Wiki143:Articles for deletion/List of International Baccalaureate schools

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 of the debate was keep. – Robert 00:58, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

List of International Baccalaureate schools

I've got slightly mixed feelings about this one: I think WP should have a good coverage of the International Baccalaureate system, but at the end of the day this is just a completely unmaintainable list. There are currently 1,742 of these schools [1], and the number seems to be increasing much faster than new schools are being added to the list. The IBO website already has a complete list of all the schools, so I don't see a reason to maintain an incomplete one at Wikipedia when we could just link to the complete one. And for the articles, we can just use Category:International Baccalaureate schools. - ulayiti (talk) 12:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

• Comment See WP:SCHOOL. Apparently no there is no such thing as too ridiculously unmaintainable. Bobby1011 13:53, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep as good list. --Terence Ong 14:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, Good list, shows where some work could be done. Obli (Talk)^? 15:06, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Delete, on second though, leave the list to IBO, make it clear that they have a complete list somewhere, also link to this new category, preferably via the IB template. I'm off to create an article on my school (don't worry, it meets the criteria :)). Obli (Talk)^? 16:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: We can't possibly have articles on all of the nearly two thousand schools. Now, there's nothing wrong with having articles about these schools, but this list achieves nothing that couldn't be done with categories. - ulayiti (talk) 15:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• I know all about WP:SCHOOL, but I find the whole concept of giving each and every educational establishment an WP article a bit of an unfathomable concept. This list has no absolute point, to be frank, and it could be merged with the International Baccalaureate article, I'm sure.. Merge but a more important issue is the SCHOOL policy.. Can't it be looked at again? doktorb | words 16:47, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep - I think there is a use for this list that a category would not provide. For example, this list is nicely organized by country, state, etc., and a category would not contain that, unless a messy slew of categories ranging from "IB Schools" to "IB Schools in New York City" was created. I like the elegance of this list - a prospective IB student/parent/educator could find this list, locate their region, and find detailed information on schools in their area that offer the program. If the list were deleted and a category created instead, this would be a lot harder to do unless one knew the names of schools in their area or happened to chance upon the category and navigate from there. Yes, the IBO has a list of all IB schools, but it's not a very friendly search to perform. This list is superior to that. Yes, there are more IB schools than are listed here, but that's why this page is constantly being edited by worldwide Wikipedians. There is no good reason to delete this list; doing so would delete neatly organized and useful information and instead create disorder and inefficiency, so those searching Wikipedia for this topic wouldn't be able to find what they're looking for. Fabricationary 18:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
  • What do you mean it's not a 'very friendly search to perform'? You go to the IBO main page, select the country and state/province from the drop-down menu, and you get a list of all the IB schools in that area. And that list will actually be correct, unlike the one we've got. On Wikipedia, you have to find this list, figure out which programme you're looking for, and then scroll down this 51-kilobyte list (which will take ages to load on slower connections) to find the area, and you'll get a list of schools which is incomplete at best, maybe even erroneous. This is far from 'superior'. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information, and I don't see why we should try to 'beat' the IBO webmasters in their job. - ulayiti (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
    • The IBO list provides practically no information about the schools, other than possibly their location and which program they provide. At Wikipedia, editors can link the names on the IB list to the school's Wikipedia pages, which often present much more detail about the IB program at that school - for example, enrollment, success rates, specific courses offered, etc. I looked up the IB school from which I graduated on IBO, and their information about courses offered at my school is incorrect - thus, IBO is not a superior source in that respect. With this Wikipedia list, users can easily navigate the selections and choose the school they're interested in to gain correct, complete, and relevant info, often times more accurate than that provided by the IBO. Fabricationary 19:24, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination. — Adrian~enwiki (talk) 20:40, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete' per Obli. —ERcheck @ 20:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong Keep per Fabricationary. Precisely because this IS a list, it allows redlinks, which highlight articles needing to be written, and it also allows you to put information into the list that a category just would not support. As it happens, I'd create a category as well. Jcuk 22:27, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete, we have categories for a reason - to avoid articles that are just indiscriminate lists. Splurging in information from each school's respective article does not instantly make the list any more useful. Proto||type 10:21, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Obli. -- Krash (Talk) 15:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, we have categories for a reason, and this isn't one of them. Lists allow for redlinks and for visitors to create articles which may not yet exist. Silensor 23:31, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, a list which gives the location of the schools is far more useful than a category system which doesn't. Kappa 02:44, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Strong keep, per keep voters above. Samaritan 03:17, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, this list is more useful than the corresponding category because it lists some schools which don't have articles, and arranges them nicely by country making it easier to navigate. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:19, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
• keep please these lists are important to have Yuckfoo 01:34, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
• A list with merely 1700 schools on it is hardly "unmanageable". Keep. --Gene_poole 04:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I would counter that the word "merely" and the figure "1700" could not normally be put together... The problem with the schools policy is the way in which it promotes this kind of listcruft. There does not appear to be anything on this article that could not be lost if a relevant category was created instead. doktorb | words 13:23, 3 March 2006 (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.