Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Verrado High School/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 12 November 2022 [1].

---

Verrado High School

Nominator(s): SyntheticSystems (talk) 05:47, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

This article is about a high school in Buckeye, Arizona. I improved it significantly. SyntheticSystems (talk) 05:47, 9 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment Hi, thanks for your work on the article. I would recommend GAN first. (t · c) buidhe 05:11, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

It would take longer if I took it through GAN. SyntheticSystems (talk) 14:24, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

@SyntheticSystems That isn't really a valid reason to not take this article to GA. Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:16, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

I just don't want to wait months when I could wait a few days. If it's a featured article then it becomes one, otherwise I get advice on how to make it one. SyntheticSystems (talk) 02:13, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

@SyntheticSystems Not exactly the path I'd recommend, but suit yourself. Unlimitedlead (talk) 03:23, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Drive-by comment

• There are an awful lot of very short and choppy paragraphs, which should be either expanded or combined. The "Opening and growth" contains only thirteen sentences in total, but they are split into SEVEN paragraphs -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:59, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• I suggest that you add WP:ALT to your images. Unlimitedlead (talk) 11:53, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:01, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

General comments from Airship

As always, these are suggestions, not demands.

• The lead section should probably be longer. The article body should be summarised fully, and at the moment the campus section (by far the best written) is not discussed at all, among others.

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• As above, single line/sentence paragraphs are to be avoided.

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Not really. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:44, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• You will have noticed the general problem with new, not-very notable topics such as this—that you end up including rather a lot of waffle.
  • For example, the lines on the Fourth of July celebration seem to take primary sources at face value (one wonders if it is still remembered as a "turning point"). The book citation also needs a page number. Then you have the line on computer rollout, which is just iffy at best.

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• As above, good job on the campus section.
• I'm not entirely sure that the contents of the reputation section couldn't be merged with selected other sections.

There might be more to add to that section but I don't know if it's relevant. Three gun-related incidents have occurred since the school's opening but it may not be relevant for that section. SyntheticSystems (talk) 00:06, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I would remind you that there is no guarantee that there will be many willing to act as a glorified GA reviewer next time. A GAN will eventually receive helpful feedback; FAC reviews entirely depends on the willingness of reviewers, and having a poor track record with submissions is not going to encourage anyone. For an article as light on real content as this, the most likely time to pass would be the first nomination. But again, this is only a suggestion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:27, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Oppose by Nick-D

From some very quick checks, I don't think that WP:V is met at present. As noted above, it's not really appropriate to bring an article to FA in this state and I'd also suggest going through a GA process first.

• "These ideas were reciprocated through the manifestation of the building as a small government" - it's hard to understand what this means, but it may be a miss-reading of the source. The source presents this as an analogy ("Imagine a self governed community...") to explain the school building's structure, but it's being presented as the actual concept behind the school design. The analogy is also difficult to understand and seems ill-selected, and it would be better to explain this differently.

I tried to fix this but I don't really know how to fix it. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• The statement that "Initial plans for the school failed to consider acoustics within the auditorium" isn't supported by the source which states that the design was flawed, not that acoustics weren't considered at all. As the source is promotional material on the website of the company that apparently fixed this problem, it also needs to be used with caution: an independent source would be much better.

This is the only source I have on this and it seems correct because it describes what their role was. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:02, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• The source supporting the claim that "Verrado gained notoriety in 2018 for an incident with the varsity baseball team; a witness reportedly saw members of the team remove each other's pants on a bus ride home" doesn't actually state that the school "gained notoriety" or similar. It seems to be about a serious but passing incident unless there's follow up reports that this has permanently damaged the school's reputation

Fixed this, I think. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• There are lots of citations to the The Arizona Republic lacking page numbers to a hard copy, a URL to an online copy or the database used if it was sourced from a database.

I think @Sammi Brie: will help me with this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• There are no publishing details for '"CASE STUDY Verrado 4-08' (current ref 29), and each instance of this being referenced needs a page number.
• Ditto the other 5 PDFs cited.
• Ditto ref 39 ("2022/2023 Course Description Book")
• Refs 14, 15, 16, 45, 47, 50, 54, 57 and several others are lacking any publishing details. Nick-D (talk) 05:51, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Fixed all of this stuff. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:49, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment from Red-tailed hawk

I will note that the infobox currently contains c:File:Verrado High School logo.png, which has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons without a valid license claim. The source for the image is this high school newspaper, which provides the source of the logo as Courtesy of Agua Fria High School District. I see no evidence that this image is freely licensed and, as such, I believe that this fails WP:FA?#3 at this time as containing an image hosted without proper license information. Additionally, for reasons of Freedom of Panorama in the United States, we need a source for the viper logo in c:File:Verrado High School field house.jpg to ensure that the image is properly licensed; there is no US FOP for works of art, and the viper itself is above the threshold of originality in the United States. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 06:29, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Comments by Epicgenius

On a very quick glance, I notice several serious problems with this article:

• The lead is way too short. These paragraphs are only about 850 characters total, equating to 135 words. For an article of this size, I'd expect the lead to be about twice as long; in this case, the lead should be at least 300 words.
• There are several examples of repetitiveness. In the lead alone, I can pick out three such examples.
  • Operated by the Agua Fria Union High School District, it is one of five schools in the district (Yes, I know one of these is a proper name, but it's still a bit repetitive.)
  • The campus was designed as a green building, implementing measures in the design to reduce energy and water usage.
  • Since 2006, various construction projects have been undertaken, including the construction of a new field house in 2015.
• In addition, there are several instances where the sentence structure is very clunky. These should have been fixed before an FAC nomination. Examples include:
  • DMB incorporated elements of New Urbanism, an urban design movement that arose in the early 1980s, into their plans, including the school. - Was the school an element of New Urbanism or an element of DMB's plans? The grammatical structure makes this very unclear.
  • Construction of the first homes was completed in 2004; among DMB's plans for the community included a high school - You would say "among the plans were" or "the plans included", but not "among the plans included".

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• • Tom Huffman, a former assistant principal in the Paradise Valley Unified School District, was selected to serve as the school's first principal - Likewise, "was selected" or "was to serve" as the school's first principal, not "was selected to serve".

I don't see the problem. Huffman was selected among a list of people to serve as principal.

If he was selected as the school's principal, then by definition he is serving in that position. It's completely unnecessary. Epicgenius (talk) 20:06, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• • In 2017, AFUHSD implemented one-to-one computing through Chromebooks at Verrado, as part of an initiative taken by the district to implement one-to-one computing across the entire district - Saying that it was part of an initiative "taken by the district" is unnecessary, as you also mentioned the district.

Fixed this. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• In some places, there are details that need to be fleshed out. these would be fine for a GA, but not for an FA. Examples include:
  • Plans for a high school in the Verrado area were envisioned as early as 2002.[7] In October 2004, Orcutt/Winslow Partnership was selected to design the school's campus.[8] - Why did it take two years to hire an architect after the plans were created?
  • Construction on the school's campus began in 2005[9] and concluded in April 2006 - Is anything else known about the school's construction process, besides when it started and stopped?
  • Heightened security was added to the school's campus in 2014 - Like what?

I couldn't find any sources for any of these things. SyntheticSystems (talk) 17:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• I see that Nick-D has mentioned some sourcing issues above. I agree with him, and I'm also going to say that many of the sources (if not a majority of them) appear to be primary sources. While this itself isn't a problem for articles in general, it is quite concerning for a featured article candidate, since WP:FACR criterion 1c says that featured articles must be "well-researched".

Sorry, but I'm going to oppose this nomination for now. It fails to meet several featured article criteria, including 1a, "its prose is engaging and of a professional standard"; 1b, "it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context"; 1c, "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate", and 2a, "a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections". I strongly suggest that you first seek feedback at WP:GAN and/or WP:PR before renominating this for FAC. – Epicgenius (talk) 17:14, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

GAN takes forever so I don't want to do it. SyntheticSystems (talk) 18:26, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The FAC process is not a substitute for the GAN process. An article may pass GAN with flying colors but may still be extremely far from being FA-quality. What I pointed out above are just a few examples of issues that are present throughout the article in general. For instance:

• There are several paragraphs (and even some subsections) that consist merely of one or two sentences. I would combine these.
• In 2022, U.S. News & World Report ranked Verrado High School 4,149th in national rankings and 72nd among schools in Arizona - This basically says "ranked in national rankings" and is repetitive.

This is not a comprehensive list of the issues I found throughout this article. I suggest looking through the page again and giving it a thorough copyedit. The user essays How to improve your writing and Redundancy exercises: removing fluff from your writing may be helpful. You may also want to look at other featured articles about schools, such as Amador Valley High School and Stuyvesant High School, for inspiration. – Epicgenius (talk) 20:05, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@SyntheticSystems - just curious: your account was made 5 days ago, and not only are you familiar with the existence of not only FAC, but DYK and GAN as well. (The fact that you know GAN takes a while, which is... more than true, interests me.) Did you do a lot of reading on Wikipedia policies and guidelines before you joined? If so I would have expected familiarity with how to polish prose, format citations, and be aware of image copyright, plus awareness of the fact that these should be addressed before FACing. ‍ ‍ Your Power 🐍 ‍ ‍ ^{💬 "What did I tell you?"}
_{📝 "Don't get complacent..."} 21:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Comment from Unlimitedlead

Hi, I've noticed that your account has only been created 5 days ago for the sole purpose of editing this article. This makes me question if this is a case of Wikipedia:CONFLICT, but I digress. While newcomers all always welcome, the FA process (as I'm sure you've seen by now) is a grueling and often difficult process, so it is not suggested for new editors such as yourself, especially when the nominated article is as underdeveloped as this one. For now, I'm going to oppose and recommend GA. Unlimitedlead (talk) 17:46, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

I just got bored. I don't work at the school. SyntheticSystems (talk) 18:20, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Coord note

Based on the above commentary I'm going to archive this nomination so improvements can take place outside the FAC system. Aside from the GAN process, it's also valuable -- especially for editors new to FAC (or indeed WP in general) -- to try Peer Review and/or the FAC mentoring process. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:11, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Ian Rose (talk) 21:12, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.