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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/John Marshall High School (Richmond, Virginia)

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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 speedy keep‎ Withdraw, new sources found, now meets WP:GNG (non-admin closure) -- Aunva6talk - contribs 15:15, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

John Marshall High School (Richmond, Virginia)[edit]

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John Marshall High School (Richmond, Virginia) (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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not notable school -- Aunva6talk - contribs 21:41, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Schools and Virginia. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 01:44, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    (Note: I created the page under my alt account, User:JohnSon12a.)

    I'm new to this and don't know how the process fully works. If the notice on the page means the nomination is due to a dearth of independent sources on the topic, that's in part due to my haste in getting the page up. I realize now, through research, I should've drafted before I submitted it as a final, so that's my fault, and I'm sorry, but I still think that JMHS's long history in Richmond warrants it a page. If there's a way to remove it and place the content back into the draft stage, I'd be happy to continue developing it and then resubmit. If not, and the majority here decides it's not notable, then I have no objections to that decision.

    Thank you,
    Packer1028 (talk) 03:25, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    yes, I nominated it for deletion because it doesn't appear to meet the general notability guideline. Generally, Database and ranking stes are not considered to be reliable sources for establishing notability. if it results in deletion, you can probably get it moved to draft or a user space instead. see also WP:DRAFTIFY and WP:REFUND. alternatively, if you just want to do that now, i can withdraw this ,and move it for you, as I don't see any copyright or other concerns that would leave it to be speedily deleted. -- Aunva6talk - contribs 19:27, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I checked Newspapers.com, and I already found these two sources without any effort. I am positive more exist. Scorpions1325 (talk) 23:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Aunva6, what do you think of the sources I found on Newspapers.com. I am not even remotely done scouring the site. Scorpions1325 (talk) 23:59, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for those, but they are primary sources. The question is what makes this school notable? And what sources do we have from which a page can be written about the school? This one, on the page, is pretty good: [1]. Do we have more like that? Even better if published in a history somewhere. That one is still secondary, with significant coverage and independent (even though she is a teacher at the school, she is publishing under the auspices of her university masters thesis). A masters thesis does not generally meet the bar for reliability, but for this purpose I give this one a pass. It is a darn sight better than most sources we are tempted to accept. A couple more like that would carry this over the line for GNG. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:16, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How about these sources [2] Scorpions1325 (talk) 22:32, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are thousands of results on Newspapers.com. You should have access to it at the Wikipedia Library. Scorpions1325 (talk) 22:37, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Have a read of WP:PRIMARY. Don't skip over the examples in note d. These are primary sources. We can't use them to assert notability, although assuming we find this to be notable for an article (my thinking is we probably will - just not there yet) we could certainly make use of some of that information, because those sources verify points of fact for the article, such as the date of the rebuilding. So thanks for digging them up, but again, we cannot use primary sources to assert that the school meets the notability guidelines. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pollack, Howard (2017). The ballad of John Latouche. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190458294.
The book is independent, reliably published by OUP and clearly secondary. It contains significant coverage of the school. That is because the subject, Latouche made his first real mark as a writer while at Richmond’s John Marshall High School, which he attended from the fall of 1928 through the spring of 1932. And as a history of Latouche, it mentions the school repeatedly and has information about both the school and their productions. So there is SIGCOV in that source. Adding to this, the source shows a clearly highly notable ex pupil in a school that was founded over a century ago. We know from the other source that there is historic information regarding the end of racial segregation at the school, so all in all, I think this crosses the line. Strictly GNG requires multiple sources (which I would read as "at least 3"), and we so far have just two, but I also note various studies at the school in a scholar search [3]. Studies are primary but they often contain secondary background information. I could search for more, but I am convinced that we have sufficient to call this. With all the evidence found to date, I don't think there is any doubt that this is a notable school. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:44, 13 April 2024 (UTC)
  • Keep - In response to Sirfurboy's comment, the question is NOT "what makes this school notable?" Notability does not rely on a special condition or event, but on the existence of at least THREE significant, independent, reliable sources, whether or not the sources are present in the existing WP article. Most newspaper sources (unless they are owned/published by the school) are secondary, with the exceptions of interviews of school personnel or students, or public notices provided by the school. When a newspaper reports fact-checked information on topics such as public meetings, integration, or demolition of a public building, it is a secondary source. Kudos to Scorpions1325 for the WP:HEY effort, as given the sources listed above, the subject of this article clearly meets WP:GNG. — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 17:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    We don't disagree about the article, but I do disagree about newspaper reports being secondary sources. These are primary sources. I pointed Scorpions1325 to WP:PRIMARY, and especially note d. This shows the policy. Additional guidance can be found in WP:PRIMARYNEWS. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 17:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    I know that most of them are WP:PRIMARY. This was just a rare time that I was able to find them so easily. I am not sure that the first source in my second set of links is primary though. Scorpions1325 (talk) 17:54, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    Note D references WP:NEWSORG, which gives a more nuanced interpretation of which news sources are considered secondary, reliable sources. — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 18:07, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
    NEWSORG is nuanced consideration on the subject of reliability, not to be confused with the question of whether a reliable source is primary or secondary. Note d also has "A primary source is a first-hand account of an event. Primary sources may include newspaper articles, [etc.]" It is not just Wikipedia saying this. This is a matter of historiography. Historians, whose project will look at a subject such as this school, and who write the secondary sources, like the two I discuss above, will use newspaper reports as a primary source. Historians, of course, prefer the primary sources, because they are doing the original research, and writing secondary sources. Wikipedia is a tertiary source, and will utilise secondary sources, including (but not limited to) their research. The question of whether a source is primary or secondary is a nuanced one, and often depends on the question you are asking of the source. Thus a newspaper report may contain secondary information, where it goes beyond reporting and presents analysis. However I have reviewed each of the sources presented above, and these newspaper reports are all primary. This is not just me saying this. See, for instance, what Donnelly and Norton say: Discursive primary sources include other people’s accounts of what happened, such as reports of meetings, handbooks, guides, diaries, pamphlets, newspaper articles, sermons and literary and artistic sources.[1]: 69  Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:58, 14 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Donnelly, Mark P.; Norton, Claire (2021). Doing history (2nd ed.). London New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. ISBN 9781138301559.
  • Apologies, I missed I am not sure that the first source in my second set of links is primary though. And you may be right. This is one of those nuanced cases. It is not a newspaper report, but "A Guide to John Marshall High School Examination Returns, 1891-1913". It is a guide written by the archive (Library of Virginia) to the collection of such returns. The collection is a primary source, and a description of the collection, without analysis, is essentially primary too. But there are two paragraphs of historical information in the guide, and these two paragraphs are not merely description of the records, but say something and are information from which the page could be written. It is from a reliable source, and secondary. I did not discuss it further as it doesn't cite its own sources and it is questionable how significant that coverage is. But yes, that was an example of secondary sourced information placed inside a primary source. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 13:32, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per above. Would appear to meet WP:GNG. Three-word deletion rationale is exceptionally weak. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:16, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - GNG pass, per sources above. Carrite (talk) 20:45, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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