Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Newsweek’s List of Top High Schools (2003)

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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 DELETE. A 60% delete vote, combined with copyright issues - leads me 'play it safe' -Doc ask? 18:29, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Newsweek’s List of Top High Schools (2003)

48 KB page. Space filler. Non-encycloedic. Too many publications run too many top ten/hundered lists - such lists are highly subjective and POV. The list is available on Newsweek's website: 2003. Wikipedia doesn't need them. Delete. See also: India Today's top 10 colleges of India. utcursch | talk 05:24, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep, per WP:NPOV. Please don't assume wikipedia users have internet access. Kappa 06:22, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Er, how are they reading wikipedia then? Do libraries keep a printed version? Is it available on CD? Am I missing something here? 84.65.193.133 19:33, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not yet. See WP:1.0 and the donations page. Kappa 19:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep technically this is not a copyvio, we specify source, and a list of school names is not copyrightable data. Had we included other original content from the article THEN it would be a copyvio, a pure list is not copyrightable.  ALKIVAR™ 07:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Believe it or not, it is copyrightable. The organization of list in Newsweek's -- it ranked them. Copy the ranks, you violate the copyright. Xoloz 03:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I suspect that this is easily a copyright violation. The list is the product of Newsweek's data-gathering, analyses, and considered opinions. It is not a list of simple facts, such as, say, a list of the tallest mountains in the world; I agree that that sort of thing is not copyrightable. This list, however, is Newsweeks's, a product of their work, and as such eminently copyrightable. There are many instances of similar lists which amply demonstrate the point. For example, the ISI Science Citation Index, published every year, is a list of science journals in ranked in order of impact factor. The list is a product of ISI's analyses, and the copyright is jealously guarded (they actively ferret out and shut down any lab website that rips off a copy and publishes it on the net). US News and World rankings, same thing—their lists are all copyright. One good hint that you're doing something wrong by copy pasting this on WP: does the publisher charge readers for access to the list? If so, how can we imagine that something is not seriously wrong with taking that material and unilaterally publishing it under GFDL on our website? This is not our material to take. encephalon 07:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • "does the publisher charge readers for access to the list?" - no, it's available free at [1]. Kappa 14:51, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - We should probably instead refer this to the fair-use Wikiproject. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 10:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep unless it is decided that it is a copyright violation, which is probably is. POV is not relevant because the policy is about Wikipedia expressing a pov, not recording the povs or well known commentators or organisations. This is not some minor random, list, it is a well known list produced by one of the top three weekly news magazines in the United States. CalJW 13:37, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Same comments as for other lists: if this were put directly on Wikipedia it would be deleted as inherently POV. Having it published first by a magazine without an NPOV rule does not address that. It's also going to change year by year. If a school comes high in the rankings, let them say so in their article, but I see no purpose in redistributing listcruft. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 13:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete lol, what a waste.  Grue  14:29, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Hi there. This is your friendly neighborhood IP lawyer. Listing the names of the schools can not be a copyvio, because Newsweek is simply taking a set formula and applying it to publicly available facts about the schools in question. See Feist v. Rural. The formula itself is merely an idea, and is not subject to copyright; only the expression of the idea can be protected, and the listing here does not duplicate the expression because it differs significantly from the layout of the Newsweek list. See Kregos v. Associated Press, 937 F.2d 700 (2d Cir. 1991). I've maintained such a list - indeed one more similar to Newsweek's own - in my user space for quite some time without fear of legal action, because I'm quite confident that this is no copyvio (and even if it was, it would easily qualify as fair use). No vote on the article itself. Cheers! BD2412 T 15:18, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • IANAL, but I am not sure your judgement is correct in this case. For example: Kregos v. Associated Press and Eckes v. Card Prices Update both show that the non-protection of facts is narrowly drawn. In the first, it was held that the selection of which baseball statistics were important was a sufficient creative step to merit protection even though the stats themselves are clearly unprotected facts. In the later, a list of what are "premium" baseball cards was considered protected because of the editorial nature of what is "premium". The Newsweek list would appear to be an original expression of what are the best High Schools. What facts were used in doing this is indisputably an editorial judgment. If they had been touchy-feeling about it and merely selected "premium" schools in a subjective way, it would obviously be protected ala Eckes. Your argument rests on the position that because they used an algorithm, which relied upon some selection and weighting of facts, then the resulting ranking should be regarded as uncreative. I would instead defend the notion that such an ranking is the expression of an idea for how schools should be ranked and thus should be subject to protections. Dragons flight 22:26, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Kregos was not merely about the formula, but about the arrangement of the presentation of the nine categories of information that went into the formula. The AP in that case was presenting a table pretty much the same as that devised by Kregos. Had the AP merely listed the "winning" teams according to the formula (without arranging them according to the formula) they would have been off the hook. Also, I argue fair use in the alternative. This is a relatively non-creative work, with zero commercial value (it's available for free on the internet), being used for a purely educational purpose (on a non-profit, ad-free informational website). The version on my user page incorporates substantially all of the information on the list, but the version in the article uses only the names of the institutions and their order (and augments it with something Newsweek lacks - links to articles on many of the actual schools). BD2412 T 01:58, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Since they get ad dollars when someone looks at it, it obviously has at least a little more than zero value. But in terms of fair use the criterion with the biggest problem is the "amount and substantiality of the portion used". Aside from not explaining where the ranking came from or the score, our use is total. In most contexts our list can effectively replace Newsweek's list, which is not the intention of fair use. Dragons flight 02:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Fair use is a balancing test - three factors leaning strongly one way can outweigh one leaning the other way. BD2412 T 03:39, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
            • For "purpose and character", one also asks whether the use attempts to supercede or replace the original, which we fail. As an effective replacement, uses such as ours also destroy any future market value the item might have had. Since for practical purposes it would appear to have very little value, that makes this criterion largely irrelevant but can't really help us, either. So, by my count I'd say there is roughly one factor in favor and two opposed. Dragons flight 03:51, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
              • I suppose I'd argue that since we provide only the school names and not the equation, we are actually driving interested consumers to visit Newsweek's website (or look for the magazine) to get the complete picture. BD2412 T 04:19, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
                • In an abundance of caution, however, I've yanked my own version of the list. BD2412 T
    • Comment. BD, thanks for weighing in. As I said when tagging the articles for copyvio, this is something that needs to be looked into and determined by WP's higher-ups. Lawyers being lawyers (:-)), I'm reasonably certain that one of your colleagues could put forward a good case that this is a copyright violation—indeed, Dragons flight's comments indicate this is clearly not an open-shut case, but open to some interpretation. FWIW, my reading of Feist v. Rural suggests to me a different interpretation than yours as far as this Newsweek list is concerned.
In regards to collections of facts, O'Connor states that copyright can only apply to the creative aspects of collection: the creative choice of what data to include or exclude, the order and style in which the information is presented, etc., but not on the information itself. If Feist were to take the directory and rearrange them it would destroy the copyright owned in the data.
This seems to indicate that the names of the schools are not Newsweek copyright (obviously), but the creative choices Newsweek made in producing a ranking are copyrightable by them. The ranking is a creative invention of theirs—they did not simply publish the names of schools as in a directory. Note also that the WP users who placed this list on WP under GFDL did not "take the [list] and rearrange" it: the entire list is simply reproduced verbatim, and even indicates in the title that the list is Newsweek's. It doesn't seem legal to me to take their list—published in their commercial magazine and website—and simply publish it on our site under a free licence like GFDL. I also don't buy the argument that they are providing the list free: MSNBC-Newsweek get serious ad revenue from their website.

Now, whatever the truth of the matter, these issues are not our prerogative to decide. It should be up to WP lawyers to decide if they think lists like these are acceptable for WP. If they decide the risk is not worth it, we shouldn't accept them; if they decide they are quite prepared to defend it, WP:Copyrights may be amended to indicate the acceptability of such lists. But it is not something that we should be judging on an AFD, IMHO—the very idea is surreal, and I'm rather perplexed at (unqualified) keep votes being made after the Copyvio issue was raised (is the expectation that, if most people said "Keep, this is not a copyvio per XYZ anonymous editor", the closing admin should go "Ok, it seems there is a consensus that this is not a copyvio, so keep" (!?)). As it stands it seems a delete consensus is likely in which case the issue is settle with respect to these particular lists; the question whether similar lists are permissible, however, must be decided and WP:Copyrights amended accordingly. encephalon 07:07, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Very nice post, Df. Good of you to write that. :) encephalon 07:30, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Assume good faith. Since quite a few people have voted to delete this, it is not "afd spam" as you have said. --Idont Havaname 21:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete subjective, non-encyclopedic and possible copyvio, plus available elsewhere. ➨ ❝REDVERS❞ 17:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: even if we have a right to use this material, it is a primary source, and Wikipedia is not an appropriate place for copy-and-pasted primary sources. Write an article discussing lists of top schools if you think the topic needs discussion at all. And note that even if this is kept, it must be moved to a title that mentions that it is a list of U.S. high schools. It is absolutely, utterly unacceptable to present these claims in any way that could possibly be taken to imply global coverage. — Haeleth Talk 18:21, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Haeleth. —Cleared as filed. 20:14, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per BD2412 and the established legal precedent of Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service. Silensor 21:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Listcruft.--Isotope23 21:52, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delele, listcruft easily obtainable from Newsweek if needed.Gateman1997 23:09, 11 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Haeleth. Not particularly encyclopedic. And really to maintain NPOV we would need to have everyone else's top-ten list, too. DES (talk) 01:00, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not a copyvio. Delete on other grounds, namely clutter. Are we gonna have a list for every single year Gamaliel 03:38, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: A specific year's specific listing by a specific magazine that will necessitate the previous year's, the next year's, the next, etc. The information is stranded, too granular, and of no significance whatever. No need to merge. As mentioned above, an account of that magazine's rankings achieves, at best, 2nd hand reportage. This is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. Geogre 03:59, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or defer this nomination for deletion until the questions surrounding the legality of this document are resolved at Wikipedia:Copyright problems/2005 November 11 by the appropriate personnel. Bahn Mi 09:45, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: copyvio is not (for me) the problem. The problem for me is that (as stated above) this is a mirror of a primary source, and the primary source is likely POV at that. Also, there is practically no limit to the number of similar articles which could be culled from the myriad of papers and magazines which print top ten lists of just about everything as space fillers. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:56, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete as per Geogre. Pete.Hurd 22:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Copies of primary source materials don't belong on Wikipedia, regardless of copyright status. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I have formed no opinion on whether this is copyvio or not, but it shouldn't be AfD'd based on that. If it is copyvio, certainly delete it. Otherwise, keep. -Greg Asche (talk) 04:54, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • On the grounds that none of the delete arguments have convinced me, and I'd prefer to err on the side of caution. -Greg Asche (talk) 00:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. We don't need this, it's just restating something Newsweek already did. Foofy 23:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep unless it is determined that it is in violation of copyright, in which case it needs to be removed. There appear to be a large number of other lists on Wikipedia which are copied from outside sources, so we should not single this one out solely because it is related to education. Yamaguchi先生 08:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • "...so we should not single this one out solely because it is related to education." It wasn't. Please read what the nominator wrote. encephalon 09:27, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understand what the nominator wrote, I am merely stating an observation. Yamaguchi先生 15:59, 14 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
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.
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