User talk:Grand'mere Eugene/Archives/2022/February

Non-profit schools and sourcing

Hi there. I was going to post this in the AfD, but I didn't want to bludgeon the discussion or anything. So I thought I'd do it here. Hopefully your willing to indulge me. If not that's fine. It's just something I've been interested in lately and looking for answers about. Anyway, since we're on the subject I recently asked for clarification about that on the notability articles talk page and no one could answer why there was the double standard about regional/national news sources or really in general. A couple of people were actually kind of hostile towards me for asking. Personally, I don't think "for-profit schools must meet WP:AUD" means non-profits don't since the guidelines also specifically say "all schools" have to meet the notability guidelines. Which WP:AUD is a part of. Also, IRL there isn't really a difference between a for-profit school that charges students for admission, is run like a business, and a non-profit school that is the exact same way. So I'd be interested to know why you think the distinction/exemption for non-profit schools exist or where it comes from. Since it seems like know one can explain it or say where it comes from and I'm not really into following nonsensical. Especially ones that people act hostile about and can only explain through self-referential statements like "non-profit schools don't have to follow WP:AUD because non-profit schools don't have to follow WP:AUD.

I think you'd agree there should be more then that behind it to justify us favoring non-profit schools in our coverage of education. Wikipedia is suppose to be neutral after all and it would be weird IMO if it became purely an encyclopedia of articles about non-profit schools, especially badly sourced ones, just because of a caveat in a guideline. That wouldn't be very fair to for profit ones or similar subjects that also have higher standards of notability. Like if I put a non-profit restaurant up for deletion next to a for pro-profit one, there's zero reason the non-profit restaurant should get special treatment in an AfD discussion. I don't see why schools are any different. Of course, that's just my thoughts. But I'm interested in what yours are and why you think the guideline says what it does. Thanks. I'm perfectly willing to drop the for-profit/non-profit thing if there's an actual reason they should be treated differently. Ultimately I could really care less about the whole thing. Except that it's nonsensical, no one can explain it for some weird reason, and I don't like playing favorites when it comes to how I vote in AfDs. Thanks. --Adamant1 (talk) 23:29, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Adamant1, I think we can agree that the topics related to notability of schools seem to be a can of worms that cause frustration among editors, but it's worth exploring why there are differences between notability criteria for for-profit and non-profit schools and universities. I suspect there is a worthwhile bias against for-profits, but I can't state as a certainty that my reasoning below accounts for it.

You wrote above, "Also, IRL there isn't really a difference between a for-profit school that charges students for admission, is run like a business, and a non-profit school that is the exact same way."

It is true that both may charge tuition, with a couple of exceptions:

1. Public schools in the U.S., which are also non-profits, do not charge tuition from individual students, but they receive funding through state and local taxes, usually a fixed amount dependent on the number of students and the tax rates of the state and local municipalities.
2. Religious non-profits are usually operated by tax-exempt foundations that solicit contributions from their membership, or sponsor fund-raising, typically by selling merchandise to be able to fund a new program or facilities. Some charge tuition, but increasingly non-profits are eligible for state funding per pupil, similar to funding formulas for public schools.

For both types of these types of educational non-profits, there is no incentive to advertise to keep operating, as it is part of our civic and ethical contracts to support education.

In many instances, the non-profit payroll for instructional personnel is negotiated by unions, to support living wages for teachers, and there is very seldom an excess on the income side of the ledger. Most of the time, program results in terms of graduates are scrutinized and weighed against other programs, to determine the programs of most educational value to students. Less successful programs are cut, and any tuition increases are heavily debated. Budgeting is an inherent painful process for most non-profits.

The whole point of for-profits, however, is to maintain/increase income and reduce/minimize costs. For those business reasons, for-profits have a much greater incentive to advertise. That incentive to advertise is, I believe, one part of the difference in the way Wikipedia's notability guidelines are set up-- it's a dis-incentive to require the higher bar, the regional or national criterion for notability. A regional or national reputation also goes a log way to reduce the likelihood that a WP article would be sidetracked into advertising the for-profit institution, though puffery and cruft do require constant editorial vigilance.

Those are my suppositions. The February 2017 RFC has the history of the site-wide debate that resulted in the compromise notability criteria we have today, but it is just a slog to read. What other reasons do you think might account for the current guidelines and criteria? — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 02:00, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for giving your opinion. I mostly agree with it. Although I disagree that non-profits (educational or otherwise) don't have incentives to advertise. They advertise a lot of times to bring in new donors. As well as when they are doing funding drives. I haven't seen any particular propensity for articles about non-profits in Wikipedia to less prone to COI/paid editing either. Even with articles for schools. I don't know why a non-profit would inherently be less interested in having an article in Wikipedia that's favorable to them then anyone else. I knows there's been a lot of COI editing around madrasas and evangelical mega churches. I do think that's where the exception in the guideline probably comes from though, a miss-understanding by a lot of people that non-profits aren't going to advertise or employee paid editors as much as for-profits organizations do.

As a personal antidote there's a mega church where I live, they pretty much have the local newspaper in their pockets. The paper will rarely if ever print negative stories about them and church leaders regularly write puff piece "articles" in the paper about all the good they are supposedly doing in the community. I'm pretty sure they pay people to edit Wikipedia articles related to them also. I don't know why they wouldn't. A lot of articles on here that are related to them are extremely promotional and ref bombed with links to their Amazon/YouTube/Apple Music accounts. I definitely wouldn't trust or use any local news story about them in a discussion about their notability. Even if they didn't have the local news in their pocket, they still do things in the community with the intention of getting publicity for it. So I don't really see them as any different from a for-profit organization in that regard. They obviously benefit from media exposer and the increase in people attending their church that comes along with it. Maybe schools are different though. I could see were a school might just get however many students they get regardless of how much they are in the news or whatever. --Adamant1 (talk) 03:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Books & Bytes – Issue 48

The Wikipedia Library

Books & Bytes
Issue 48, November – December 2021

• 1Lib1Ref 2022
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Read the full newsletter

Sent by MediaWiki message delivery on behalf of The Wikipedia Library team --15:12, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:AFC Helper News

Hello! I wanted to drop a quick note for all of our AFC participants; nothing huge and fancy like a newsletter, but a few points of interest.

• AFCH will now show live previews of the comment to be left on a decline.
• The template {{db-afc-move}} has been created - this template is similar to {{db-move}} when there is a redirect in the way of an acceptance, but specifically tells the patrolling admin to let you (the draft reviewer) take care of the actual move.

Short and sweet, but there's always more to discuss at WT:AFC. Stop on by, maybe review a draft on the way? Whether you're one of our top reviewers, or haven't reviewed in a while, I want to thank you for helping out in the past and in the future. Cheers, Primefac, via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:00, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Rich Fellers

Hi! Thanks for your work on Rich Fellers' article. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 11:21, 6 February 2022 (UTC)