Talk:Colbayns

Victuallers 15:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The official Colbayns website has been down for nearly a year and semi-abandoned for three. I felt it neccessary to remove the dead link. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.215.156.97 (talk) 01:28, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Reverting zro's revert

I have changed the article back, as it now more accurately reflects the true state of affairs at the school. I appreciate that some may not like the truth being told, but there you are. I have removed an expletive, even though it was a verbatim quote, as it was too colourful for an encyclopedia.

Some people's apparent obsession with syle over content here is infuriating. Please let's not be pedantic. Crucible1999 (talk) 11:04, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

As we have been discussing, the issue is not an unwarented pedantic obsession with style. The issue is that much of your contribution revolves around un-encyclopedic content. The situations you reference are uncited and unverifiable. Statements like "any school is only as good as the grotty kids it teaches" and "In such circumstances teachers have good reason to be anxious." are not adding to the informational content of the article and are POV. Many of your statements are phrased with weasel words, like "some students have even been known to...", for example.

As I explained in our previous discussion, the issues is NOT the use of profanity. The MAJOR issues is verifiability. If the situations you are writing about occurred, there should be some documentation. Citing these sources would be a good step in the right direction. If your content "is a verbatim quote as relayed to [you]" it is original research and unverifiable; this is unacceptable.

I fully support you telling the truth. For the record, I have absolutely no personal interest in the subject matter of this article. I have not ties or even knowledge of its existence until this dispute. I DO have an interest in helping to maintain the quality of information available on wikipedia. This is my only concern here.

If we are not in agreement perhaps we should turn to some of the available dispute resolution procedures. I will wait a reasonable amount of time for your response before reverting or taking any action. I thought that I had waited long enough after discussing with you previously. I apologize if my actions seemed hasty. ._-zro ^t_c 00:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, zro, I can see you are probably being very patient with me here. And I think I understand your concerns now. So, thanks for explaining the situation to me. I think quite frankly it is going to be hard to verify most of what I have said. It frustrates me like hell that a school which is hell to teach in is getting off scott free and able to use wikipedia to do a bit of free, sanitised self-promotion.Crucible1999 (talk) 12:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I hope the edits are satisfactory. Please could you do whatever is needed to make the pdf file external link actually say what the link is. I am no good at the technical stuff. I apologise for calling you pedantic.Crucible1999 (talk) 12:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Citing History and Improving Article

• Additional References Request Notice— I added this back in hopes that someone might have a source for some of the 'history' information. I'm not disputing the factuality of the historical notes ( location, name, headmasters, funding, etc. ), but I think this could use at least one reference. I assume Crucible1999 didn't memorize all this from oral history, and that it must be documented somewhere.

I'm afraid I have no idea at all. I didn't write any of that.Crucible1999 (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

• Neutrality Disputes— Again, I am not disputing the factuality of the statements I tagged with POV notices, but without a verifiable source they seem quite arbitrarily POV and at best 'original research' if based on personal experience.

Not mine, I'm afraid.Crucible1999 (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

• Other Issues— There are some other suggestions for improvement that vary in their importance.
  • .com vs .org.uk— What is the deal with these 2 separate sites? Any insight? The org.uk seems to be the schools official site, what is the .com?
  • Sections?—Crucible1999 seemed to be interested in expanding the scope of the article. After briefly reviewing the Ofsted reports cited in the article there seems to be some notable issues and and such. Perhaps brain storming on some logical sections could be in order? There seems to be at least 2 off hand that I could imagine. "History" and "Performance Issues and Improvement" or something like that? My only concern is that the Ofstead reports alone are not enough to support the idea of expanding the article.

My understanding from the guidelines is that there is no actual limit to the length of an article. And while this article is quite clearly a sanitised spin piece, I think there is plenty of scope for considering why there is a high turn-over in staff...and how this might have a bearing on the quite appalling behaviour at the school. I know three teachers who taught there over several years and am connected indirectly (in a way I won't go into) with the man hospitalised as a result of a breakdown brought about by being suspended when a girl, who was later found to have lied (and incidentally, apparently had a history of lying at the school!) made a malicious allegation of sexual assault against him.Crucible1999 (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

• • Image?— Does anyone have a usable image? please review the policy first.

I think I saw one or two on the school's websiteCrucible1999 (talk) 16:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to fix it up a little, but I am not knowledgeable on the subject at all. ._-zro ^t_c 06:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)