actually undermined by the fact that at least three people consider the material and the source inappropriate. That would be my definition of contentious. Regarding self serving, I have to say, yes, it is self serving, in that one user wishes to add it, so it serves that person. We have no idea who this user is; they could well be the author of the piece in question. And let's not forget that we're discussing a paper written by students: How unbiased is this source?

• Let's be clear what we are discussing here:

During the 70s, drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life. The principal, William A.G. "The Hook" Fisher would ironically implore in the morning announcements to "please keep the pot smoking out of the stairwells." The school motto was commonly emended, in the student body, to "Know something. Do something. Be something. Smoke something." The professionally styled school paper, the Foreword, with the approval of the school's administration, commonly published humorous lines in its classifieds section relating students' identifying with drug consumption. For example,

"MAKE MONEY--Sell methaquaaladone and STP in your spare time. See Jon in rm. 344 or by the stack."

"SEEKING EMPLOYMENT as drug tester for pharmaceutical laboratory. Five years of experience. Parents cool, see Jon in room 211."

"Susie Get Stoned Skiing, Shelley"

"Rosie smokes dope at lunch!"

"LOCAL DRUG MAN -- 4TH FLOOR --MR. O.B. REDS, BROWNS, UPS, DOWNS -- HASH FOR CASH."

"BIBLE CALL: A TAPE LIBRARY 661-3455 TAPE 179; WHAT ABOUT MARIJUANA?"

School administration also approved publishing Op-Ed's with a kindhearted view of drug use. For example, new federal drug laws regarding "a whole new form of prohibition...erupting around its paraphernalia" were deemed "absurd" and an attempt to legislate against thoughts. Michael O'Neil goes on to observe the new laws' potential to affect the established tolerant outlook towards drugs, but not the practice of drug use:

"At best, the crackdown on paraphernalia can alter the permissive attitude toward drugs. But it is as unrealistic to expect this law to make much of a dent in drug use as to expect a ban on shot glasses to solve the problem of alcohol."

Sometimes marijuana's omnipresence also associated it with violence: "There is a tense atmosphere in the hallways. Students are often deliberately tripped or pushed, and some are continuously harrassed by small groups of people. The demands have been anything from pot to the coat off one's back."< Nevertheless, drug use was not considered a core problem of the school. Writing in 1977, Amy Lichter cites a national Gallup poll ranking drugs as only the fifth highest ranking problem facing schools. Lichter then quotes the school administration's emphasis on other issues as surpassing the factors the public expressed in that poll, such as lack of discipline:

"Allderdice Vice Principals Dr. Norma Mowry and Sidney Feiler said that although they recognize the relevance of all the problems identified by the public, they see lack of discipline and achievement as the foremost problems. Mowry stressed the dominance of disciplinary problems nationally and the dominance of achievement difficulties at Allderdice."

• Now to pick through this, what we have is that in the seventies the principle may have said something. Now only the principle himself is allowed as a reliable self published source on what he said, and such info is only allowed in an article on the principle, which we wouldn't have as he isn't notable. Other than that, how many principles in how many schools have said the same thing? How relevant is this to the article as a whole, and how balancing is it? Were there local news reports on this culture at the school? Okay, we appear to have a reasonable source for the fact that the motto was amended, but again, how relevant is this? How many school mottos are similarly amended? This is a statement in search of relevance. As to the claim that the paper was published with the school's approval, that requires a citation. Can we source that claim? If not, it has to go. And do we really think classified sections of any paper are a reliable source? Can I source an article based upon the classifieds of my local rag? So people made jokes in a school newspaper. Is this news? Is this important? Is this of relevance? Is this somehow significant? And let us not forget that the section itself points out it is not of any great significance: "drug use was not considered a core problem of the school". Although, again, no source is available for this claim, the following quote not quite supporting the statement. Let's also remember that we can't use self published sources to make "claims about third parties, or about events not directly related to the subject". Let's remember that this is a student published paper, so it can only represent the views of the students, and not be used to support the views of third parties. So what we have is a section, which, edited for style, would read something like as follows:

In the 1970s students would make jokes in the school newspaper about drugs and drug use. However, one student wrote an article on drugs for the paper, claiming some students felt it may be creating a hostile atmosphere.

• Do we think this is any different from any other school, at any other point in history? Is this significant to this school? Is this school the only school to experience this? Does the sourcing back up the points made? Can we ascertain quotes were transcribed accurately? Hiding Talk 23:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

---

Elomis–Thanx for coming in on this, we should definitely be discussing this. Please go back and look at what 0-0-0-Destruct-0 is actually using as a verification for his information. He is not using school newspaper articles but classified ads apparently submitted by students. Now I might give the benefit of doubt to an article having passed editorial oversite, but my guess (and I admit it is just a guess) is that oversite of classified ads was minimal at best. So it is my feeling that the Drug Culture of the 1970s is at most, based on these references, a case of "Isn't it interesting what the kids could sneak into the paper" rather than an actual example of a culture in the school.

As to the school motto: was it officially changed, or was it just a common joke among the students?

– Paschmitts 23:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Trivia

During the 1970s the school's student newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school, and the staff's reluctance to actively attempt to extinguish it[3]. The students commonly appended the school's motto of "Know something, Do something, Be something" to "Know something, Do something, Be something, Smoke something" and the principal implored school students to refrain from smoking Marijuana in the stairwells.

Is this anything like a middle ground? it's probably less than 0-0-0-Destruct-0 would like to see, and more than others might, but seems to be largely verifiable and makes the section an "interesting footnote" about the school rather than adding a heap of weight to the issue by making it a "side" of it. •Elomis• 00:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

This seems like a reasonable way to handle it. I won't object. – Paschmitts 01:42, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• I can't see the source as allowing the principal quote. It's a student body paper, and doesn't represent the school, only the student body. As to the undue weight policy, you actually have it in the reverse. The undue weight policy was created to guard against giving minor topics space in large articles. Is the school newspaper of sufficient weight to allow its views to stand in the article? I'd argue against it, and I'd also argue that we don't generally allow trivia sections within articles either. This stuff just isn't informative. It offers very little in the way of verifiability.

My proposition doesn't include the source supporting the principal, only the newspaper's commentary. If it's unable to be sourced and you feel that vehement about it's exclusion then it can be excluded. While you are correct to the letter of the guideline that unsourced material should not be included, I feel that Ignore all rules applies here. The quote, while unsourced, is in a section in which it is closely related to another sourced statement as a build on it. Consider the newspaper commentary about drug use being a core issue and the unsourced comment by the principal as a trivial expansion on it. Is it correct to the letter of the guideline? No. Does it improve and maintain the article as per WP:IGNORE. Yes. That all said, if people feel really strongly that this is inappropriate I can't override it. In essence I am admitting that I (on behalf of 0-0-0-Destruct-0) am wrong, but I feel that it does no harm, in fact it does good, for the wrong stance to prevail in this instance.

No, the way you wrote it wasn't from the POV of the commentary of the student paper. If you want to do that, you write, the student's school newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school, and presented the principal as imploring school students to refrain from smoking Marijuana in the stairwells. It also reported that some students commonly appended the school's motto of "Know something, Do something, Be something" to "Know something, Do something, Be something, Smoke something". That's the best the sourcing allows. So what us editors have to do next is run that statement through our policies. Is it neutral, well, it presents the the source, yes. Is it a self published source, we all agree that it is, yes. Is it a partisan source, yes. It represents the views of the students. Is it balanced by a view from the Principal or authorities? No. Is it self serving? Yes, again it represents the view of the students. Is it related to the reason why this school is notable? As far as I can see, no. Is there a drug problem at this school? Is there wider local coverage which will help contextualise this issue? Or is it original research or POV pushing? I'm leaning to the latter because we have no other supporting documentary evidence. As for ignoring all rules, that tends to be with ignoring processes rather than the NPOV policy, which as a founding principle is inviolate. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Are you seriously suggesting every student dig out back issues of their high school rags and add all the information from them to articles? I'd also like the copyright situation on the links to those newsletters clarified, because if they breach copyright we cannot link to them, it's illegal. Also, the source does not support the assertion that the staff were reluctant to "actively attempt to extinguish" the alleged culture.

No, and with all due respect to a fellow Wikipedia editor that's absurd. The way you are appearing at the moment is as if you are saying I would advocate that all articles should be deleted if one should. I am sure we both as sensible people understand that information may be relevant in one case and not in another, and should be included in some and not others. It is never a breach of copyright to link to an external article, that assertion is also rather absurd. While I understand your defense of the exclusion of this material I think you are probably scraping the bottom of the barrel. Please understand that I am patient enough to hear and address all your comments on this so that we can reach a consensus here, it's not neccessary therefore to resort to trying to find a way of making it's inclusion illegal. If an external site to Wikipedia has copyright infringing material on it, it is that sites problem to address it, after all, it's discovered all the time that journalistic and library information is sometimes copied or plagarised or inserted from inappropriate sources. We don't forbid linking to the New York Times or the Sydney Morning Herald at the risk that their journalists have plagarised this week's column. I am reliably informed that the source of that information has staff who are sufficiently on-the-ball as to address any copyright infringements. If they decide that the material infringes, they may take it down and we would remove the citation and have to re-look at the verifiability of the material in question. You may even wish to contact them and ask them to investigate if they feel this strongly. Relax! Let's talk through this in sensible encyclopedic terms, and not try and declare things as alarming breaches of policy or the law.

You are seriously misrepresenting my view. I asked you if you were allowing all school newspapers to be used as a source. You seem to indicate that you won't, which means we should approach this from a position of caution, rather than a position of advocacy. If we don't think school newspapers are generally a valid source then the onus is on the people pushing for this to be included to make the case, not on me to make my case. As to the legality of linking to material posted on the internet in breach of copyright, I suggest you review our external links policy and the case of INTELLECTUAL RESERVE, INC. v. UTAH LIGHTHOUSE MINISTRY, INC.. Now you may well be reliably informed, but that doesn't help me or Wikipedia, doe sit? I could just as easily claim I am reliably informed otherwise. I note the current issues of Foreword are protected by copyright, so I have to assume prior ones were too. As to the source of the information, and the staff there, I'm not sure what you are talking about. The material looks to be hosted on a university server, and I guess could have been placed there by anyone, from a student to an employee. And please, let's not characterise my words as anything other than they are. I am seeking to determine all aspects of the viability of this information in good faith, and I don't think it's beneficial to characterise me as declaring it illegal. All I am doing is asking the question. Whether the site in question decides they wish to host the material does not matter. We do not link to sites that violate the copyrights of others. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

American copyright says that those students own the rights to their works. Convinced by discussion at User talk:0-0-0-Destruct-0. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 15:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Like I say, all you have is one self serving source at the moment. A student newspaper is also not published by the school. I should imagine there may well have been a disclaimer within the pages, and I should also imagine the school did not officially endorse the views presented in representations to prospective parents or the education board or governors. For all we know this information may have caused a stir amongst the governors. It is therefore not a neutral point of view to present this as endorsed by the school authorities unless sourcing allows that, and as yet we don't have that.

Mmm. I still believe that a student newspaper is published by the school because severably the student body, the faculty, the principal, the grounds upon which it is built and in the case of private schools the corporate entity that governs it can all be recognised as 'the school'. I think I mentioned previously that if my school has a "history of accademic achievement" it relates to the student body and that it isn't neccessary to clarify that by "school" I am referring to the student body. It has been my experience that all student newspapers are subjected to some form of editorial approval. It may be fleeting and nonchalant but it is there and it cannot be discounted. If the school (by which I mean the faculty and principal :D ) wanted I am certain they could have exercised a right of veto on the material in question.

I don't quite follow your argument here. Because 1+1+1+1=4, then 1 is equal to 4? The student body is the student body, and in this instance, through this source, represents the student body. Let me try this another way. Say an independent newspaper quoted a student as saying that the Principal had stated what is being stated here. Would that make it a statement by the school or by a student? Now look at what the school is trying to do through the publishing of this paper? It is used as a teaching resource, to train student in the production of a newspaper; the paper is published in the same manner as a real newspaper; the publisher is not necesarily associating themselves with the views presented. Take Rupert Murdoch; do we associate to him all the views published by the myriad of newspapers he owns? Or the chief executive of News Corp? No. We allow these papers to speak as themselves. Other resources may infer from the newspapers the views of the owners, but we cannot. We can only summarise sources. The claims being made quite simply are not supported by the source. And I'd note we only have access to very poorly legible portions of the source. Your point about "history of accademic achievement" is something different. Since the teaching faculty and the administrators of the school are measured by the achievements of the tested student body, sources describe them in a manner of being attributed to the school. Indeed, in my country a school's performance is determined by the academic achievement of the tested body, and does belong to the school in question, not the student body. Unless you believe that a carpenter has little to do with the skirting board in a house, which is solely the product of the wood? I assume you ascribe some part in the academic achievement to the the teaching staff? However, when we come to ascribe viewpoints, we can only ascribe those to the people we can source as having actually made them. You are correct the school may well have been able to interfere had they wanted to. It is also true that a government can interfere and prevent the publication of many stories. That they choose not to do so does not mean they have endorsed the story, does it? You seem to be ascribing the Principal an editorial voice, when his would be a governing voice. The editorial voice would likely come from the Head of the English department or a teacher within. You seem to be misunderstanding my underlying points here. I have no problem with what the paper states. I have problems with what you are trying to make it say. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Regarding it not being a neutral point of view you are entirely correct, and well done for pointing it out. But that's a no-brainer to fix. We just change our prototype paragraph from student newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school to student newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary on the students' view of drug use in the school. There, problem fixed, right?

• It may well be your view that it has been endorsed by the school authorities, but Wikipedia works on a NPOV basis, and such a claim in this instance needs to be sourced. I would also like to posit the view that the editions put forward as sourcing for this would only allow us to make the claim for the period the sources cover, i.e. one month in 1972. Are we really suggesting we document every month of every year in such a fashion? Wikipedia is not a collection of indiscriminate information. Like I say, all you really have is the trivial claim that During late 1972 the school's student newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school. The students commonly appended the school's motto of "Know something, Do something, Be something" to "Know something, Do something, Be something, Smoke something".

See above, I don't think endorsed at all, but certainly they would have not exercised veto. There's a difference you could drive a truck through. I think 0-0-0-Destruct-0's point is that in any other school at any other time (more any other time maybe) the veto process that staff at a school will exercise over the paper would lead to them banhammering such material without a second's thought. The reader of material like this in an encyclopedia might infer that if it was the case that it wasn't, then it must have been a historically notable part of the school's attitude.

See the truck above I drive through your point on veto. I'm not really interested in somebody's view on what may or may not happen in some or every other school. You want to include it in Wikipedia, you source that statement. Otherwise, it's original research. I'd argue the absolute opposite to be honest. And precisely because we might lead our readers to infer something that we can't support, we should not include it. That's the whole basis of our neutral point of view policy. I'm staggered you are using this as a reason to support inclusion. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• We all agree this stuff is trivial, even you have posited it's appearance as being in a trivia section. I note the pages presented would also allow us to claim that there were security problems in the school in November of 1972, why not add that to the mix? Why are we focussing on this one aspect of school life from the 1970s? Is someone pushing an agenda here? Are we adopting a NPOV or are we giving this issue far greater weight than any other issue within these papers presented, and also all activities that have happened at the school. That is the basis of the undue weight section of the NPOV policy. That we do not grant a topic greater weight than any other topic within an article. Either we cover every story in these excerpted papers, and allow all such paper articles to be used as sources, and allow all information there sourced to be added, or we allow none. The undue weight policy does not allow a middle ground.

Why not add security problems to the mix? I think this is where your comments become solely true and someone wouldn't have any way to argue against you. It's been said that all schools more or less have or had drug problems, particuarly perhaps in the late 60s and early 70s (free love and all that hey?), I think 0-0-0-Destruct-0's assertion that this is different is true. While a lot of schools have drug problems what is interesting here is the 'students will be students' light-hearted attitude to it and the chuckling of the principal that I can imagine as he admonished people to please stop pulling cones in the hallway. Conversely it's completely the case that every school everywhere has had systemic bullying, undesirables hanging around and stuff getting stolen. I think 0-0-0-Destruct-0's points on the drug stuff is valid, but nobody would be able to make the point that a school has security problems that are notable, save Columbine or Dunblane maybe.

Can you source your view that this school is different in published sources? If not, it's original research. I should imagine there are plenty of sources which evaluate the drug culture of schools in the late seventies, as well as works of fiction. As to your points about Columbine and Dunblane, why exactly are they notable? Are they articles based on student newspapers? No, they were internationally reported incidents which achieved notability through wide coverage, and they also had a cultural impact in the adoption of new laws. Are we suggesting the same is true of the Taylor Allerdice school in the month of November of 1972? Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• I appreciate you are here acting as an advocate, but I feel someone has to act as an advocate for the policies and consensus inherent within those policies. This stuff simply doesn't fit within the remit. Balancing the issues, there are simply too many unanswered questions about the sources, the copyright nature of the sources, the motive for adding this, the weight it gives and the verifiability.

Thanks for the appreciation :) It's common for people to get grumpy about AMAs because we can be seen as anything from lawyers to volunteer thugs to help push a point.

• Like I say, this information fails on the first point of using a self published souurce, since it is entirely unrelated to the school's notability. Would we have an article on the school if this issue hadn't existed? Yes. Does it make the school more notable? No. On the second point, it is contentious; we have no way to verify it is endorsed by the school authorites. On point three, is it self serving, the piece is commentary and certainly serves the opinion of the author. On point four, it involves claims about what the Principal said, which are not self published, since the Principal has not himself published the view. I publish my blog on google; does that mean my views on what google does are endorsed by google? On point five, we do doubt who wrote it; I assert it is the student body, you assert it is the school. The only author we can all agree upon is the reporter referenced above, Amy Lichter. Beyond that, we have no idea what the school policy towards the paper was at the time of publication, nor do we have any idea who the editor of the paper was, as far as I can see. Too many unverifiable quantities for snippets of information that are, at best, trivial. Hiding Talk 14:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Agree with all of that but for the Google thing. In the same vein that the principal would have veto'd the paper had he felt it appropriate, you'd find yourself presented with 'That username and password combination is invalid' if you pushed the boundaries that Google have set. 0-0-0-Destruct-0's desire for the inclusion of this material is all about where the line is on what would be invalid commentary in the paper, and how it was in a different place at that school and that time than was normal and unremarkable (therefore it's notable).

You think google would risk the bad publicity that would cause? Do you doubt I can source a number of blogs on google owned services which publish views at odds to google? Do you think google closed down every blog which criticised or ascribed false motive to their moves in appeasing the Chinese government? Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Regarding undue weight, I hope this snippet from the neutral point of view policy makes the position clear: 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. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements. Is the school newspaper's view of the culture of the school in one month of one year significant enough to warrant coverage within the article? The undue weight section of the neutral point of view policy has little to do with an actors pet, and I suggest we all reacquaint ourselves with the policy and discuss the actual words contained. Hiding Talk 14:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

True, and my putting it as a 'trivia' section was an attempt at making sure that it wasn't taken to be more important than what it actually is. Maybe that is inappropriate here, but despite the need to avoid trivia sections in articles they are useful as starting discussion points as the article grows (this is covered in that guideline).

Hence this discussion. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Looking at comments above, I think we do have some breaching of the neutral point of view. User:0-0-0-Destruct-0 states The important thing that's failing to be considered by the other editors: my plainly stated intention is to document that "During the 70s, drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life." To put it plainly, the source does not allow this view. The user goes on to say The point is that the very fact that the administration allowed the paper to publish the kind of content I cite is itself evidence of that admnistration's benign attitude toward the students' drug culture. This is baldly original research. We cannot infer anything from the publication of the paper, we must trace it to reliable sources. This source does not substantiate the claim being made here, since we have no source which demonstrates that the administration were complicit in publishing the article. Reading the school's website makes it quite plain that the paper is written and edited by students, and is targeted at the student as an audience.[4] The user goes on to state Even if you impeach the quality of the source, the administration's approving such an impeachable source documents its benign attitude. That a quality source publishes this material makes the point even more emphatically, but even if you consider the source less than quality, it still documents the attested fact<my emphasis>. There is no fact here, simply an undocumented assertion. The goal being pushed here is one that quite simply fails our original research policy. Hiding Talk 14:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No, the source doesn't allow it to that extent. In my role as an advocate I tried to quietly concede that without neccessarily dropping my advocacy, suggesting the watered down trivia section as a way of keeping it to either the core of what can be sourced, plus or minus some affiliated objective inferrences. I don't know if it is so much original research, just because I spend so much of my time csd-ing really, really original research. We need to be a little pragmatic here, it's sooo difficult to cite and reference an attitude regarding an article; because you are commenting on an opinion, you run the real risk of looking like you are giving one yourself.

Maybe I have more experience with original research then? Although this isn't a pissing contest. However, where you seem to be having trouble is perhaps with your view that we add some inferences, something at odds with the NPOV policy. I'm unclear that an advocate should be bending that foundation principle in this manner. We need to be entirely pragmatic here. The NPOV is a hard rule, but one we have to enforce equally in all articles. I have no problem discussing an opinion on anything, but as soon as you attempt to put an opinion into an article, it has to be sourced. And if someone's stated goal is to breach our policies, well, we have any number of policies which describe why that is a bad thing. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

At the end of the day I think, and if 0-0-0-Destruct-0 has a problem with this please contact me via the talk page, that I have explained and elaborated on his points as much as I can, pointing out where I believe he has been right and trying to keep it as much within Wikipedia's policies as possible without excluding anything under those policies that would make the encyclopedia better (see WP:IGNORE). If you guys really, really see this as being as irrelevant as you seem to then it may need to be left out which is regrettable because I think it adds colour to the article without breaking anything. I've hopefully managed to put forward his points on his behalf and there has been no incivility towards me, if those points are still unable to reach consensus it can be taken elsewhere if neccessary but thanks for hearing me (and him through me) out. •Elomis• 03:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If we can agree that this argument is about whether to include the following, In late 1972, the student's school newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school, and characterised the principal as imploring school students to refrain from smoking Marijuana in the stairwells. It also reported that some students commonly appended the school's motto of "Know something, Do something, Be something" to "Know something, Do something, Be something, Smoke something". then there can be more movement in the discussion. If there's an interest in pushing the view that this school is unique or notable because of that, then I think it can't go much further because we're in violation of long standing and somewhat inviolate policies which consensually agree we don't do that. I'm not buying the argument that this snippet of information is of such an impact that we should ignore them. Hiding Talk 13:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Questions

The questions are:

• whether this material is presented from a neutral point of view
• whether it accurately describes statements
• whether the information is from a reliable source
• whether it gives the possible drug use undue weight
• whether the scans linked to are in breach of copyright
• whether there is original research being pushed
• if the primary source material is presented properly

Comment from Hiding

I tend to take the view that the school newspaper, produced by the students for the students, can't be used as a reliable primary source for the school as a whole, especially the school authority. I believe if we want to source the statements of the principal, we should source verbatim quotes in reliable sources, and not attributed ones in a potentially partisan source such as a school newspaper. I also feel the material does not describe the position from a neutral point of view. I am also concerned about the copyright status of the scans, and if those in themselves can be linked to, and indeed if they can be used as reliable sources, having been uploaded by the editor interested in adding the material. I have to ask if this presents a conflict of interest. I personally believe the best these sources can support is this:

In the late 1970s, the student's school newspaper contained substantial light-hearted commentary about drug use in the school, and characterised the principal as imploring school students to refrain from smoking Marijuana in the stairwells. It also reported that some students commonly appended the school's motto of "Know something, Do something, Be something" to "Know something, Do something, Be something, Smoke something". Retracted see below.

I would ask whether this is worthwhile commentary in this article? Is it unique to this school, or is it giving the position undue weight? I would ask that were this behaviour of interest, it would have been covered in some form of published work other than the school newspaper. Interested in all thoughts in an effort to build a consensus. Hiding Talk 16:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Further, looking at the sources given above, I note my suggested text is actually not backed up by the sources provided. I have therefore retracted it. It appears it has been based on personal experience. Hiding Talk 16:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment from Elomis

In Short:

• whether this material is presented from a neutral point of view

No but let's be careful about our use of the term neutral point of view, the proposed material comments on a point of view. This is acceptable, consider Flat Earth, this article does not have neutral point of view problems, despite the fact it describes a point of view popular at a time. It should not be inferred that by commenting on this point of view the article gives undue support to it.

• whether it accurately describes statements

It does, in part. A reference or citation should not have to support every miniscule detail, just the main assertion. If we say that Bill Clinton is a democrat, and cite his leadership of the democrat party and the United States as commander in chief as a democrat, we are not leaving out the possibility of republican-esque views on some things. Because the reference material supports the crux of the assertion it is suitable.

• whether the information is from a reliable source

Yes, in this instance. We would not trust a school newspaper as a reliable source for anything other than commentary on a school, but that is exactly what we are trusting it for here.

• whether it gives the possible drug use undue weight

My comments on the material have (deliberatley if quietly) shifted the focus of the included material. We are no longer commenting on the drug use and how systemic or abundant it was, we are commenting on the student and staff attitudes to a popular culture. It may well be that not a gram of the 'erb was inhaled on the campus ever, but the phenomena of the principals comments and the students lighthearted jokes are still worthy of note. And it stands to reason also that the weight of them are as trivial as they should be.

• whether the scans linked to are in breach of copyright

Pfft. Patent nonsense. May be designed to drag the discussion into a terrified paranoia of infringement but I assume just patent nonsense.

• whether there is original research being pushed

No. The original researchers were the editors of the school newspaper.

• if the primary source material is presented properly

I'll decline to comment on this, without prejudice.

I take the view that a school staff body has a right of veto over a school newspaper which they would excercise were they to feel that the student are misrepresenting the school of which they are an indisputable part. I believe that the school student body, staff, grounds and to a lesser extent previous students and the community in general are very often considered "the school" and that the school newspaper must be considered a reliable source in the absence of retractions or public commentary to the contrary. The fact that there was no exercise of veto rights of the school staff, the fact that no retraction was published and that there was no commentary (perhaps in a community newspaper in which the school resides) supports 0-0-0-Destruct-0, particularly in face of his assertion not focussing on the drug culture in the school at the time, but particularly that there was an apathy towards such behavior. Surely apathy is best demonstrated by an authorative bodies neglect to exercise an overriding power?

I feel there are several angles to dispute this materials inclusion, all of which either do not proscribe the material or do so weakly and fall under WP:IGNORE insomuch as it is of interest to build some information about the schools history and attitudes into an article which stands to become exempli gratia of how not to write a boring school stub which secures inclusion in Wikipedia by defending itself to default by those who (wrongly) believe that all schools are inherrantly notable. I think all schools should strive to show something, and a historical ideaology is as good a thing as any, to set themselves apart from at least the set of every school to ever exist anywhere. It serves the spirit of WP:IGNORE to not require AAP newswire coverage citation of every nuance of a school if we can improve Wikipedia by including the information. Also, if reference material in it's support is not ironclad, do we not as intelligent people have the editorial nouse to point this out? Consider "information from the school newspaper pointed in the late 1970s to the school staff bodies apathy towards drug use in the school, a self proof in that the school's staff body did not veto such articles" as opposed to what it seems is being assumed as the protoype section of "throughout the schools history people took drugs in the school". If we feel it's contentious, or if we are commenting on a shade of the schools history, we should surely be able to come to agreement on how gently to emphasise the issue.

The copyright status of the scans is a complete red herring and I think a lot more has been made of it than would be neccessary in ten thousand other occasions. It may be possible that it's a misguided grabbing at straws to discredit the source in the face of a loosing battle on it's relavence. •Elomis• 01:09, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

"May be designed to drag the discussion into a terrified paranoia of infringement but I assume just patent nonsense."

Thanks. That's a real concern, and if these student papers had been written a few years later, those students would own the copyright. To dismiss the concern as nonsense and to suggest that it was being used deceptively is inappropriate and disrespectful. Additionally, it's poor judgment to assume anything about the nature of editorial oversight in high school student newspapers; I have a background in student journalism, and I can tell you from my research into the matter that high school papers use a variety of structures, and so it is difficult to know who approved something, or if anyone approved it at all. Whereas some papers are rigidly governed by the faculty, others just print whatever anyone wants to put in, although such practice has led to its own demise in recent years because, well, people get offended by anything now.--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 04:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Sure, but they weren't, and they don't. If Beethoven were still alive he'd own the copyright to the Sonata in E Major. But he's not, and it's public domain. There has been no assertion anywhere in any of the comments that the material consititutes a copyright infringement under a section or sections of legislation or at common law, just foot stomping that it may consitute an infringement. I think it'd be highly productive to set that entire argument aside until it can be appropriately substantiated (even a little bit), I'm sorry it looks like I assumed bad faith but there is little evidence of genuine concern for intellectual property rights. With regard to my assertion about editorial oversight in high school student newspapers, it's poor judgement to assume I was making any claims on it. I have no idea about editorial process in school newspapers, and to state that I had experience in the area would be trying to make assertions based of my own personal experience which would be inappropriate in a debate which has so heavily insisted to date on rock solid references and citations. One thing I do know for sure however is that regardless of what level of interraction staff have in a student newspaper, they do have a right of veto. They may agree or disagree or interfere or stand clear to a range of extents in a range of schools but a school will not permit an issue of a newspaper if it is entirely inappropriate and false (save for obvious satirical or parody reasons). It's not about approval, it's about absence of disapproval and considering 0-0-0-Destruct-0's position is that the staff were apathetic to the culture, I think it's astoundingly accurate, don't you? •Elomis• 21:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• The point about copyright is important, and isn't "foot stomping". Per policy and legally, we can't link to sites which violate copyright. I'm sorry you don't feel that issue is important, but the issue is, consensually across Wikipedia, felt to be important enough to mention in policy and guidance. Since the scans provided are only partial, not wholly complete, it's impossible to ascertain whether copyright notices were on the papers present. It's not unreasonable to question this fact, given the person responsible for the uploading of the papers appears to be the same person who is pushing for material to be included based upon those scans. I actually have no problem with the issues being cited without linking to the scans, as long as the papers themselves are used in a manner in keeping with our other policies. Hiding Talk 21:41, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

The scans are indeed complete. If you indicate what gives the impression they're not, I can probably fix it by re-scanning. Since "partial scans" is at least not demonstrable, I changed the phrase in the external links section to "Scans of issues of the Foreword..." since the more generic statement isn't wrong in any case. Anyone greatly desiring to verify these documents has options: 1) view the microfilm at the University of Pittsburgh; 2) view the hard copies at the University of California, Berkeley; 3) arrange an interlibrary loan from either institution. Libraries don't normally circulate periodicals of this type, but they will make copies for you if you submit the request via a research library, which doesn't necessarily have to be in the U.S. You can also ask the librarian in advance how many pages are in the complete document so that you can formulate your request properly. You can then compare that page count to the documents online at UCB. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 07:42, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm across the water and have no research library affiliation, so I stand no chance of getting them. Maybe someone in the US could, I'll ask about, we have verification teams. What's causing a problem for me is that there are words missing off of the bottom of pages, and also that the pages are cut in half. I'd dispute calling them complete scans, which indicates they are whole, although I have no objection to representing them as scans. As it stands, though, on some of the scans there are certainly pieces of information missing. Hiding Talk 11:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You don't have to initiate an interlibrary loan from within the U.S.. Many public libraries in the U.S. have a mechanism via which you can borrow materials from another library. Perhaps a public library where you are can arrange an interlibrary loan via a public library in the U.S.. You can also contact UC Berkeley or University of Pittsburgh, as they may deal with international scholars directly, case by case. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I can redo the scans, if necessary. Each page was folded in half, then I scanned top and bottom into two separate pages of the pdf file. It's possible that text lying on the fold is chopped in half between the two pages, but nothing should be left out. I ensured that cited text didn't get lost. If it's better to scan top and bottom without folding, I can do that, but the resulting overlap around the fold reproduced for each page will also be a little disorienting. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I never for a moment said that copyright isn't important, just that it's wholly inapplicable here. It may be that the vast differences in US copyright law and the rest of the world's copyright law are making me argue apples to your oranges and I don't want to look like an ass by saying "no it isn't" to your "yes it is" repeatedly when we are probably both right in our respective territories. What particularly part of US copyright is the material alleged to violate? •Elomis• 21:55, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm not sure what point it is you are missing, but we don't link to sites which violate copyright. There are no apples and oranges implied in that statement. If you could indicate you accept that is a policy, then I'm not sure where our argument is. Currently, you seem to be indicating that we can link to sites which violate copyright. Once we establish that we all agree with policy, we can perhaps move the copyright discussion further. The point is not wholly inapplicable here. If the scans violate copyright, they should not be linked to. I'm not sure why that should be inapplicable when the scans are currently linked to, and I'm not sure how better to clarify any misreading of this point you have. As to what you said, you wrote "The copyright status of the scans is a complete red herring", which indicates to me you see it as unimportant. I apologise for that misreading. Hiding Talk 11:07, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, "red herring" indicates great importance. In any case, I considered the copyright issue the first priority, but rather than repeat everything here, please see the section on my talk page entitled "ChrisGriswold's allegation of copyright infringement." 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Recent edits

I've edited the recent edit by User:0-0-0-Destruct-0 to better conform to policies. The statements "Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer" and "Today, the school administration represents the paper" have been edited to conform with our guidance on avoiding avoiding statements that will date quickly. Basically this entails adding a link to a page which will allow statements to be amended as events change. The latter statement was also edited to avoid making a claim not substantiated by the source, along with the earlier statement "During the 1970's the school considered the Foreword to be". These statements reference mottos the newspaper carried, and I think it's far simpler to describe them as mottos and not make unreferenced claims about who determined or endorsed the mottos, nor add any weight as to how these statements were considered other than as mottos. It appears mottos have a long tradition in American newspapers,[5] so it's best to keep the information pegged to what can be verifiably sourced.

I've amended the statement Faculty oversees the professionally styled newspaper's production, ensuring that "...the work focuses on students gathering accurate information and interviews from official sources..." to better reflect the practise as demonstrated on the page referenced. Since the page openly states "Peer editing and discussion on story angles, approaches to ethical decisions, and coherent order are topics presented by students and teacher. The setting is informal and students are given much individualized attention and opportunities for revision before the final product or publication." I think it is a stretch to describe it as "Faculty oversees". I'm not American so I'm not sure of the exact usage of the word Faculty, but it doesn't strike me as appropriate to use it to describe a process involving one teacher. I also think it's important to reflect that the paper is produced for a student audience per the quote provided and also "The practical need for using good grammar, correct punctuation and spelling are visibly understood when writing for a critical high school audience."[6] I removed a number of references relating to Maxine Lapiduss which don't reference Foreword and therefore aren't substantiating the claim and are thus extraneous, and removed one for Gary Graff likewise.

I also edited the section regarding the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's Crown Newspaper awards. I removed the ref to the year 1986, since this appears to be contradicted by the statement " Gold Crown Awards were first presented in 1982 and Silver Crown Awards were added in 1984."[7] I also edited the text to avoid factualising an assertion made by a primary source, namely a quote regarding the awards by the university website, and also rewrote the text to better describe what was actually achieved in the awards. I also moved the external link to the scanned copies of the Foreword to the external links section. Hiding Talk 22:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

After Hiding's edits, I think this section by Destruct is a great addition. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 22:17, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Good grief, it appears after all the discussion, some of it heated, we appear to be making real headway. High fives all round. •Elomis• 21:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

edits after Hiding's edits

Hiding wrote "currently Taylor Allderdice appears to be one of fewer than sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on microfilm in a major library."

The citation attests the fact, so the phrase "appears to be" needlessly mitigates. It would be as dilatory to alter the first line of the article, for example, to "Taylor Allderdice High School appears to be a public school located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania." More dilatory, perhaps, since the first line's claim is not even sourced.

Furthermore, it would be unreasonable to believe more schools held the attested distinction when the OCLC record was created on August 30, 1994 than currently do. But instead of writing, "currently Taylor Allderdice was and is ..." I have changed it to the more succinct "currently Taylor Allderdice remains...".

• Rewrote to attribute the citation in the text. I have no expertise here, so I can't know that there doesn't exist records which don't "participate in the OCLC global cooperative." Let's cite the facts as they stand, and this fact is according to a WorldCat search and not a fact as is. It's always best to attribute views accordingly. Hiding Talk 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiding replaced the phrase "Faculty oversees..." with "The paper is produced as part of the English department's journalism courses, and aims to instruct students in the subject through the..."

The subject of the second clause is "The paper," leading to the fuzzy notion that "The paper aims to instruct." One might prefer "teachers instruct," but the school newspaper involves oversight as to finances, perhaps liaisoning with the community for printing and distribution, but certainly also administrators who exercise the veto power Elomis refers to above. The term "faculty," which implies teachers plus all professional educators who do more than teach, fits the bill more incisively, which then disallows the verb "instruct," making "oversee" the better choice. The verb "aims to" is needlessly dilatory since "to instruct" entails the notion "to aim to instruct." In addition, I eliminate the passive voice and the redundant "in the subject," since there's no difference, for example, between instructing someone in math and instructing someone in the subject of math. I rewrote this sentence as "Faculty oversee students who produce the paper in conjunction with the English department's journalism courses, which teach the..."

The reference does not support the claim "The paper's editorial control is achieved through '(p)eer editing and discussion on story angles ... presented by students and teacher.'"

The full sentence in the reference reads "Peer editing and discussion on story angles, approaches to ethical decisions, and coherent order are topics presented by students and teacher," which says nothing about editorial control. It is unreasonable to believe that editorial control ultimately rests anywhere but with the overseeing faculty. Because this is common sense and follows automatically from the previous statement that "faculty oversee," I eliminated the sentence entirely.

• I'm taking the point on board here, but we do have a quandary. We don't have any cites to back your view that faculty oversees the students. All we have from the source provided is the sentence that was quoted. If I'm taking that quite too far, then, by your own admission, there is no sourcing at all to allow that faculty oversees the paper. I think at best we are left with is the fact that "through the courses offered by the English dept. a paper is produced." Precisely because the term faculty implies more than we can ascertain, we should be very careful in how we describe this practise, as it may in the future lead to people ascribing views published in the paper to people who may not endorse those views beyond a manner of allowing students to express themselves. Hiding Talk 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It is a truism that courses that are taught are taught by teachers. All teachers are members of the faculty, by definition, at least in the U.S.. It's also a truism that teachers oversee students. It is therefore correct to say "teachers oversee students" just as it is correct to say "faculty oversee students." "Faculty," however is the more cautious choice because perusal of the papers several of the footnotes document reveals the paper's extended involvement with other issues and school personnel, such as revenues and expenditures. No claims in the article deal with things like that directly, but since we have a clear reason to choose "faculty" over "teachers" and both choices are correct, we should prefer the safer choice, "faculty." The option you offer is to imply that no human agency is involved in the instructing of students, which is unnecessarily fuzzy, and not a safer choice because it is misleading: one might conclude that the Foreword is some sort of rogue operation entirely free of oversight. Likewise, we have the same choice with "oversee" and "instruct": because the faculty's relation to the students in this case is somewhat more general than "instruct" allows, we should prefer the other correct term, "oversee." 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

"Faculty overee" thus does not imply more than we can ascertain, and neither is it misleading; it is le mot juste, so to speak. Furthermore, overseeing is not endorsing, and the two ideas can't reasonably be equated, so your concern that people will consider overseers endorsers does not concern reasonable people. As you point out, we can't equate Rupert Murdoch's views with those of the writers he employs. The notion of oversight, entailed by the student-faculty relationship, is safe to keep, and better than your implying an utter disconnection of students' school-endorsed activites from the faculty's oversight. One would have to properly source nuch a notable disconnection. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiding's point about not factualizing Columbia University's self-promotion is well-taken, and I eliminated their statement about themselves entirely. To capture succinctly the prestige of being recognized by that institution, I indicated that they also award the Pulitzer Prize. The awards' inception dates speak to their rarity, so I included that. The reference does not support the idea of "runners up," but rather multiple awards. Activating the prose and Americanizing "recognise," as all institutions involved are American, I rewrote as: "The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, which also awards the Pulitzer Prize, has recognized the paper and members of staff with its Crown Newspaper awards, since the awards' inception in the early 1980's. Staff achieved Gold Circle awards 1989, and 1990, and the paper itself a Silver Crown award in 1991."

• I think we should be careful what we are trying to do with the Pulitzer Prize detail. I'm not sure we aren't aggrandizing the Crown awards in association. I appreciate you're trying to make the point that these awards are of some note, but I don't think they'd be bracketed with Pulitzer Prizes. I'd also note that Columbia administers the awards, the prizes are determined by jury. (I know I'm nitpicking, but this NPOV stuff is a tight line.) Do you have access to a library of American newspapers to which you can source a quote about these awards? I only have access to British papers, I doubt they carry them. I would feel more comfortable with a newspaper quote. What might be better is if we create an article on the awards themselves. I'm looking at the website and I note the awards are given by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association, so I think we're better removing the bits about Columbia University, which does seem to be moving into peacock or weasel word territory. Hiding Talk 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I changed this to: "The Columbia Scholastic Press Association at Columbia University has recognized the paper and members of staff with its Crown Newspaper awards--the highest recognition it gives to a student print or online medium for overall excellence[8]--since the awards' inception in the early 1980's." On their web page, CSPA designates it their highest recognition and what they recognize. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiding wrote "Today, the paper is published with the motto "The student newspaper of Taylor Allderdice High School," but the reference provided does not support the fact. The link is to the web site whose corporate author is Taylor Allderdice High School, the issue pictured there is from February 2005, and we don't know what the paper's motto is today. We do know, however, that Taylor Allderdice High School underwrites what it publishes on its web site. That page shows three articles that speak to the way Taylor Allderdice High School wishes to represent itself today in the context of important issues that embed American high schools: fund raising, the school board's politics, and the school's drug policy. No justification was provided for eliminating the correctly documented information that sheds light on the school's particularity, so I restored the sourced facts.

Hiding introduced the same error when he wrote "During the 1970's the paper carried the motto 'Serving Allderdice High School and the community'" in the paragraph above that: the reference is to The Allderdice 51, which was published by the corporate author Taylor Allderdice High School in 1980 bearing no copyright notice or reservation of rights of any kind. From the reference provided, which Hiding inadvertently broke (note the erroneous note #8), but which I have restored, we don't know what the motto was, nor why the motto wouldn't be merely trivia. We do know, however, that Taylor Allderdice High School underwrites what it publishes under its corporate authorship, and it chose to represent its school newspaper to be "Serving Allderdice High School and the community" as it printed on page 74 of its publication The Allderdice 51. I corrected these errors. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 07:27, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• These changes I disagree with on a POV basis. It's your assertion that the placing of that issue above any other on the website is "using it on the school's web site to document". I don't think we can ascribe that level of detail to the fact that that particular issue was used. It may be that that issue was the current issue at the time the site was built, so I think we have to avoid weasel words in this instance and describe the facts as they are. I'd like a citation to attest to the fact that the school acted as corporate author, rather than as a printing press for the English department. If we can't assert that the paper had a motto, which is a line of text under the headline, then I don't think we can source that "Taylor Allderdice High School underwrites what it publishes under its corporate authorship", given that, as noted, the paper was published "bearing no copyright notice or reservation of rights of any kind" and so no corporate authorship can be ascribed. I think we should avoid stating that "the school administration represents the paper as" anything until we can actually ascribe an endorsement of the paper's views to the school administration. I'm also at a loss to understand what The Allderdice 51 is referring to in the 8th footnote, could you clarify whether it is a year book or a prospectus for me so we can better quantify the information sourced. If it is published with corporate authorship, it would carry corporate ownership of the material, and a copyright notice would attest to this ownership. I think we have to examine if the publishing of these papers on the school website is intended as an example of the paper, or as an endorsement of the views. Since either argument can have equal weight, I don't think we should assert one opinion over the other, but rather describe the facts as they are. I've removed the text describing the "school as considering the paper as". As you note above, the usage of it to denote that this occurred in the 1970s is erroneous given the 1980 publication date. Once the nature of the Allerdice:51 is established we can best determine what we are describing. Hiding Talk 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

You wrote "These changes I disagree with on a POV basis," but you specify no POV basis for your alteration. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The article shouldn’t necessarily aim to document the ‘’Foreword’’ as a standalone project disconnected from faculty or administration, but should document, when we have sources, how the paper has and does, generally speaking, fit into the school’s environment, policies, etc. In the context of the web site (and the web site is ‘’not’’ an issue of the ‘’Foreword’’), the scan of the paper documents an aspect of the way the school represents itself. What’s more, not all schools choose to use their newspaper this way, so it’s notable that Taylor Allderdice does. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The school’s web site results from intentional choices it makes as to how it represents itself. The school’s administration is responsible for that public face, particularly the persistent status of its web site. To attribute, as you do, "maybe’s" and chance to its public self-representations would require documentating such an abdication of responsibility. Otherwise, we should go with the facts as they are: the school--its authorities, its administration--intends to represent itself publically the way it persistently represents itself publically, no more no less. It makes no disclaimer or effort to distance itself from the page of the ‘’Foreword’’ it publishes on the web site, so concluding otherwise than that it has chosen to represent itself via that page (and its other pages) isn’t justified by the sources. The paper isn’t a standalone project disconnected from the school. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You wrote "an issue placed on the school's official website documents...", but again you misleadingly substitute a passive construction for human agency. Such a practice, thematic for you, is not safer or more authoritative, but imprecise and even obfuscatory, no matter how widespread you may find it--in bureaucratese for example. Please consider the advantages of writing and thinking infused with active prose, for example, for News style. One might have said "the school places on its official website an issue that documents..." but I rewrote as "the school represents the paper as ‘The student newspaper of Taylor Allderdice High School,’[20] using it on the school's web site to document its fund raising efforts...", which is the same as what you wrote but includes the human agency. I removed the word "administration," not just as a gesture to what I think you'll be more comfortable with, but because, although "admnistration" is correct, I think in this case there’s no particular reason to disinclude the faculty, staff, and students. If greater caution is warranted, "administration" should be put back since the members of the admnistration are ultimately responsible for the web site. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You asked for "a citation to attest to the fact that the school acted as corporate author...." I provided one on page 1 of ‘’The Allderdice 51’’ which reads: "The Allderdice 1980/ Taylor Allderdice High School/ Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania/ Volume LI." As title pages normally do, that title page lists the title, corporate author (or author-publisher, if you like), and location of publication. In addition, searching on title="Allderdice" and author="Taylor Allderdice High School" at WorldCat yields record #2 as the 1960 volume of The Allderdice:

Title:  	The Allderdice.
Corp Author(s): 	Taylor Allderdice High School (Pittsburgh, Pa.) 
Publication: 	Pittsburgh, Pa. : Taylor Allderdice High School
Year: 	1900s-
Description: 	v. :; ill. ;; 28 cm.
Language: 	English

Note that the University of Pittsburgh also lists the corporate author of the Foreword as "Taylor Allderdice High School." Go to pittcat.pitt.edu > Search > Search by = author and search for Taylor Allderdice High School. The first record retrieved shows the author categorized as "corporate name" and the record itself lists Taylor Allderdice High School as the author. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

You claim "the usage of it to denote that this occurred in the 1970s is erroneous given the 1980 publication date," but you are incorrect. The Allderdice 51, published in 1980, is devoted primarily to events from 1979 and 1980. Page 75 (currently page 8 of the pdf) shows scans from a 1979 edition of the Foreword and the principal's letter on page 27 (currently page 3 of the pdf) is addressed to the "Class of '80", which was the senior class of the 1979-1980 academic year. Thus The Allderdice 51 evinces things the school considered in 1979 as well as 1980, so the phrase "During the 1970's" is correct. To be precise, the facts support the phrase "During the 1970's and 1980's," which isn't misleading because administration's and faculty's attitudes normally evolve gradually, and we have no reason to believe otherwise in this case. I made the judgment call to limit the phrase to the 1970's for various reasons. Removing the time limitation entirely is unjustified because it excises sourced facts. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Publication details

Okay, I'm looking at [9] and I've discovered the table which lists the paper's staff. We've got an advisor listed at the end, and other roles on the paper also listed. Now you have more hands on knowledge than me, so maybe you can clarify out of that list who is a student and who is a teacher. We've got Gayle Zoffer, Leslie Van Buskirk, Gary Graff (student), Steve Stein, Amy Lichter (student) and so on and so forth. Now I'm going to stick my neck out and state that I'd be prepared to state this backs the website's detailing of the paper as published through peer editing between a teacher and the students, with Richard Wells, described as advisor, being the teacher, and the rest of the paper's staff being students. I'd also note the paper does not list itself or affiliate itself with the school board in this masthead, nor is the school itself asserting corporate ownership. I'd also note this issue is being cited as showing "Aaron Zitner, was a finalist in the American Newspaper Publishers Association's annual competition,[15] and the paper received a first place rating in Columbia University's annual Scholastic Press contest". I'm having trouble finding that in the scans. A pointer would be appreciated. Hiding Talk 10:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Richard Wells is indeed one of the overseeing members of the faculty. His photograph is on page 48 of The Allderdice 51 (currently page 5 of the pdf). Everyone else is a student. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

On page 1 of the pdf file for the Foreword 102:4, which is the top half of page 1, under the mast head it says "News Briefs" and under that it says "Honors go to TA students." In that article's first paragraph (immediately to the left of the photograph of Deb E. Brown) its last sentence reads: "Aaron Zitner, a junior at Taylor Allderdice was a finalist in the news category of this competition...". I must say, I don't understand the difficulty, even impossibility, people are reporting regarding the legibility of the scans. I just downloaded 102:4 and loaded it into Adobe Reader, did a "Fit Width" which resulted in 161% magnification and all the text is perfectly readable. It's not the most pleasant reading experience, but quite on a par with the experience I've had reading newspapers on microfilm. My laptop was mediocre when I bought it six years ago so there's nothing special about my 1024x768 screen. Another option is to print out a desired page since the printouts look better than a (my) computer screen, though not the quality of the original. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 05:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Backwards and forwards

I answered many of your points you raise here inline above, sometimes way above. I'm only mentioning this to ensure you've noticed them all, perhaps searching by the date stamp. I realize what a chore it is to go back and attend to each item inline, in its context due to the editing mechanism we have, and see the advantage of simply adding to the bottom of the discussion page, but would like to note my concern that important things go out of attention, for example the copyright issue, legibility issue, etc.. You provide a summary here but not addressing with specificity the ways I answered you does slow things down. I agree that we don't want to simply contradict each other, and I believe we're progressing. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

We're going backwards and forwards here and it's getting us nowhere. You don't seem to be addressing my main point, which is this. You are ascribing motive to circumstances without providing evidence to support that motive. Placing the paper on a website does not mean the school is "using it on the school's web site to document its fund raising efforts..." It could just as easily be "using it on the school's web site to document the fact that it publishes a school paper". Since we both are amenable to the phrasing "the school places on its official website an issue that documents...", I would suggest that we use that wording in the paper, since it ascribes no motive. I don't find the accusation that I am being obfuscatory here has any merit. I am merely attempting to present the sources in a neutral manner. That means we do not editorialise, something your edits are attempting to do. Unfortunately, it appears nobody else is joining the debate so far, and unless we can expand the debating pool we are doomed to keep haggling this out between ourselves.

You say I'm "ascribing motive to circumstances without providing evidence to support that motive." On the contrary, I have provided evidence: out of all the thousands of pages in eighty years of the Foreword that it might have selected, the school selected that particular single page to put on its web site via which it represents itself to the world. This intentional act bears witness to more than a mere documenting of the fact that it publishes a school paper. If a section of the WP article documented the school's web site, then perhaps the mere reporting of the web site's content would be appropriate. The section of the WP article in question, however, documents the ways the Foreword fits into the institution, its policies and environment, not the bare existence of the paper, so it's worth noting how the school uses its paper. Your proposed alternate phrasing would lose this bit of information, and I'm not amenable to it. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I also asked what the publication The Allerdice is, and I haven't as yet had any response as to what it actually is. Unless I can ascertain what sort of a publication it is, I'm of the opinion that it should likely be struck from the article, since we can't as yet ascertain it's status.

I posted the OCLC record of a volume of The Allderdice above. The school publishes a volume of The Allderdice each year, for the most part, as the 1980 date of volume 51 and the school's founding in 1927 evince. Volume 51 is a hardback book of 240 pages with a few pages of color photographs, lots of black and white photographs, and text. It mostly documents various goings on at the school during the academic year 1979-1980. As its title page and the OCLC record indicate, the author of this book is "Taylor Allderdice High School." 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

As to the fact that I 'claim "the usage of it to denote that this occurred in the 1970s is erroneous given the 1980 publication date," but you are incorrect.' I'm confused then. You told me I couldn't use the source to document the paper's motto during the 1970s, but now you claim it's fine to use the same source to describe the paper in the 1970s. You still haven't addressed the issue of the paper's motto either. You seem to reject the idea that the phrase underneath the paper's name is a motto, a fact well established as far as I can see in American newspaper history, and so I fail to understand on what basis you reject the term, and the use of one by the Foreword.

I don't know what I said to give the impression that I reject the phrase is a motto. It's a motto. We need to maintain the distinction between The Allderdice and the Foreword, which I address below. The front page image of the Foreword reproduced on page 74 of The Allderdice 51 (currently page 8 of the pdf) is not itself the Foreword. So from The Allderdice alone, I said, "we don't know what the motto was, nor why the motto wouldn't be merely trivia." I maintain the concern about a trivial citation when using The Allderdice as a source for something printed in the Foreword. Perhaps, however, the reproduced image in The Allderdice could source the motto of the Foreword but why not, in that case, simply use the Foreword itself as a source for its own motto? I went on to say--and this is not trivia--that the corporate author's, Taylor Allderdice High School's, choice to select this particular page of the Foreword to reproduce on page 74 of its publication The Allderdice indicates it endorses the page of the Foreword it chose to reproduce, and thus underwrites the motto the Foreword declares. The Allderdice bears differently toward the motto than the Foreword. This endorsement, being in the 1980 volume of The Allderdice, documents the school's view of its own newspaper in 1979 and 1980, which justifies writing "During the 1970's, the school considered the Foreword to be 'Serving Allderdice High School and the community'." To be very narrow and precise, as I said above, it also justifies writing "During the 1970's and 1980's, the school considered the Foreword, etc.", but limiting it to the 1970's is better because that jibes with issues of the Foreword referred to in other footnotes. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

And finally, where do I think POV comes in. YOu write "What’s more, not all schools choose to use their newspaper this way, so it’s notable that Taylor Allderdice does." That's a point of view. Cite a paper which makes that point and I'll leave it all alone. Until then, it's merely your point of view and you are pushing it in the article. It's that simple. Here's another one: "The school’s web site results from intentional choices it makes as to how it represents itself." Fine, up until the point you use that to justify the line "using it on the school's web site to document its fund raising efforts..." No source, so at the moment it's merely your point of view that that is what occurred. You write "the school--its authorities, its administration--intends to represent itself publically the way it persistently represents itself publically, no more no less." Exactly my point. Your point is that you can aver a motive or an intention which is not actually representative pof the published sources. This source, The Allerdice, reprints a page of the Foreword. From that you make a deductive leap to claim that is considering 'the Foreword to be "Serving Allderdice High School and the community'. You've got no quote to that effect, no newspaper article averring that statement. You're basing it on the fact it published it in some unquantifiable piece which hasn't as yet been determined as being published for the actual public. Again, we've got this troublesome line, "Faculty oversee students who produce the paper in conjunction with..." Why one earth do we need to have the phrase faculty in there? Do we need to insert the term "Faculty oversee" into every U.S. school article in which school activities are described? Should we describe student playing in the yard as overseen by Faculty? Or are we pushing an interpretation on the reader, are we using this term here in a manner which pushes a point that Faculty endorse the viwes the paper publishes? Would we allow that in the Columbine massacre? Faculty oversaw a massacre? I don't think so somehow. Let's make sure we don't give undue weight to things where we don't need to. I think you need to perhaps consider the possibility that the fact that you were an eyewitness to a lot of these events may make you less likely to be able to be objective about these things. See Wikipedia:Conflict of interest.

Perhaps my use of the term "notable" in designating the school's way of using its newspaper on its web site implies more than I intended. I merely wish to point out that their way of using the paper adds worthwhile information regarding how the paper fits into the school, generally speaking. We discussed the paper on the school web site in the "ascribing motives to cirumstances" part just above, but I'll add a bit here. You say, in effect, that I should cite a source which makes the point that not all schools choose to use their newspaper this way. You wish me to cite a quality source that says "not all schools choose to use their newspaper this way," lest I fall into a POV. But I could also cite another school's web site that does not use their newspaper that way, and thereby produce a source bearing witness to the claim that "not all schools choose..., etc." You wish to constrain saying to written words only, but to say is to convey meaning via signs. If a source provides citable, persistent, readable signals that bear witness to a fact, the source attests the fact.

We allow inferring in a minimal way. For example, notice how much we need to infer from the source for notable alumnus Howard Fineman, which reads "High School: Taylor Allderdice High School, Pittsburgh, PA (1966)." What does the colon in that line mean, or the four-digit number in parentheses? We also infer Taylor Allderdice High School is a public school located in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, though no reference attests this, and writing "Taylor Allderdice appears to be a high school, etc." as a hedge wouldn't eliminate inference. Likewise from the plain meaning of the school's actions on its web site: it documents (the school board's politics, etc.), therefore it intends to document, and it documents via a highly selective image of its paper. There's no other commentary or context at the web site to conclude more or less than that, aside from the bare existence of the newspaper. That the school chose to document via text contained in an image of a selected page from their newspaper makes such documenting relevant to the section of the WP article on that newspaper. The school's web site is a quality source conveying ways the school represents itself. We don't need a quality source that says the words "the school made this highly selective choice from the Foreword" because we see the choice before our eyes from the cited evidence; the web site bears witness to the choice; the web site itself says the school chose and continues to choose thusly. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

We need the phrase "faculty oversee" because it succinctly captures a little bit more of how the newspaper fits into the school. The phrase and the active form of the sentence (which active prose is always worth striving for because it clarifies thought) adds pertinent information to this particular section of the article. As I said above, the concept that "faculty oversee," entailed by the concepts "course," "teacher," "student," etc. is practically tautological, but in this case it distinguishes this paper from other possibilities of a school newspaper's context. ChrisGriswold earlier raised the possibility, in a strident manner we have since eschewed, that some schools' students produce their newspaper irresponsibly, disconnected from faculty or administration, but the attested facts indicate otherwise here. "Overseeing," furthermore, is not "endorsing," and no reasonable person would equate the two. It is a truism that teachers oversee students, but no reasonable person believes, for example, that teachers endorse students' fighting when it happens under their watch. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I considered the points you raise about conflict of interest some time ago. Please see the section entitled "Conflict of interest in point of view disputes" at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. I had grave concerns regarding conflict of interest on your and ChrisGriswold's part, but this talk page being on a good faith footing since Elomis high-fived us, I see no reason to go down that rabbit hole until something concretely appears to drag us into it. Let's not become chimpanzees flinging pooh. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Do not make implications. Either state your point or don't, but no innuendo, please. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 08:37, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Hiding referred me to the long policy page at Wikipedia:Conflict of interest. When I referred him to the paragraph there entitled "Conflict of interest in point of view disputes" I meant to suggest we embrace those principles because they relate closely to considerations of conflict of interest Hiding raised at the end of his paragraph. I intended, in other words, to endorse these words from Wikipedia:Conflict of interest: "Another case is within disputes relating to non-neutral points of view, where underlying conflicts of interest may aggravate editorial disagreements. In this scenario, it may be easy to make claims about conflict of interest. Don't do it. The existence of conflicts of interest does not mean that assume good faith is forgotten. Quite the opposite. Remember the basic rule: discuss the article, not the editor." 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:09, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

So what are you implying about conflicts of interested with regard to Hiding and me? --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 06:39, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Take the corporate authorship point. You seem to be making the case that Taylor Allerdice therefore owns and endorses the words written based on the fact they are ascribed corporate authorship of the paper itself. That's a huge stretch. I mean, first instance you are completely ignoring the principle of the freedom of the press, something I would imagine the school would be teaching as part of its journalism courses, let alone any other arguments. Your source doesn't allow you to make the case that there is an endorsement of anything, nor that there is an ownership of anything. Just a guess here, but I'd suspect that corporate authorship simply denotes ownership of the title to the paper as opposed to anything else. So I think that describing that authorship in any other way than that is POV. Hiding Talk 15:54, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

We need to keep straight, at each turn, when we are talking about the Foreword and when The Allderdice. Your aim is sometimes ambiguous to me, as perhaps mine is to you. Taylor Allderdice High School is the corporate author of both The Allderdice and the Foreword, which facts the OCLC database and the document's title page attest for the former, and the OCLC database for the latter. I am indeed claiming the corporate author owns and endorses the content (including the words) of The Allderdice; I don't claim that the corporate author endorses the views of the people of the Foreword's bylines, and accept your Rupert Murdoch analogy for the Foreword--to do otherwise would be the huge stretch you refer to. The guess you surmise in your next to last sentence above--from which you proceed to deduce POV--is not an attested fact, so you'd have to follow it up to subtantiate it. My POV is that your speculation wouldn't pan out. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Need outside input

• I don't really see anyway out of this dispute without widening the pool of contributors then. You are taking the point that we can ascribe motive to the displaying of one page of a school newspaper over another. I believe this is speculation on your part. You believe that that is speculation on my part. Since you can't ascribe a motive in a concrete source, I believe the text should be amended to reflect the lack of sourcing. I had hoped we could agree a compromise, but that hope appears to have faded. I throw the page over to other contributors in the hope a consensus will form. Hiding Talk 10:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I took the time to address all your concerns in a detailed manner. The summary line may be limited, but you did not answer with any specificity on the talk page the points I brought up. I'm happy to have outside editors weigh in with their opinions. You say you're willing to go with the facts until then. It is a fact that the school produces the school paper and the faculty oversee the students. If you can support otherwise please do, but until then your contradictory claim is original research, concluding surprising results with no factual basis: a school whose faculty doesn't oversee its students would be exceptional. As there's is no reason to presume that, the facts should remain pending discussion. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

You made other alterations without explanation, such as removing the fact that Allderdice was and is, i.e., remains, one of few schools to have its newspaper archived. I explained in detail why the facts attest this, but you eliminated the information without explaining. You replaced "archival distinction" with archiving without explanation, but the distinction is clearly documented in the previous paragraph in the article. You take into account my answer to you above when you rewrote "Today, the paper carries the motto...," and you provide no basis for this statement. You refer to "an issue displayed on the school's web site," but that is incorrect: the school's web site displays a single page, not an issue. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Other issues which need addressing is the status of The Allerdice, which from descriptions above appears to me to be a yearbook. I'd like to see discussion as to whether the inclusion of something in a yearbook indicates that the school itself, being the whole of the school, faculty, board and so forth, endorse every word and decision made in the work to the point we can assert such within the article.

It is a fact that authors endorse their publications and their contents. You wish to claim The Allderdice an exception, but since this source is a published book clearly stating its author, your claim is original research that doesn't even follow from the available facts. In the absence of any basis for concluding that this author does not endorse its publication and its contents, this fact should remain pending discussion of your ambitious claim. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'd also like to see discussion of whether the fact that a publication reproduces an image of the school newspaper indicates it endorses the motto of the newspaper, reproduced as part of said image. I think we're again ascribing opinions that aren't inherently ascribable to the source without direct quotation.

• I'd further like to see discussion as to whether corporate authorship of a publication in the sense of a school newspaper indicates that the school endorses every word contained therein, or whether it is a shorthand term used to describe the author when it is impossible to list every author of every word, and as such indicates merely ownership of the title and in no way carries an endorsement of every word published.

As expressed more than once above with regard to the Rupert Murdoch analogy, my opinion is that we can't assume a newspaper's corporate author endorses every word in its paper. I don't see the need to discuss such a well understood situation. In our case, the Foreword's corporate author doesn't necessarily endorse what appears under its writers' bylines. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:11, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm quite happy to compromise on all disputed areas, and simply describe the facts. It is a fact that the school display a certain page of the newspaper on their website. It is a fact that The Allerdice reproduced a page of the newspaper. It is currently factually unclear what sort of a publication The Allerdice is, and therefore I believe nothing can actually be made of this reproduction. It is a fact Taylor Allerdice High School is listed as corporate author of many of these works, but any further information drawn from the meaning of that term is an implication, not a fact. It is a fact that the paper was printed with certain mottos. We have yet to source direct quotations to attest to the fact that these were endorsed by anybody other than those directly involved in the production of the paper, or that these mottos imply anything other than serving as mottos. I believe there are many subtle interpretations that can be placed on these facts, and that we should simply describe the facts as is, where appropriate. Appreciate all thoughts. Hiding Talk 11:49, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

The Allderdice 51 is a public domain document published by the corporate author named on its title page, Taylor Allderdice High School. The author endorses content it publishes, and if it selected content from the school newspaper to publish, then it endorses that content, which does not imply or disprove it endorses any other particular content of the newspaper. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Revert war

Yes, it is a fact that the Faculty oversee the pupils. What we'll do then is move that fact up to the introduction of the article then, so that we write Taylor Allderdice High School is a public school where faculty oversee staff. If it ain't needed there, then it ain't needed here. The point is already made by the section detailing how the paper is produced. I did not remove any assertion that the paper is archived by Worldcat. I simply amended the assertion to support the facts. You want to argue over the words "is" and "remains", feel free. "Is" describes a fact, "remains" describes an assertion, that "it continues to be". You want to show that it continues to be, you use something other than a database search. As of now I'm pulling the database search and the assertions made using it because it is original research. You are interpreting a primary source. I removed the word distinction in line with WP:PEACOCK. Until then, stick to the facts. I'm removing the assertions made using The Allerdice as a source. I don't consider that the source, a year book, is either reliable or supports the assertion made. You want to assert that the school considered the Foreword to be "Serving Allderdice High School and the community," you get me a direct quote to that effect. If we want to describe the page displayed on the website as a page, fine with me, but if you want to state it represents anything over than a page being displayed on a website, you go out and cite it. Until then, cease adding your own assertions or novel interpretations to the article. You want to change the article, you discuss your changes here and build a consensus to do so. You want to keep reverting the article, I'll point you to WP:3RR. Happy editing. Hiding Talk 12:08, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Okay, I've edited again per the policies outlined. If you want the phrase Faculty oversee then I'll leave that in, but I've added the term informal setting, supported by [10] which states the "setting is informal". Let's not allow people to infer that the setting is anything but informal, if that is how it is described in the one source we can reliably source on the paper's production. Hiding Talk 12:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Your alteration smartly adds information. My aim here, as I've said, has been to succinctly distinguish this paper from some rogue operation of the students irresponsibly distributed via mimeograph or photocopy, etc.. ChrisGriswold raised the possibility of such ambiguity earlier. Note that adding it to the top of the article, as you hypothetically suggest, wouldn't add information, but in the context of the Foreword it does. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to ask that we ratchet down the rhetoric. Having painstakingly explained the reasoning behind each word or phrase you disagreed with, I understand how tedious it is to extend such consideration. In your last two rounds, however, you haven't taken up issues with specificity, and have mostly just declared your correctness and that we should go with the facts when clearly we're disagreeing over what properly constitutes the facts. Note how your decision to consider, yet again, the "faculty oversee" issue led to a breakthrough. I'm happy to have a consensus or mediation settle matters, but obviously that will require patience. In the meantime, I request we apply such patience to this discussion since it would be best, and perhaps more expedient, if we could solve our problems ourselves. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 19:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• You want patience, then with respect demonstrate some. Note the last time I disputed your edits I chose not to revert but tried to engage. It would be nice were you to demonstrate similar patience. Rather than simply reverting, you should attempt to engage on the issue. You have failed at all points to consider any compromise beyond your own words, and refuse to concede even the possibility that you are interpreting the fact that a page has been placed on a website. Since you will not discuss any matters without disrupting the page, I'm going to take this matter to my fellow administrators and ultimately arbitration. I am saddened by this outcome, but see no other possibility. Hiding Talk 19:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I've pointed out a couple of times that I answer your objections item by item in great detail, only reverting things to which you make no specific answer and provide no justification. Note how you never respond inline to my comments, instead creating new paragraphs of general response. In the case of the status of The Allderdice 51 I reverted your changes because you're categorically rejecting a guality source of clear corporate authorship without providing any grounds to do so. In that case, the source should be allowed until there is a clear reason to believe it might not be allowed, and I indicated my agreement that mediation was a good idea because I'd be happy to abide by a decision against the source. In the spirit of compromise, however, I'll agree to hold the source in abeyance for now because this is our most contentious issue. Our remaining issues regard niceties of expression that we eventually agree on when we discuss them with specificity. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:14, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Original research and interpretation

Quite simply, you assert in the article that "a search of WorldCat reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on microfilm in a major library."

This is bad interpretation. You've only shown that "fewer than sixty high schools in the world are known to have...", not that "fewer than sixty high schools in the world have..." It's based on a false premise - that WorldCat is some kind of "grand global catalogue", which it isn't; it doesn't claim to be comprehensive, just large.

Looking in further detail, you've also demonstrated it only for cases where the originating body is called (and catalogued as) "XYZ High School", and have made no attempt to figure out how many of the 56 hits are actually in "major libraries" rather than, say, a microfiche copy acquired by the local public library. It doesn't apply in cases where the journal is catalogued with the school as an author rather than a corporate author (technically wrong, but does happen, and if there's one thing you won't get in WorldCat it'll be consistent cataloguing). So it's not even automatically a comprehensive or accurate listing of what you intended to be looking for... As to everything else, see above. Hiding Talk 19:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

The WorldCat database is an excellent source and about the best thing going of its type. However, to make the sentence more specific to WorldCat's status I changed the phrase to "a search of WorldCat reveals that as of 2006 Taylor Allderdice remains one of fewer than sixty high schools in the world to have its newspaper archived on microfilm in a library participating in the OCLC global cooperative." I think it would be hasty to lose such interesting information regarding the paper, and note your previous agreement as you shaped the sentence yourself into one you believed more fitting. The paper's being archived thus, according to this excellent source, is distinctive so the "archival distinction" referred to isn't a peacock word but a good transition from what was shown in the preceding paragraph. Unlike the association with the Pulitzer Prize, which you previously considered to merely "seem to be moving into peacock or weasel word territory" 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:24, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a trivial claim, and you still have committed errors, since the search is still tainted by your search terms. What you are claiming is that the school is notable because it has "its newspaper archived on microfilm in a library participating in the OCLC global cooperative". You base that on your own search of the database, which may not be comprehensive. It certainly introduces bias to the point you are making, and the point you are making also contains bias, that this snippet of information is notable. Find me a book that quotes this fact about this school, find me a local newspaper even, and I'll happily accept it. But don't use your own search of a database. That's original research. You're making both an unpublished analysis and a novel synthesis, the very things we do not allow per our policy on original research. And please note, the term distinction when applied to the term archival is most certainly a peacock term. According to Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms we should "Let the facts speak for themselves". We have described the archiving. Allow the reader to decide if that is distinctive. To state such is a Peacock term, and is also original research. If you can't attribute that term to a published source, don't commit original research and insert it into the article. Thank you. Hiding Talk 16:04, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

WorldCat is the best and most comprehensive database of its kind. The inclusion of the phrase regarding the school's distinctiveness in the WorldCat database was reached by a consensus that stood for weeks up until December 28, 2006. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I replaced dilatory phrasing with the succinct phrasing "archival distinction." In common English usage, "Distinction" is not a peacock term. In the context of having just established what makes this paper dissimilar to others (its archiving), the term adding the adjective "archival" prevents any ambiguity to the kind of distinctions referred to

. http://www.bartleby.com/61/36/D0293600.html

1. The act of distinguishing; differentiation. 2. The condition or fact of being dissimilar or distinct; difference:.

In addition, this phrase was acclaimed by consensus for weeks leading up to December 28, 2006. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No original research

• I think this portion of our no original research policy is perhaps the most relevant: anyone—without specialist knowledge—who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source. Since you are interpreting primary source material, you are performing original research and as such the material must be amended to avoid that. Hiding Talk 12:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Rambling sentence

Can a few editors look at the final sentence of the Foreword section? It presently reads:

Today, the paper carries the motto "The student newspaper of Taylor Allderdice High School,"[18] whilst a front page of the paper displayed on the school web site documents its coverage of the school's fund raising efforts, the school board's politics, and the school's prosecution of "the war on drugs in school" and security environment where authorities' surveillance of the student body via cameras extends beyond the school campus "even as far as Pittock" Street.[18]

I have NO clue what the sentence is trying to say here. What I see is it is trying to say "this is the current day motto, this is what a current issue of it covers." Does it need to ramble like it does in the second half? Also, is the word "whilst" REALLY necessary to use? Metros232 19:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Feel free to edit it yourself. If you think it is not worth mentioning, you can even remove it from the article. How you read it is what it is trying to say. Hiding Talk 20:13, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

In pursuing accuracy, I also believe you made this into a rambling sentence. But I don't think you should invite its wholesale elimination, as it adds interesting information about the paper. I restored that information in a concise manner. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:28, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of Wikipedia. I don't have to invite anyone to remove anything. It's the assumption we all make when we add stuff, that it is free to be removed. I simply made the invitation in that spirit. Maybe a look at article ownership may help you understand the point? Hiding Talk 15:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Your edit here Destruct just reinstated everything that was rambling about the sentence. Why is there a need for anything beyond "the war on drugs in school"? Metros232 15:51, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

I broke the rambling sentence up into two clear sentences. I restored the one lost item of information in the second sentence. The form of that sentence after the "which" is an itemized list of things the paper documents. I restored the lost item having to do with the way the school fits into its surrounding neighborhood. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 18:30, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I can only see three articles on that front page, so I think it's best just to summarise those. I agree with Metros232 that the text introduced after "the war on drugs in school" overburdens the sentence. It's also not a main topic on the front page, so I don't think it is completely necessary. We aren't here to summarise every tiny detail. Hiding Talk 19:41, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

I think it's fine to summarize those three articles. The third article has two interesting pieces of information, one about the war on drugs, and one about the corresponding security environment. The first is interesting because it speaks to how the school fits into a national policy, and the second speaks to how it fits into its immediate environment. The sentence is not overburdened since it itemizes things clearly. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 20:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• You have two people here who disagree. Rather than revert in the face of that, why not discuss the issue and see if we can reach agreement. Your constant reversion is becoming frustrating. Why do you have to restore your preferred version before you will comment on the talk page? Hiding Talk 20:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. I removed the information you've raised an objection to pending our discussion of it. I addressed the overburdened quality of the original sentence by breaking it into two clear sentences. I agree we don't want to repeat every detail from the referred page, but two details from that one article are interesting in their own right. The first, as I said, speaks to how the school fits into a national policy, and the second speaks to how it fits into its immediate environment. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 21:10, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• <carriage return>I think you are making more of the security detail than there actually is. I think if that small snippet from the article was as interesting as you assert it would be commented on in a full article or even in the local media. I don't think the emphasis it receives in the report on the only source we have warrants us describing it, let alone quoting the article on the subject. You seem to be elevating that topic above others with your quotation and the space you devote to it. I don't think it is merited, the article doesn't mention Pittock Street that I can see, only Pittock, and it isn't surveillance of the student body so much as general cctv. I think it is better left out of the article. Hiding Talk 21:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Hiding's points. It appears that that half of the sentence is there for the "ZOMG uber-security!!!" than the "here's an example of what is in the paper" which is what it should be about since it's in the newspaper section. Metros232 21:35, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The heightened, yet earnest documenting of the security environment is exactly what's so interesting about this page of the paper that the school chooses as representative of the Foreword and publishes on its web site. It's not general cctv; rather, "the ability to tape any transactions that might occur on the front steps of the school or even as far as Pittock," is an example of "maintaining security...the other ingredient in keeping drugs out of Allderdice." In an article about local drug enforcement other sources, local papers, etc. would be necessary, but to document one of the current and interesting uses the school makes of this paper, what the school selects for publication on its web site is enough. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:53, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Um, can we separate out your spin? Terms like "heightened, yet earnest documenting" are pretty, but they don't really address the point, and it is only your assertion that it's this page that "the school chooses as representative of the Foreword". For all we know this was the most recent issue out at the time they built the site. Let's not make any subjective claims about the how the page ended up on the website. The page is there, that's all that matters. As to it not being general cctv, I'm not sure whether you are au fait with what general cctv is, but it is the ability to record through camera activities within such a cameras range. Which is what is happening here. The cameras are located in a position where they can capture sections of an area as "Pittock". We've already noted the paper reports on the war against drugs, you accept this is part of it, so I don't see why we need to include it. You seem to be attempting to assert that the fact that this cctv is part recorded (we only have half a sentence to build from) in an article on the front page of an edition of the paper that happens to be on the school's website, means we can infer that this is an interesting use the school makes of this paper. We haven't even established that the school made such a use of sentence, since we only have half of it, let alone such a use of the paper; and that's beyond attempting to show that the school deliberately picked this issue above all others as opposed to any other likely scenario. Sorry, but I don't buy any of your arguments. I think you're breaching the novel synthesis aspect of our policy on no original research. Hiding Talk 00:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

My "spin" words tried to characterize the spirit of what Metros232 meant by "ZOMG uber-security!!!" I presumed Metros232's finding a "ZOMG uber-security!!!" quality to the reference to the school's security environment itself reflected an interesting aspect about the way someone might read this material, as opposed to a reason to exclude it. It doesn't necessarily have to be read that way, but I tried to speak to that.

The long clause of the quoted sentence indicates a complete idea the citation can support.

It's odd to presume the school puts its web site together randomly. Shouldn't we instead presume, as with other authors, that they select what they put up for publication? Their copyright page at http://allderdicehs.pghboe.net/main/copyright.shtm indicates a responsible webstaff designs, develops, and maintains the site. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 00:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

No, what I said with the "ZMOMG uber-security!!!" wasn't ME reading into it, but rather, me seeing what you are trying to get the reader to say with the sentence. There is absolutely no need for the sentence aside from your desire to get a reader to think like that. Metros232 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I did state above that I thought the information relevant because it speaks to how the school fits into its immediate environment, i.e., that they're taping transactions into the off-campus neighborhood. It's interesting that the school uses the paper this way on its web site. I thought my way of phrasing it in the article was less "uber" than the full direct quote would be, though the "uberness" is part of what's interesting here. What about rephrasing that last clause as "and security environment where camera surveillance extends beyond the school campus 'even as far as Pittock'"? It's less "uber" than reading the actual text at the web site, and addresses Hiding's point that surveillance isn't just about students. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 01:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Metros. This information has no place here. There's no need to mention the security environment besides your desire to influence the reader. Hiding Talk 09:45, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

And we're not quoting half a sentence because we have absolutely no idea what the other half says, so we can't properly contextualise the sentence. Hiding Talk 09:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

My desire is to produce a good article. Please "Remember the basic rule: discuss the article, not the editor." 0-0-0-Destruct-0 16:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Also note the advice given at Examples that are not personal attacks, Disagreements about content such as "Your statement about X is wrong" or "Your statement is a point of view, not fact" are not personal attacks. Hiding Talk 18:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

In the original consensus for the weeks before December 28, 2006, this sentence was accepted and praised by multipled editors. In the three months since an objection was raised by an editor who nevertheless let it stand, no one else outside the original consensus has come along to support deleting the phrase, so I have restored it. I have also added a footnoted link to Google Maps centered at the school's address which shows Pittock Street as the area contiguous to the school referred to as "Pittock," and it is interesting to know the school's anti-drug policy extends past the school's property, so this additional fact is worth citing from the school's web site.[11] 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:45, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

There was no original consensus, these edits were always disputed, they are still in violation of policy as original research. Find a secondary source which makes these claims and cite it, and there is no problem. Until then such edits have no place on Wikipedia. As to what you believe is interesting to know, it simply has no relevance. Wikipedia requires secondary sources. I don't know how to break this deadlock between us, but it certainly exists and it would be nice were it settled as civilly and graciously as can be achieved. Hiding Talk 16:38, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I replied to your message in my talk page. Anyway, Hiding, anything related to a "mailing list" does not have any relevance in Wikipedia. I think you maybe are confused between notability and original research. Something absolutely irrelevant may be absolutely documented (e.g. my birth). --Neigel von Teighen 07:43, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

• The mailing list was set up to discuss Wikipedia, and has absolute relevance. If you feel differently go and amend WP:ML and notify Jimmy Wales. Many policy discussions happen there, many policies are written there, the whole list is open and searchable and part of the rationale of the list is to discuss issues such as this. As to me being confused, nope, I'm sorry but I'm not confusing anything, although you may be. Your birthdate is likely only recorded in a primary source, and as such it would be unusable per WP:OR. However your birthday has no relevance here. Can we simply address the edits that are causing the debate, I feel that would be a better focus of our energies. Relevance of information is part of the neutral point of view policy. One can think of unbiased writing as the fair, analytical description of all relevant sides of a debate Biased writing therefore includes attempts to add irrelevant information. I'd ask what you consider a "point of view" is, if not an opinion on what "is interesting to know"? We don't consider what we believe is interesting to know when we write a Wikipedia entry, we simply summarise reliable sources. If you can show me otherwise in our policies, I'd be glad to hear it. Hiding Talk 19:00, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Compromise

Hrm ok. There's a couple of things I disagree with. I think the student newspaper or magazine is published by the school about the school and is therefore self-published. The student body, the individual principal and the staff body each serverably I would consider to be "the school" by most reasonable people's understanding. Consider the statement "My school has a record of high accademic achievement", this statement refers to the student body, It's uneccessary to qualify it with "the student body at my school has a record of high accademic achievement" so splitting out the parts of the school into who does and doesn't constitute "the school" is probably examining it too closely.

However I do agree that there is no place for the material sourced by the classified advertisements in the school paper. Even when I believe that the school paper is a verifiable source for the school and what went on there, classified ads are paid for by the inserter for his/her own reasons whatever they may be, and they push the line on the school paper being a verifiable source on the school itself over the edge.

Here's a thought. It seems to me that 0-0-0-Destruct-0 feels this is important and warrants including, and the verifiability is about half-half the way I see it (with school newspaper articles being just inside the line and classifieds being over it). The undue weight policy, to my knowledge, was generally used to guard against things like a stub of an actor having two paragraphs of information about their pet, not to throttle information about something so that it grows proportionally to the rest of the article. But I think I can find a way of including what is includable and should be includable under Wikipedia's policies, and not having it drown out core information about the article. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 and others, how far would the following paragraph go towards suitable for all of you?

RFC

(Messages requesting comment left at requests for comments, Verifiability, Neutral point of view, Reliable sources and WikiProject Schools.)

Basically, the nub of the dispute is whether to allow a school newspaper as a source within this article to present the following section or similar:

Drug Culture of the 1970s

During the 70s, drug culture and humor played a prominent and benign role in school life. The principal, William A.G. "The Hook" Fisher would ironically implore in the morning announcements to "please keep the pot smoking out of the stairwells." The school motto was commonly emended, in the student body, to "Know something. Do something. Be something. Smoke something." The professionally styled school paper, the Foreword, with the approval of the school's administration, commonly published humorous lines in its classifieds section relating students' identifying with drug consumption. For example,

"MAKE MONEY--Sell methaquaaladone and STP in your spare time. See Jon in rm. 344 or by the stack."

"SEEKING EMPLOYMENT as drug tester for pharmaceutical laboratory. Five years of experience. Parents cool, see Jon in room 211."

"Susie Get Stoned Skiing, Shelley"

"Rosie smokes dope at lunch!"

"LOCAL DRUG MAN -- 4TH FLOOR --MR. O.B. REDS, BROWNS, UPS, DOWNS -- HASH FOR CASH."

"BIBLE CALL: A TAPE LIBRARY 661-3455 TAPE 179; WHAT ABOUT MARIJUANA?"

School administration also approved publishing Op-Ed's with a kindhearted view of drug use. For example, new federal drug laws regarding "a whole new form of prohibition...erupting around its paraphernalia" were deemed "absurd" and an attempt to legislate against thoughts. Michael O'Neil goes on to observe the new laws' potential to affect the established tolerant outlook towards drugs, but not the practice of drug use:

"At best, the crackdown on paraphernalia can alter the permissive attitude toward drugs. But it is as unrealistic to expect this law to make much of a dent in drug use as to expect a ban on shot glasses to solve the problem of alcohol."

Sometimes marijuana's omnipresence also associated it with violence: "There is a tense atmosphere in the hallways. Students are often deliberately tripped or pushed, and some are continuously harrassed by small groups of people. The demands have been anything from pot to the coat off one's back." Nevertheless, drug use was not considered a core problem of the school. Writing in 1977, Amy Lichter cites a national Gallup poll ranking drugs as only the fifth highest ranking problem facing schools. Lichter then quotes the school administration's emphasis on other issues as surpassing the factors the public expressed in that poll, such as lack of discipline:

"Allderdice Vice Principals Dr. Norma Mowry and Sidney Feiler said that although they recognize the relevance of all the problems identified by the public, they see lack of discipline and achievement as the foremost problems. Mowry stressed the dominance of disciplinary problems nationally and the dominance of achievement difficulties at Allderdice."

Pittsburgh Assessment

Rated Class=Start, needs significantly more information about the school and its programs; rated Importance=Mid, important high school in the Pittsburgh area. – Paschmitts 20:43, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Mediation request

A request for informal mediation regarding a dispute on this page has been made at Wikipedia:Mediation_Cabal/Cases/2007-04-23_Taylor_Allderdice_High_School. I am offering my assistance on this matter. I will leave a notice on the talk pages of the interested parties and if they are willing to accept the offer, we can get started on working toward a solution that hopefully all the users can agree with. Please let me know if you find this offer acceptable. Arkyan • ^(talk) 21:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Informal Mediation

Participants listed in the above dispute have all agreed to informal mediation on this matter. Discussion will proceed on the case talk page, Wikipedia talk:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-04-23 Taylor Allderdice High School. Feel free to comment on the discussion and have your voice heard even if you were not listed as one of the involved parties in the original request for mediation. Arkyan • ^(talk) 21:50, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

reverted ChrisGriswold's abusive sockpuppet Superburgh's disruptions

ChrisGriswold was recently caught running the abusive sockpuppets Superburgh and Truth_in_Comedy and was forced to step down from his admin position as the Arbitration Committee moved swiftly to dispatch their case against him here[12]. This matter was discussed extensively at the relevant checkuser talk page[[Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/ChrisGriswold] and at the Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents[13]. I reported the suspected abuse here[[Wikipedia:Requests_for_checkuser/Case/ChrisGriswold], listing Superburgh's disruptive edits[14][15] of Taylor Allderdice High School.

Administrator jpgordon agreed Superburgh's edits were disruptive here[16] when he accepted the checkuser request. Administrator John254 informed ChrisGriswold that the evidence presented against him demonstrated Superburgh's abuse here[17] and here[18]. Administrator Theresa Knott also characterized ChrisGriswold's sockpuppet Superburgh's edits as disruptive here[19]. Some time after these administrators opined, the community's discussion turned to ChrisGriswold's other sockpuppet Truth_in_Comedy, whose edits aren't relevant to Taylor Allderdice High School. Per the administrators' consensus, I have reverted the disruptions ChrisGriswold committed via his abusive sockpuppet Superburgh. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 23:09, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Trim the twelth reference

Is there anyway of tidying up the Worldcat reference? Basically, is there a way of trimming it? This website [20] suggests two possible styles that can be adopted? I can't replicate the search return, I get this page, [21], but maybe I'm doing something wrong. Anyone know what fields go where?

“ Results of Type search on term "search term" in Source.

[Type of medium]: <Protocol/Site/Path/File> Additional: retrieval information [Access date]. or Results of Type search on term "search term" in Source. [Type of medium]: Supplier/Database identifier or number/Item name or number [Access date].

”

Appreciate any thought or help people can give. Hiding Talk 19:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I have just re-verified that the WorldCat reference is accurate in every detail. Each field is indicated accurately and each field's value is indicated accurately. Better to provide the accurate record than to risk distorting it. As you've been informed previously, you can indeed replicate the WorldCat search: simply go to one of the more than 50,000 libraries in more than ninety countries that provide access to this, the world's largest bibliographic database. That way you will get more than the "brief results" record you linked to. That's what I did. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 22:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

• I think you are misreading me somewhere. I'm not disputing the accuracy, I am asking if we can streamline it so as to prevent the unbalancing of the page, much as we streamline other references. Sadly I don't have access to WorldCat in my locale. I'll ask around for suggestions then. Hiding Talk 13:09, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The article's body doesn't assign any undue weight so it reads fine, and using space that way in the footnotes makes reading that footnote easy. I wouldn't want to introduce any difficulties or unnecessary ambiguities, and providing the complete database record helps readers whose access to the database is less than wholly convenient. 0-0-0-Destruct-0 17:19, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Musicals

This entire section seems irrelevant to the main article. Thoughts? 76.119.143.61 (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

DELETE. Irrelevant. 76.119.143.61 (talk) 19:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed does this really deserve such a large section?! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.173.93.55 (talk) 07:27, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

"Reputation" for fights; minor "incidents"; "strange" events.

What on earth is this?

While it is one of the better performing schools in the district (having been recently awarded a Silver Medal by the U.S. News & World Report Best High Schools 2009 Search [3]), the school has a reputation for fights [4], minor incidents [5], and other strange events.[6]

All of these non-encyclopedic "tidbits" are sourced only to primary sources (two single articles from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and one from the Guardian, respectively) and could not possibly warrant inclusion.

Can someone please justify the rationale for even mentioning these trivialities? I removed them and the article was reverted no less than 6 hours later. Before I remove it again I am asking for an explanation as to avoid an edit war. 71.165.132.175 (talk) 17:53, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Athletics

I believe there is a need for an athletics section, as there are an array of sports at Taylor Allderdice, and they are popular —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ekinerkan (talk • contribs) 18:35, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

External links modified

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Recent issues 25 April 2020

There were many. So, just to keep the argument straight, I'll divide this. I don't care which you argue first, or if you present your arguments all at the same time, or add a new section but please keep it organized. A couple general things though. I'd ask upfront that you understand that there are good reasons to have some level of standardization in the way we present our content. To that end, the encyclopedia has a manual of style and articles on schools have a style guide. Can we agree to follow them? If so, that covers any section name changes. John from Idegon (talk)

Enrollment

Wikipedia is primarily a tertiary encyclopedia, but it is also an almanac and a gazetteer. Enrollment data is almanac content. It needs to be updated annually (Wikiproject Schools has someone who does that), and in order to facilitate comparisons, we should use only one source, both in this article and as widely as possible. For US schools, near 100% coverage can be had from NCES. It's actually the same numbers (usually) as the school districts would give, but all crunched with the same methodology, and most importantly, from the same time period, for the whole country, including most private schools, something local or state data never has. An enrollment number is always an estimate, a particular type called a point in time count. The NCES point in time count is done always the last Thursday in September. Unfortunately, like most government agencies, NCES is a ponderous bureaucracy. They just released 18-19 at the end of March. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Cachement

The term means "what area(s) the kids that attend here come from". We can include the current situation from information usually available from the school or its district. Unless we have reliable secondary sources for it, we should mention nothing else about it. We, as editors, do not analyze. Nor do we report on what we've observed or figured out. Except for a few pieces of uncontroversial non promotional data which we can draw from the school's website (a primary source whose own analysis is not used here), everything we add should be paraphrased from reliable independent secondary sources. I didn't actually review the source, but I could see from the citation it was stale. That, and the atrocious writing (which actually incuded the line Allderdice's feeder pattern, which determines the public school that children at every residential address will attend..., and a single sentence that included 13 wikilinks to articles containing no information about the school at all) is why I removed it. No content is better than confusing or bloated content, especially since the subject is a subtopic which holds very little interest outside the school's community, and has so many exceptions due to more recent trends and court decisions as to be of dubious value. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Notable alumni

There are several issues in play here too. The aforementioned guidelines apply, but when dealing with information about people, especially living people, it's very important to strictly follow all the policies. The policy on writing about living or recently (+/- 2 years) deceased people is WP:BLP. The specific guideline for lists of notable people is WP:LISTPEOPLE. The style issues are covered at WP:ALUMNI and MOS:TABLES. Of course WP:RS and WP:V take on additional importance when talking about living people, and BLP requires every new fact added anywhere about a living person to have an inline citation. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Eligibility

Per guidelines, a person must either have a Wikipedia biography (a bio of a relative, an article about a group the person belongs to, or an event they were involved in isn't acceptable), or unambiguously qualify for one (the admirals are in that group) in order to be included; AND there must be a reliable secondary source to their attendance. Ideally, that source is cited here, but in the bio is acceptable. I wouldn't remove an entry for being uncited if there was a reliable source cited in their bio; however, I'll continue to oppose removal of the alumni template until every entry has verification of attendance cited here. Please focus on the mission here. Edits should be an overall improvement to the encyclopedia; anything we do to improve the referencing of our material does that. Simply adding uncited, or cited to whatever.com, information doesn't necessarily do that. Maintenance templates link to catagories, and there are people here who delight in clearing out those catagories. So the template should stay until the problem is addressed completely. BTW, there's never any reason to add a citation to anything but attendance here. And the critera for inclusion is based on attendance, not graduation. Attendance for even one day is sufficient. That's happened (see Paris Hilton). Graduation without attendance also qualifies a person (Jessica Biel). Participation in extracurricular activities without attendance (like homeschoolers or kids at private schools without the extracurricular activities desired can, in some states) may, but it's case by case (John Elway). John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

A word on WP:RS

As I've mentioned above, for any particular facts, you need a secondary source. You can add color from a primary source once you've got a secondary source to verify the basic facts, but the secondary sources take precedence. There are several factors involved in determining the reliability of a particular source, including (but not limited to), reputation, evidence of a fact checking process, prompt correction of error, and professionality. User-edited sources, such as Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia or any wiki are seldom reliable and generally should be removed (so much so that we have bots that just do that). Two sources used multiple times jumped out: classmates.com and the school yearbook. Classmates is in part user edited, has little indication of professional standards, and a convoluted error correction process that takes an eternity. They are an advertising site primarily. The school yearbook (ANY school's yearbook) fails virtually every reliability criteria and is primary on top of it. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Writing style and what to include

We don't use titles (three exceptions: royal and heraldic titles, military titles and when it's needed to disambiguate the individual's sex) or postnominals. The only things that should be included are the wikilinked name and a very brief description of the individual's primary notability. There is no need to include their graduation date, the company or team they are associated with, their lifespan or their major works. None of these things are information about the subject of the article. The individual's biographies are wikilinked and any interested readers can follow it if they want to know more about the individual. I acknowledge that an argument could be made to include grad dates, however, there are huge verifiability issues with that datapoint. The school's do not release that information generally and don't keep a database on it. That datapoint will be missing (if it's adequately verified) more often than not, and data that is more frequently missing than present leads the reader to surmise why. That's not a service to our readers, and everything we do should be. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Presentation

Please explain why a table should be used. MOS:TABLES tells us that due to their difficulty in editing and their clunky size in relationship to the page, tables shouldn't be used unless you can show a need to display multiple datapoints per line, or a need to sort the data in multiple ways. A bullet list is preferable. That's especially true on school articles as that is one of the most common places for a new editor to make their first edits. Lists use minimal markup, whereas marking up a table is quite complicated. I've been at this 8 years and have used computers in business since Windows 3.0, and I still cannot create a table from scratch and just in the past couple years, even learned how to edit an existing one. Order is important. It appears some people are adding to the list based on grad year, some alpha, and some randomly.

I propose eliminating the table and going with a div col formatted bullet list instead, in alphabetical order. John from Idegon (talk) 09:21, 26 April 2020 (UTC)