Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/GHS (high schools)

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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 keep. Yamamoto Ichiro 会話 23:44, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] GHS (high schools)

GHS (high schools) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

This is just one of many similar lists masquerading as dab pages created recently by the same editor. The matter was fully explored at Wikipedia_talk:Disambiguation#Acronyms_that_can_refer_to_names_of_schools but the editor pressed on regardless. It's a pointless list of schools that are linked only by their initials, which no-one would ever search for and probably never stumble across but which will appear in search engines and create confusion. One such page may be over-enthusiasm by the editor but creating so many after a full debate is verging on vandalism. andy (talk) 11:52, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm also nominating the following pages:

MHS (high schools)‎
WHS (high schools)‎
AHS (high schools)‎
BHS (high schools)‎
CHS (high schools)‎
DHS (high schools)‎
EHS (high schools)‎
FHS (high schools)‎
HHS (high schools)‎
IHS (high schools)‎
LHS (high schools)‎
PHS (high schools)
RHS (high schools)‎ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andyjsmith (talk • contribs) 12:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep I don't see the problem. We have dab pages for mhs, whs etc and these would be clogged by the addition of a long list of high schools so it seems reasonable imho to hive them off to separate linked pages as has been done. As to whether readers would input the initials; why wouldn't they? if they had heard mention of (eg) rhs and wondered what it might mean, then surely we want them to type it into wp don't we? That's what wp is for. Abtract (talk) 13:31, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all (do not merge into the TLA page.) Block user for disruption. Suggest removing high school redirects from the TLA page, as well, as, if all high schools are notable, then even those which don't presently have an article should be listed under Wikipedia guidelines, making these pages inherantly unworkable. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 14:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment. Taking MHS as an example, all the high schools listed have wp articles and therefor must be presumed to be notable ... it is a pretty fair guess that these schools are often known as "MHS" ... what else are dab pages for? I have no axe to grind here but it seems to me that more is preferred to less. Abtract (talk) 15:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. This is escalating - see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#RightGot. But check out what a disambiguation page is actually supposed to be: Wikipedia:DAB#Set_index_articles. "A disambiguation page has links to a heterogeneous set of concepts". That doesn't describe these silly pages. They're not lists of conceptually different articles that might be confused, nor on the other hand are they lists of related items. If these articles were called something like "List of schools with the initials GHS" it would be easy to see how ridiculous they are. We don't have "List of foods whose name begins with A", do we? Why not? andy (talk) 17:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I'm keeping an eye on the WP:ANI situation too, it seems that everybody needs some Vitamin WP:CHILL.... I'm all for letting the ANI process unfold as far as RightGot's fate. It still seems to me though that there is still some considerable debate regarding how to handle the school acronym situation. I do not however think that AfD is the proper forum to handle this debate. Once a consensus is reached on how to handle school acronyms, then we can decide if these pages should stand. -- RoninBK T C 18:12, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep This [1] is MHS before User:RightGot's edits. I think we can all agree that the current incarnation [2] is a better solutions. Simply dropping the TLA's for the schools is problematic because the schools is sometimes referred to by their initials. Taemyr (talk) 17:38, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with RoninBK, that the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Acronyms that can refer to names of schools has yet to reach any consensus one way or the other, and the discussion Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#RightGot smacks a bit of forum shopping to me. If it is inevitable that high schools will be listed on these dab pages (and I do think it is inevitable, regardless of warnings or patrolling), then I do like the current MHS. This is similar to name dab pages with "nested" Name (surname) and Name (given name) pages (like Shepard, to pull one out of the blue that I was on just today). I would encourage everybody to tone down the conflict and try to develop a solid consensus. This seems like an important thing to get right - and forum shopping and AfDs (and the inevitable deletion reviews that will follow) don't seem like the best way to figure out a long term solution. I would say that this is a Keep, but I'm not emotionally invested in it. CosmicPenguin (Talk) 18:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    It was not intended as forum shopping, but as an honest question of whether this (clearly disruptive) editor has surfaced before and was blocked before. I had no intent of linking the sets of vandalism edits incompatible with Wikipedia policies and guidelines, but treating each set as a separate issue. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:11, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Debate policies, not personalities. Regardless of the editor's motives, the question at issue is whether or not these acronyms should be spun out to separate dab pages. Leave the rest to the ANI discussion. -- RoninBK T C 18:16, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment OK, so why not have AAA (high schools), AAB (high schools), AAC (high schools)... all 17,576 possible commbinations? And then there there's the four letter acronyms. Because this isn't a legitimate disambiguation - there's no underlying ambiguity. No-one is going to confuse Muscatine High School, Iowa with Malacca High School, Malacca, Malaysia, and no-one is going to thank WP if they google MHS and end up on a page full of school names. andy (talk) 18:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Two responses. First, we are only going to have this problem with TCAs ending with HS (maybe one or two other combinations but certainly not them all). Second, the point of dab pages is for readers who are not quite sure what article they want ... of course no-one would confuse Muscatine High School, Iowa with Malacca High School, Malacca, Malaysia ... but no more would they confuse Message Handling System with Michigan Humane Society ... but they may have the initials MHS in their mind and have a vague idea that it is in Michigan, or Muscatine, or Malaysia etc. That is why we have dab pages for TCA's and I see no reason why schools should be excluded. And if the school bit get big enough then spring it off onto a separate page. Abtract (talk) 19:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - I think it makes sense to have one of these for many of the 3-letter acronyms ending in HS for high schools.--Appraiser (talk) 02:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep We have lists of TLAs for all sorts of other entities, and high schools are a common use of such TLAs separate and apart from other such acronyms. Alansohn (talk) 06:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. There's no evidence that any of these schools are actually known by these particular TLAs. They've been chosen simply because they might be. Take the time to look at some of the articles before voting. Malacca High School is actually known as TMK. Mainland High School might be known to a few people as MHS but it's far more likely to be called ASI, ACMT, ADMT, SSA or SRA. Manalapan High School in New Jersey seems to refer to itself as MNHS according to the school website. And so on. These lists aren't just pointless, they're misleading. andy (talk) 10:39, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
So we need a dab page for TMK high schools as well - the only TMK entry in WP is for the Soviet space programme, completely missing the Malacca school and also Turk Maarif Koleji in Cyprus. Why stop at TLAs ending in HS - there are only 26 of them after all? andy (talk) 12:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
What's your point? If you think a dab page for TMK is needed, then go ahead. We all know wp has a long way to go before it even approaches completeness but that is not reason to remove perfectly good dab material. As I said above, a better question than "should we disambiguate high schools?" is "should we separate out very large sections into separate dab pages or leave them with the main page?". Personally I think common sense says we should separate when it improves navigation. Abtract (talk) 12:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Under the circumstances, Abtract makes a good point for removing the links to high school acronyms until verified. That would solve the page size problem, as these pages would not be as grossly populated. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 17:29, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't see what the problem is. older ≠ wiser 13:11, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep. If they help someone find a page then they serve their purpose. In any case they do no harm. TerriersFan (talk) 23:40, 24 January 2008 (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.