Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Loughborough Students' Union

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 was Keep per WP:SNOW, non-admin closure. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(Broken clamshells•Otter chirps•Review?)} 20:10, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Loughborough Students' Union

Loughborough Students' Union (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

not even a school, it's a non notable organizaiton in the school, apparently written by the students themselbes, with few good references. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 18:27, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. See Category:English students' unions. Student Unions clearly can be notable. If this article has problems, it should be improved, not deleted. The use of local terminology would help. It is not a school. It is the student union of a well established university. The UK does not use the term "school" for universities. --Bduke 22:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Schools, which include universities, inherently carry some notability. Student unions, do not. Every single university has them, sometimes many. My undergraduate alma mater, Florida State University, has the Oglesby Student Union. It also has the Black Student Union, the Jewish Student Union, the Catholic Student Union, the Asian-American Student Union, etc. ad nauseum. Student unions by themselves are non notable, and this one is not. The university by itself may be fine, but the union has no notability to establish itself. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Then the Student Unions in Florida are very different bodies from those in the UK. UK universities have one student union, to which all students in the university belong. The only university that has several student unions (see the category I gave above) is the University of London, where the very large colleges, that act as separate universities in many ways, have their own student unions. The student union is the body that sponsors all other student societies, usually including all student sports clubs. I know something of US universities and I do not think experience there is helpful in understanding the situation in UK universities. --Bduke 05:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    That still doesn't establish that the Student Union is notable, only that the school is notable. The fact is, many of those articles consist of nothing but a list of the sabbatical members of the Union, and what bars and restaurants the union owns. That's not encyclopedic knowledge. Wikipedia is not an advertising source, nor is it an educational directory of university organizations. Notable ones, yes, but not this. By your comparison, then, UK student associations are equivalent to US Student Bodies or Student Senate Constituency. Almost none of those have articles. NUS deserves an article as a notable organization. A few of the unions in there have claims to notability, i.e. the one that was around from 1874 and had Freemason connections, or the one where it had a president arrested for pedophilia scandals, etc. The vast majority, including this one, have absolutely no notability whatsoever. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 05:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    What I wrote has nothing to do with the notability of the University. In the UK, the student unions are the most notable of all student organisations. This Union is most likely notable. There will be lots of verifiable reliable sources. They need providing from someone who knows where they are. This union covers more than the university. That is unusual. The turnover is 2 million pounds. There will be sources. I now leave it for others to find them. Like you I am a long way from Loughborough, although I do know about UK universities having studied and taught in them (not this one). --Bduke 07:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Notable organization and venue, no real rationale given for deletion. LSU is an organization with members from 3 educational establishments, not an 'organization in the school'. It could use more references but that's not a reason to delete it.--Michig 07:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep It's not a school it's a university. The union is notable for being the only^{[citation needed]} student union in the UK that owns it's own student union building rather than leasing space from the university. --Stephen ^1-800-STEVE 09:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. LSU is indeed a notable organisation. it bosts may unique achievments that no other organisation can speak of.
  • It is the only students union to represent three organisations, the university, local colledge, and Royal National Institute for the Blind.
  • it has the largest charitable fundraising total of any union in the country. ^[1]
  • its radio station is responsible for helping launch and entire genre of music back in the 80's.^[2]
  • They have won the british university sporting association cup for 29 years running,leaving all other unions in thier wake.^[3]
  • They are the most ethical and environmentally freindly organisation of its type, having won many national awards in this feild. including the green gown award ^[4], the best bar none award ^[5] and the sound impact award^[6].
  • They Have achieved the higest score in student satisfaction in the national student survey last year proving the outstanding level of support for its community. ^[7]
  • The ONLY union to be owned by its Student members.
  • having the oldest student cinema in the country with several hundred capacity^[8] (an acheivemnt in the UK).
  • being one of the biggest performance venues in leicstershire.

not to mention a host of othe acheivents to unique and numorous to mention here.Spanmandoo 13:56, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep and improve Students' unions in the UK are separate entities not "organisations in the school". Also they are formalised - it is very different from Florida where "students' union" is getting attached to what sound like little more than student societies. Bduke has put it well. Timrollpickering 12:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• This AfD nomination was incomplete. It is listed now. DumbBOT 10:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Bduke and Spanmandoo. This is not an after-school class. Jdcooper 14:10, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, inherently notable. RandomCritic 14:33, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per Spanmandoo (seems to have plenty of notability) and improve. --Belovedfreak 15:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Student Unions (in the sense that is used in the UK) are notable organisations. Individual societies such as the ones described above may not be, but should be decided on a case by case basis. --Darksun 16:59, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - notable. -- KTC 17:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep There seems to be some cross-Atlantic mis-understanding of what a UK Student's Union is. Red Fiona 18:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

  • That's not a valid deletion/keep reason. ⇒ SWATJester ^{Denny Crane.} 21:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

    Indeed, the nomination is valid on its face, namely that the organization's notability is not demonstrated by use of third-party references. This is a significant concern, and not addressed by simply saying the nominator is mistaken, but rather by improving the article. FrozenPurpleCube 21:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ LBoroSU | Home Page
2. ^ https://www.lcr1350.co.uk
3. ^ BUSA Action - BUSA
4. ^ http://www.heepi.org.uk/green%20gown%202006-7/times%20higher%20ad.pdf
5. ^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_Bar_None
6. ^ Students’ Unions receive Sound Impact Awards for being green | New Consumer
7. ^ The National Student Survey
8. ^ Flix: Loughborough Students Cinema :: Information

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletions. -- KTC 17:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Comment It seems to me that the people commenting here would be well-advised to consider the standards for notability at WP:ORG. The best way to assert an organization's notability is by adding sources about it, preferably third-party ones from reputable places. So far the only third-party source currently in the article is one about a shooting. Which is hardly significant coverage of the organization itself. I would also point out that the existence of other articles about student unions is a poor argument. Most of those articles are not in a good state, and some are in quite poor state. If you want to see examples of organizations where notability is well-established, try Skull and Bones or possibly Oxford Union. OTOH, looking at the various student organizations with articles (both in the UK and the US, probably other countries as well), I see a lot which probably should be carefully examined. FrozenPurpleCube 21:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. I agree that those who edit articles on Student Unions need a wake up call to add sources and keep them at a NPOV. However, I do not think deletion of articles on major student unions is a good idea. Some of the smaller ones could be merged. However Loughborough is a major university with a union that covers other institutions in the city. Student unions covering whole universities in the UK and Australia, where I now live, are more notable than any high school due to the number of members, number of employees and total revenue. However, if people who have access to the sources do not look for them and add them to the articles, we will have to revisit this in the future. I would point out in passing that Skull and Bones ond Oxford Union are not student unions. The Oxford Union is a debating society with club rooms. --Bduke 22:45, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• I didn't include those pages because I thought they were student unions, but rather because they were organizations associated with colleges that demonstrated notability. Student Unions as a whole really aren't showing that much wider notability to me. Mention in the article on the university and college? Sure, go ahead, that's reasonably valid. Articles on their own? I'm still quite highly doubtful. And this applies to colleges in the UK, Australia, the US, Canada, and anywhere else. Especially when silly stuff like owning a building is used to justify inclusion. Owning a building may matter if it's covered in other sources, like say [1] Rice University getting a bit of ownership of Yankee Stadium, but I've seen nothing to indicate that's the case here. And you may not have noticed, but there's a LOT of student-related organizations with questionable articles on Wikipedia. I've looked through Category:Student societies by country, and I'm highly doubtful about the vast majority of them. FrozenPurpleCube 23:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Note, by the way, I'm not limiting my concerns just to Student unions, but any college-affiliated organizations. FrozenPurpleCube 23:38, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

• Well, we just have different opinions. I looked at the UK, Australia and New Zealand categories and I saw a lot of articles that to me are clearly about notable organisations. Whether they demonstrate it in the article is another matter, but to me they clearly could. There are a minority that may not be notable and I have nominated one to AfD. Since the majority of us are or have been students, we often have false modesty and down grade the notability of university organisations and people, while we have no problem about some one who played 5 games of professional football. However this general discussion really should be somewhere else. --Bduke 00:00, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

• Well, I don't know about you, but for me, it has nothing to do with modesty or my personal feelings about the organizations. And I do have problems with some of the standards for pro-sports, though I think the comparable level in these cases is more like having the guy who drives the team bus with an article. FrozenPurpleCube 00:25, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

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.