User:Noroton/proposal

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[edit] Notes on possibility of creating proposals for schools, local government or both together

I'm interested in having special notability criteria for schools as well as for local communities, but I'm not sure whether to put these together in one proposal.

  • Reasons for combining into one proposal The notability criteria would essentially be the same: communities coterminous with the boundaries of local governments (at any level of government recognized by the state or provincial government), school districts and high schools (public or private) are all inherently notable and should not need further notability criteria. I think other schools should abide by WP:Notability.
  • Reasons for keeping these proposals separate I'm not sure I have any.
  • What other local institutions might be just as worthy of inclusion in a blanket notability rule?
    • Standard hospitals where operations are performed and people stay overnight for care (this distinguishes them from clinics, nursing homes and hospices). I'm not sure whether I'd include psychiatric hospitals in this. I suppose I would if people stay there overnight.
    • Community colleges, or any accredited college or university, even nonprofit ones
    • Counties and the equivalent government administrative districts
  • Things I'm not sure whether I'd leave in or out:
    • Train stations maybe a single reliable source should be sufficient, not necessarily independent.
    • Distinct geographic features such as islands, lakes, rivers mountains, perhaps one reliable source should be needed simply to confirm the existence of the subject
    • Airports
    • Neighborhoods — If their existence is noted in local newspapers, perhaps that should be enough, but then how do you write articles about them that are not sourced? If you have the sources, you have the article; if you have the article without sources, maybe you don't have an article that should be in the encyclopedia anyway. Maybe one independent, reliable source should be enough for neighborhoods. Or maybe one nontrival source and two trivial mentions should be enough.
  • Things I would leave out:
    • Not libraries, I think. Although in many ways important to a community, like high schools and hospitals, they're often too small and Wikipedia coverage of them could be a section of a local community article. They should face the same criteria as anything else: substantial or multiple independent, nontrivial sourcing
    • Shopping malls
    • Police and fire departments
    • Any municipal department
    • Museums (they might be too small; if two good sources are available, then they won't be too small, so no separate criteria is needed
    • Unincorporated hamlets and villages — if notable, they'll have independent source coverage

[edit] Proposed language

Public school districts, high schools, hospitals and communities defined by local governments can be assumed to have enough notability to be the subject of a Wikipedia article if at least one reliable source is cited in the article (independent or not) and one other reliable, independent source is cited, whether that source gives trivial or substantial coverage to the subject.

No national or international distinction is needed to confirm the notability of these entities as fit subjects for Wikipedia articles, only confirmation of their existence through a reliable source and the assurance that at least one reliable source (which can include the subject).

The confirmation source may confirm the existence of the subject in a trivial way, merely mentioning a high school in a sports article in a local newspaper, for instance. The article may then rely on information from the subject itself, such as an official school publication or municipal Web site.

The purpose of lowering the standard of multiple, independent, reliable sources on these institutions:

  • (a) Their existence is easily confirmed.
  • (b) The most basic facts about them are hard to falsify in official publications and official Web sites because multiple independent organizations monitor them and regulate them.
  • (c) Also, it is important to Wikipedia that institutions so important to individual communities be represented in the encyclopedia. A comprehensive online encyclopedia is able to cover such institutions well, and, to the vast majority of readers, these institutions tend to be very important.

[edit] more detail

Communities defined by local governments (commonly recognized by state or provincial governments), ..............