Talk:The Thacher School

• Previous deletion debate

This article should probably not be titled with the article "the". Instead it should simply be "Thacher School." Also, it needs a lot more information in order to be worthwhile and avoid deletion. Famous alumni? Unique philosophy? A history? Willmcw 20:00, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, I'm new to all of this.

The reason I put "The" in the title of the school is that that is the official name (like The Hockaday School, etc.) and appears on all school publications that way. Is it still not appropriate that way?

How much time to I have to put up the additional info? Notable alumni would include Howard Hughes, Noah Wyle, but I didnt want to add them until I got better info. Same goes for the philosophy, history, etc (there have been 3 books written about the school!).

-Armando

The exact title is secondary - you'd better cram as much info as you can into this article. It's already been marked for a future vote on its deletion. High schools have a high threshold to pass - there are thousands of them and there is little to be said about one that can't be said about all of them - "dedicated to building tomorrow's leaders, blah blah blah". I agree that Thacher is unique and special based on what I know of it, but the article needs to reflect that. Don't worry about making a perfect article - worry about making a sufficiently good article that can be perfected later. Meantime, toss in all the famous alumni, titles of books, history, etc. The voting for deletion does not proceed on a strict schedule, but you probably have a week or two. PS - you can sign your name and list the date by adding four tildes at the end "Willmcw 00:40, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)" Willmcw 00:40, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

1. The title can be fixed at any time. This is done with the "move" function.
2. The topic of high schools is very contentious on Wikipedia. The Votes for Deletion discussion lasts at least five days, sometimes more. You will see if you follow the discussion that there is considerable controversy. What happens is that at the end of five days, an indefinite period of time elapses—there's quite a backlog now so it can be many days more—and then a sysop looks at the page and judges whether there is a "rough consensus" to delete. The usual rule of thumb is that a rough consensus means at least a two-thirds vote to delete.
3. There is a faction that believes that only articles about very notable high schools should be kept, regardless of how good the article is. There is a another faction that believes that any article that is factual and verifiable should be kept, no matter how short or trivial the topic is. And there are people in the middle who are influenced by the quality of the article and the quality of the research that has gone into it.
4. To sway the people in the middle, the most effective things are a) to demonstrate notability, and b) to find specific things that make Thacher different from other schools. Get Howard Hughes in as a famous alum as soon as you can. Can you find out anything about why his parents his parents chose Thacher or what he was like when he was there? A Google search on "Howard Hughes" Thacher turns up a number of hits from diverse sources saying he attended, so I don't think that's a problem. The one I like best is [1]. But use whatever source you like. If it's reasonably sure that Howard Hughes was an alum and you Cite your sources then anyone can judge whether they believe it or not.
5. Keep working steadily at the article. You already have an account so you can vote in Votes for Deletion. Drop in, vote "keep," explain that you are continuing to work on the article, but try very hard not to get drawn into the debate. Enjoy watching us yell at each other if you like.
6. If you want to work on articles that are not likely to land in Votes for Deletion, try anything, almost anything but high schools.

[[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 02:44, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

P. S. My local public library has a service that lets patrons search a database of the past hundred years of The New York Times online. I just found this:

Life of Howard Hughes Was Marked by a Series of Bizarre and Dramatic Events New York Times (1857-Current file); Apr 6, 1976; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg. 70: "Howard Robert Hughes Jr. was born on Christmas Eve, 1905, in Houston. He was shy and serious as a boy and showed mechnical aptitude early. He attended two preparatory schools, the Fessenden School at West Newton, Mass and the Thacher School at Ojai, Calif. He also took courses at Rice Institute in Houston and the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. It is not clear how long he remained at either place. He held no degree..." [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 02:53, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

prep school or secondary school or both?

well? 62.252.0.4 13:41, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good point. The school's own description is "independent boarding high school." Looks like the "high" might have gotten dropped out when someone decide to Wikify "boarding school."

Prep school means preparatory for college, hence secondary school. No contradiction there. Traditionally the term "prep school" means a private school. The Thacher School serves grades 9-12, so I've added that to the entry about it in Ojai, California

links and references...

Why is the main text protected? If you'd like to improve the quality of the article, you can add that one of the original boys, perhaps the first, was nephew Sherman Kent. The reference is his autobiography, Reminiscences of a Varied Life. --Megstalcup (talk) 10:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not protected. Go ahead and add the material. 19:02, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The title is actually right

Officially, "The Thacher School" is the school's title. Just look on the website or any official document from them. I mean, it even says that on their mailing address. Ask anyone. It's "The Thacher School." 76.24.228.45 (talk) 01:39, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Buildings

Doesn't their comppus have 123 buildings. Ought that to be mentioned? MaynardClark (talk) 20:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)