Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Gymnasium Neufeld

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.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:59, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Gymnasium Neufeld (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

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No refs on the page for a very long time. I don't speak relevant languages but I'm not seeing the substantial RS needed to meet the notability criteria JMWt (talk) 11:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Education and Switzerland. JMWt (talk) 11:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No references, clearly not notable and needs significant cleanup- no infobox. This feels more like a draft. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Cooldudeseven7 _{join in on the tea talk} 11:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Seems like a half-assed copy and paste (and translation) from the German Wikipedia, including the contents. The first paragraph of the history in the German article matches the one here. Procyon117 (talk) 15:38, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Schools-related deletion discussions. Hey man im josh (talk) 16:39, 29 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep per WP:NEXIST. I mean, it's a disaster right now, but sources [1] definitely exist for this [2] [3] [4] from just a brief search. Ignore the bad page grouping the coverage isn't just in the highlighted bits, lots of full page coverage. This took me less than five minutes. Lots of seemingly substantial hits in Google Books and I didn't even go past the second page of the Swiss newspaper archive. PARAKANYAA (talk) 20:46, 31 October 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep: There's a significant coverage at page 23 of this source coupled with the other source PARAKANYAA pointed out. These are enough. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 12:06, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak keep - From what we have so far, this is marginal, but as a rule of thumb, this is a school with 1,000 on role, open since 1966. My expectation is there is more than we have found, and so I am ready to !vote keep. The first thing to note is the German Wikipedia article is much fuller [5] and I have added an inter language expand template to link it to the page. But then, looking at the sourcing on that page, I was disappointed to find it was all primary and thus not much use for notability purposes. So then I looked at what PARAKANYAA found. I cannot review AC 41, but that issue has an article about the architecture of schools. Thus the coverage is, I expect, about the architecture of the new school building, which would accord with the date, as this was when the school was founded. That is one interesting source. Then there are three articles from Der Bund. Der Bund is a newspaper local to Bern. The first is about a stir caused by a couple of students doing chicken embryo experiments. It looks like this kicked off an animal rights kerfuffle, but was a storm in a teacup. What it does not have is anything we can write a school article from. The second tells us that in 1976 the school hosted some modern art by an artist. It is not a permanent fixture, and unless the school remains a home to works of notable modern art, I don't see how that could be used in the article either. The third is an article about cycle routes and the school gets a passing mention as a destination. So I wouldn't say any of those local news articles count towards notability. But again, that is on strict application of GNG or NORG. What the articles do show is that the school gets repeated mentions in local press (as you would expect) over the course of years. I expect there will be notable students, and other coverage. The architecture source could be counted as one (although is the interest in the building sustained?) The article can be expaned from the German page, but sourcing remains problematic. Problematic but not impossible. We should probably keep it. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:12, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  FWIW, there were a lot more hits on both Google Books and the Swiss newspaper archive I looked at, I just grabbed the ones that had headings that talked about it on the first page. I will check again later today. Switzerland had at the time a relatively peculiar media ecosystem where there were only a handful of non-regional papers; I believe Der Bund was fairly prestigious at the time but I'm basing that off a 1960s article I read a while back so I don't know how applicable that is. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:08, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment I would like to remind all friends of the following. WP:ORGCRIT (which applies to schools) insists that coverage needs to be significant. The nutshell at the top of WP:ORG insists that the coverage must not be trivial or incidental. So the first question is whether the sources offered above are trivial and incidental or substantial. I say that coverage about an art exhibition is trivial. I say that coverage about a minor event is incidental. I say that any further coverage about ex-students is trivial and/or incidental. I know this is a hard standard to reach but this is the current consensus at WP:NSCHOOL. It has to be substantial. A history of the school. Substantial news articles about the school. Are there likely to be those in existence? That’s the only question we are to answer. I say no. Unless someone can prove that there have has substantial coverage of this kind, then we are clasping at straws and we should !delete until such time as third party RS give this kind of coverage. JMWt (talk) 16:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Are there likely to be those in existence? I think I was clear that my weak keep is based on my belief that the answer to that is likely to be yes. But certainly not proven to be. I would certainly support a relist for a week to allow for more source discovery. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:18, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Why do you think it is likely to be yes? Unless you can show that there is an offline book on the history of this school, it seems to me that the only argument you are making is because of the age of the school substantial coverage must exist. I don’t think that’s a given at all. It’s entirely possible that the only coverage going back decades is trivial. And the onus is on the !keep voters to show that the sources exist - even if none of us can actually access or open them - in order to WP:V the contents of the page as well as to show it is notable according to RS. JMWt (talk) 16:25, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I was quite clear on the basis of my comments and see no need to re-iterate. The US embassy in Switzerland host this speech given at the school [6]. Also there is a history, in the form of a documentary (a secondary source) here [7] but as it is a visual documentary it gives little to write an article from. There were public viewings of this film in at least 3 Bern cinemas. The 2016 celebration this was made for may well have elicited other materials that might be useful for the article. Finally, although I mentioned NORG, and those are the appropriate SNGs for schools, note that NSCHOOL says a school must meet either NORG or GNG. We are not even at a clear GNG pass yet, but based on everything I have seen, I doubt this school will fail. There is a certain amount of language bias here. An American school of this calibre would have attracted a string of keeps by now. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:55, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Ok. There are press reports below the information about the film on that website, that appears to suggest that it is notable. JMWt (talk) 17:12, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  To be pedantic, NORG says schools "must either satisfy the notability guidelines for organizations (i.e., this page), the general notability guideline, or both", not that NORG is the only test for schools. PARAKANYAA (talk) 18:14, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Owen× ☎ 20:53, 5 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment: Alternative names could include Kantonsschule Neufeld, Kanti Neufeld, Neufeld-Gymnasium, and Gymer Neufeld. Searching for sources right now, I suspect a huge amount of SIGCOV exists. Toadspike [Talk] 10:02, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep Many sources from the Berner Zeitung on a renovation and expansion of the school [8][9][10]. SRF has over 100 articles that mention this school, the best examples are [11][12][13]. Add Parakanyaa's excellent finds at e-newspaperarchives.ch and I can't even be bothered to use my library access to the NZZ to confirm the search results there, since the GNG has clearly been surpassed. Courtesy pings for JMWt, Cooldudeseven7, and Procyon117. Toadspike [Talk] 10:14, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  I forgot to check 20 Minuten, they have [14][15][16][17]. This list is not exhaustive. Toadspike [Talk] 10:20, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Plus some more trivial mentions [18][19][20]. At this point my linkspam is definitely excessive, but since Parakanyaa's sources were not enough, I figured I may as well make my point clear. Toadspike [Talk] 10:24, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Linkspam seems right! :) Berner Zeitung presumably counts as local news when discussing the renovation of a Bern school. Much of this coverage is just news reporting, which is a primary source (WP:PRIMARYNEWS) and thus not relevant to notability discussions. What we need from sources is the information from which an article will be written. Thus articles about the first day back after lockdown or a day without mobile phones, or discovery of mold are just not going to cut it. Any attempt to synthesise an encyclopaedic article from these primary sources would take us into WP:OR. But... you found one gem in there. «Musste drei Wochen lang den Schulhof wischen» (2016) is about the 50th anniversary, contains information about notable alumni, memories and history. It is not a long piece, but it contains just the kind of information a page can be written from. It may also indicate there are other useful materials from 2016 that may be found. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 11:17, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Are you being serious? We both know that, whether the historians like it or not, newspaper articles are the primary way the GNG is met here at AfD. (pun intended) All precedent, practicality, and common sense aside, I would argue several of the sources I linked above go beyond run-of-the-mill "local news" coverage, and I have now also found this piece on expansion of the Gymis, this very long article on proposed construction sites etc. from 1958, a long piece discussing the school's architecture and artwork, a celebratory piece on the completion of the school. Dozens more can be found at a search like this. The archive links don't highlight the whole article – scroll around to see more. If you need more opinions and analysis than this, I'll have to find an Australian tabloid article or something. Toadspike [Talk] 21:33, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  (Sorry if I sound aggressive, I know that you !voted "weak keep" above, I just think the standard you're applying is many times higher than the norm at AfD.) Toadspike [Talk] 21:37, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit, and so anyone can express an opinion that an article about mould being found in a school building allows it to meet notability criteria, but the point I made is that you cannot write articles from such run of the mill primary sources. And regardless of how people vote, primary sources do not count towards notability. See WP:SIRS. As for what historians think: primary sources are the bread and butter of the historian. If we were writing histories here, we would certainly make use of primary sources. But that is because historians are doing original research, and the synthesis is what they are paid to do. Encyclopaedic articles are different. We don't do original research. We let the historians and others do that for us, and then we use the secondary sources to write our tertiary articles. If people do not know that, they may be inclined to vote to keep articles that cannot be written encyclopaedically, and we might have a load of stubs hanging around. This, in my view, is not one such case, and I pointed out that one of your sources was good. But, again, what matters is that we find sources from which an article can be written. This evening I have been finding sources for Desert View High School. Take a look at what I found (the article had no secondary sources before now). Those are the kinds of things we need. But again, the short history article, even though in a newspaper, was both secondary and significant. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:57, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  It seems there have also been (at least) two books written about the Gymnasium Neufeld, one titled Musealneufeld: 1969-2009: Kunst an einem Berner Gymnasium, and the other a 70-page research work called Das Kernfachsystem als Oberstufenreform: Bericht über eine Erhebung am Literar- und Realgymnasium Bern-Neufeld und am Gymnasium Köniz von 1976. The former might not be independent, the latter is definitely an entirely independent secondary source purely concerned with analyzing the curriculum of the school in 1976. Toadspike [Talk] 21:56, 12 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. No time to look at these now, but that would appear to seal it. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 21:59, 12 November 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.