Wikiquote:Votes for deletion archive/Balboa High School (San Francisco)


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

The result was: delete. —LrdChaos (talk) 16:16, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Balboa High School (San Francisco)
I don't see anything that convinces me that this high school is any more notable than thousands of others in the U.S., and I think that it would be a bad precedent for us to start letting pages for high schools stand. Of the two quotes presently on the page, one is just a student talking about the school (it just happens to have been quoted in a newspaper article) and the other is from Jerry Garcia, who, according to the school's Wikipedia article, dropped out of the school. Having notable alumni does not necessarily make a school notable; my high school isn't notable on any large level, but has had several notable alumni (including Samuel Alito). —LrdChaos (talk) 15:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Vote closed. Result: delete (four votes to delete, one vote to merge/redirect). —LrdChaos (talk) 16:13, 4 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. —LrdChaos (talk) 15:52, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. ~ UDScott 16:02, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Delete. Concur with LrdChaos about avoiding high school articles, which are controversial even on Wikipedia (with 2 orders of magnitude more articles). One of my friends from high school was quoted in our city newspaper, too. Not everything that makes it into an established newspaper should necessarily make it into Wikiquote. As for the Garcia quote, it doesn't even mention Balboa specifically. I interpret Garcia's use of "all that high school shit" as talking not about the school per se, but the time of life, something he clearly expected many non-Balboa alums to recognize. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 20:23, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment. I'm the fool who started the article inspired by and perhaps wondering if cleanup (for the same reasons) should occur at Stuyvesant High School. JeffQ, the context in the source is clearly about Balboa. 71.146.158.146 21:55, 27 November 2006 (UTC)


 * CommentThe only possible reason I see for (vfd) is "No potential to become a proper Wikiquote page." Exclusive of the Soohoo quote, I've seen no compelling reason under WQ:NOT why it should be deleted.  A bias against high school articles or any article for that matter simply because of a WP controversy should be irrelevant, the Garcia quote is righteous per Wikiquote(primacy of quote notability not necessarily of the article). By this logic the article deserves at most a cleanup or merge tag.  In the context of the entire source interview, the quote clearly reflects the formative conditions at Balboa for Garcia.   71.146.158.146 00:54, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment: This is a difficult subject area, made all the more difficult by the "common law" approach the Wikiquote community has taken towards deletion. In general, pages are subject to deletion if similar pages have been deleted in the past; WQ:NOT and the Deletion policy do not necessarily reflect the current community consensus as has developed here (and is documented in the VfD archives).  We have in the recent past taken a tougher line on theme pages than the official policies would indicate.  That said, I don't see any a priori reason to delete this page (or Stuyvesant High School, for that matter), provided that there is enough original, quotable, verifiable material about Balboa High from notable sources.  We have tended to delete theme pages that don't start life with a critical mass of quotations; since the people quoted must be notable, quotes from a runt theme stub can always live on the quotees' own pages until such time as there are a sufficient number.  121a0012 01:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Comment:
 * First of all, 71.146.158.146, thank you for reading the pages you cite. It's refreshing to see a new editor read some policy material before making arguments. I hope that, whatever happens with this article, you will continue to work on Wikiquote.
 * As for Stuyvesant High School, I find that article much worse than this one, and will probably nominate it for deletion as well. (Very few quotes have reliable sources, based on a quick check of the links and text.)
 * I believe you are wrong about the context "clearly" being about Balboa. There is nothing in the quoted text that suggests that Garcia meant "all that Balboa High School shit that was so heavy in the '50s", especially given that nothing else in the text even suggests a scene unique to high schools in general, let alone Balboa. (Or are you suggesting that Garcia meant that the gangs were cruising and drinking on school grounds, or that the "tops of the hills" he referred to were the campus?) I stand by my statement that Garcia appears to be talking about the experiences of "high school age shit", not that of his particular school. If the citation in the book mentioned says otherwise, that should be noted.
 * Please also note that "notability", in that a quote is "noteworthy", is not the same thing as "interesting", which is a common confusion. When we say notable, we mean something that appears in enough reliable sources that we can prove its noteworthiness. This is the same kind of evidence-based threshold that Wikipedia uses, which is why we consider arguments made on Wikipedia to be useful (not necessarily definitive) to our own determinations. There are many Wikiquote articles that do not, at any given time, conform to this ideal, but that is a consequence of having very few regular editors and lots of newer ones who don't know or don't care about Wikiquote's purposes. That is why we have this VfD page, which, by the way, often stimulates revisions rather than deletions.
 * All that said, however, I have no problem with keeping the article if we can find at least a core set of quotes about the school (not just taking place in the school, or about the adventures of attendees) with a hope of making a proper Wikiquote article. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 02:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Delete. - InvisibleSun 22:57, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Merge and redirect to Education, with a note of the particular school referred to. I would do the same to the Stuyvesant article too. Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 18:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)


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