Talk:Pingry School

Building Site

Actually, the school was originally at Dr. Pingry's house on Pingry Place until his death in 1893, after which the school moved to another location in Elizabeth at Parker Road, which in 1953 Pingry vacated for the campus in Hillside. Captain Gamma (talk) 21:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Unjustified mass removal of sourced content with baseless claims of COI and Promotion

GuardianH has repeatedly (see here and elsewhere) deleted massive portions of articles with the claim that extensive portions of sourced content based on the claims that what was being removed were "minor championships, WP:COI additions, WP:PROMOTION".

It's not clear why winning a state championship at the highest level of competition would be a "minor championship". Nor is it clear why the presence of multiple championships across multiple sports justifies the deletion of the near entirety of the section. Nor is it clear why the editor in question has repeatedly failed to observe the fundamental WP:PRSERVE policy and retained content where possible or justified.

It appears that the claims of COI and Promotion have no basis in fact and were just thrown in to give the mass deletion a greater air of false credibility. Who has the conflict of interest? Who is promoting what and how is the school being promoted by including neutral factual information?

Per WP:BRD, I will revert the unjustified changes to the article for Pingry School. I look forward to a presentation of a case to justify the mass deletion and provide some evidence to back up the baseless and unsupported allegations that state championships are "minor" and that there is conflict of interest and promotion. I am particularly interested in hearing details of the claims of who has the conflict of interest and who is promoting anything. Alansohn (talk) 15:40, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

I repeat my response at Talk:Immaculate Heart Academy. The athletics section is completely overboard for MOS:TRIVIA, and with soapboxing WP:PROMOTION by essentially making it a timeless outlet for the school's athletics team — WP:HOARD. There's so little of anything resembling substantive material in that section at all besides this verbose list of minor state championships and other minutiae. You only need to go the edit log to see the WP:SPA involvement and other potential WP:COI. The section needs a serious revision and the laundry list removed. Adding neutrality tag. GuardianH (talk) 00:44, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

It said nothing meaningful there and says nothing at all here. MOS:TRIVIA is about trivia sections, but there's none here. I'm not sure what "soapboxing WP:PROMOTION" is here with a list of reliably and verifiably sourced details of athletic titles and WP:HOARD is an irrelevant essay. The question is not who's editing the article, the question is what's in the article. The neutrality tag you've added emphasizes that "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." You've offered no example of any issues with neutral point of view or editorial bias, nor have you demonstrated that there are any missing viewpoints. In the absence of a meaningful response and concrete evidence of neutrality issues, the tag bombing will be reverted. I look forward to the details. Alansohn (talk) 17:04, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Any update on evidence for neutrality issues? Going twice.... Alansohn (talk) 18:55, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

I mentioned this also in the Immaculate Heart page, but MOS:TRIVIA applies to lists of miscellaneous information, rather than just simply strictly trivia (hence MOS:MISC). Like I also pointed out on the IHA page, the biggest issue regarding neutrality is not the MOS format, but rather that state championships — that of soccer, cross country, baseball, and other local competitions — are not due for inclusion. By creating a data hoard of decades of state championships, you're providing an essentially timeless outlet for any school teams, often at the expense of any actual substantive description of the team themselves. These local game wins are relevant to the gym teacher, but not due for inclusion here. They lack the prominent coverage in reliable sources usually necessary to establish inclusion and are a minority view pertaining only to a particular team (i.e., the soccer team, hockey team, etc.) GuardianH (talk) 01:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

You're truly talking nonsense here. MOS:TRIVIA / MOS:MISC says explicitly that it refers to sections "typically given names such as 'Trivia', 'Facts', 'Miscellanea', 'Other information' and 'Notes'", which is not the case here, and the guideline specifically permits "a selectively populated list with a relatively narrow theme". You keep harping on Wikipedia:LAUNDRYLIST / WP:HOARD which is an essay that has no relevance of deletion of sourced content. The argument that state championships are "not due for inclusion" because they come "at the expense of any actual substantive description of the team themselves" is completely nonsensical; you're arguing that it would be OK if only we have descriptions of the players, their heights, weights and interests. Are you seriously arguing that winning a state championship is "a minority view pertaining only to a particular team" and that the other teams are somehow being excluded because they didn't win anything? Are you seriously suggesting that sports championships can only be included is every single school team has won the exact same number of titles? Do you seriously question that the references provided are not the "coverage in reliable sources" that you demand? What on Earth are you talking about?

As you've offered no evidence after multiple requests, I'll remove the neutrality tag from the article. Alansohn (talk) 03:57, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

You've actually completely misread my message, which explains why you find it so incredulous. I never said that they are not due for inclusion because they come at the expense of the teams (that is an additional problem). The reason I laid out in the message for why they are WP:UNDUE is that the series of singular state championships do not satisfy the coverage in reliable sources necessary for inclusion, are a minority view (pertaining only to [x] hockey, basketball, etc. team), and that giving a list of all these myriad of championships is far, far too descriptive — in this case, the quantity of text is the problem. Also, yes, a state championship is representative of only a small part of the school: a state championship for hockey only represents the hockey team.

I've already explained the obvious problem of giving undue weight by giving a list of all these state championships. There also is no consensus; re-adding neutrality tag. GuardianH (talk) 16:58, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

RfC on whether a high school's list of state championships is due for inclusion

This article on the Pingry School has a list of the high school's state championships for its sports teams spanning multiple years. Would a list of a high school's state championships be considered due for inclusion? Relevant policies: WP:DUE (WP:NPOV), WP:V. GuardianH (talk) 02:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Include (invited by the bot, BTW, you didn't link that article in the notice) Or more specifically, it should be an editorial decision without quoting WP:Due to support an "exclude" view. WP:Due is to achieve balance and avoid spin/bias, not to exclude uncontroversial material that is suitable for the article. BTW it does look a bit lengthy, you might want to thin it out a bit. North8000 (talk) 16:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

@North8000 WP:UNDUE specifies that quantity of text is an issue giving undue weight to certain material. I would say that the extensive list here gives undue weight to the school's state championships, hence why it should be condensed. BTW it does look a bit lengthy, you might want to thin it out a bit - Maybe this RfC would be better if it was a question on whether or not to reduce the section? But the thing is, the policy that would justify thinning the section would be WP:UNDUE. GuardianH (talk) 17:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

I would recommend reducing the size of that section on editorial/article quality grounds. And yes, it would have been better to ask that question. The current RFC can be read or interpreted as whether to (completely) exclude mention of state championships....a more extreme exclusion which I don't think that many folks would/will support. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 00:57, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

In the edit made to the article for Pingry School, GuardianH removed any and all sourced descriptions of athletic championships, with the edit summary "remove this huge WP:LAUNDRYLIST of minor championships, WP:COI additions, WP:PROMOTION". GuardianH has never trimmed or summarized any of these lists; every single one of GuardianH's similar edits (see Immaculate Heart Academy, Millburn High School and Summit High School (New Jersey)) have taken the maximalist position and removed these details in their entirety. Based on this history, the question that GuardianH is asking can only be interpreted to be seeking a complete and total exclusion of any mention of athletic championships. Alansohn (talk) 02:11, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the size of the section on athletics is out of balance with the rest of the article. In fact, the article now consists largely of content about athletics and a sexual abuse scandal. That is a disservice to the school. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 20:49, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Include There has been broad consensus that state and national championships are what should be included, with appropriate reliable and verifiable sources, as are found here. Of course, it may well be appropriate to copyedit the material, but to be clear, GuardianH's alternative position is that there should be no details about any sports championships, regardless of level, as shown in editing the articles for Pingry School and Immaculate Heart Academy, among other such mass removals of sourced content. Alansohn (talk) 17:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

But that's not my position. I have opposed this article's list of championships, but I never said that there should be no details whatsoever about sport championships — I said that there should be something substantive (i.e. the "school has won multiple championships in x, y, z" rather than an entire list of singular championships like there is here. Comment on the championships, but don't list them all. There has been broad consensus – not in any of our previous disagreements have you ever specified where this broad consensus is - there hasn't been a broad consensus to have a huge list of a high school's championship wins. GuardianH (talk) 17:30, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the important point: There is no "broad consensus" about overloading articles with this kind of trivia and repetitive writing. There is way too much detail here, it makes the article unreadable. -- Melchior2006 (talk) 15:40, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Include A list of a school's state championships is a standard feature of pretty much every high school article I've encountered. Most of them look something like this: Klein High School#Sports and other activities (not holding this up as a perfect example, but rather a typical one). Not every championship necessarily needs commentary, but a concise summary of achievements beyond a state championship, or of multiple consecutive championships, could be warranted based on the sourcing. Looking at this article, it looks like it could use significant trimming and copy-editing, but that doesn't mean that individual state championships should be excluded. Stedil (talk) 19:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)