Talk:LSE Students' Union

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Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 22 August 2007. The result of the discussion was No consensus.

Contents

[edit] Students' Union / Association sabs list deletion

  • I've started a discussion on Chriscf's Talk Page as this involve all the union's page. Please go there to provide your opinion if you're interested. -- KTC 16:04, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
    • I will be removing the above discussion from my talk page. User talk pages are for personal communication. They are not for conducting general content debates. Feel free to start a discussion in the Wikipedia namespace, but this is not an appropriate discussion for user pages. Chris talk back 16:01, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Discussion was needed because of your unilateral deletion on multiple pages. So in a sense, your talk page does fit for purpose. Anyhow, it's now at Talk:Students Union -- KTC 03:45, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Notability

this is not notable and should be deleted Sherzo 16:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

it is one of the most notable students' unions in the UK. part of the UK psyche in 1960s. claiming it is not notable because you don't know anything about it, is probably something that you as a wikipedian should know.

Its not notable because your claims are not verifiable sources. equally students are of a university not a student social club. there action make the university notable. Sherzo 20:44, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I stumbled across this notability tag, and have Been bold and removed it. LSE students union is historically notable, mainly due to the protests of the 1960s which were major national news at the time and these are well referenced in the article.144.173.6.74 17:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

at last some sensibility is restored. this Sherzo guy so convinced of his own opinion despite clear evidence to the contrary, and worst of all, was pretty arrogant about. arrogant enough to chide others. Marshalapplewhite 19:06, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

the removal of such tags especially by unregistered users can be consider vandalism, if you feel its notable provide valid argumentsSherzo 08:59, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

double standards at work. you never provided a valid justification for asserting that the BBC references are of no validity. you act as if your opinion is paramount, even though you are not from the UK, or know enough about the UK to make a judgment. I would like you to justify why is the BBC article I had most recently added, not a valid reference. Marshalapplewhite 10:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Personally, I think the article needs improving. Could do with being much shorter, and a few images wouldn't hurt. But come on, large student unions like this one are usually notable. The BBC sources are relevant information which attest to the clear notability of the LSE SU. They alone should be enough to save the article. Sherzo! Your referencing standards are absurdly high! And at any rate, referencing alone is not grounds to discount an article. Is there any other reason you think the article should be deleted? Also, you seem fond of guidelines so can I point out this one: WP:GHITS. On a tangent, are either of you aware of this debate currently raging over notability? JMalky 11:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

the need for improvement is noted. in fact, i agree it looks real plain. Marshalapplewhite 11:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The second source you cite is fine however since the event itself lack an article it really can't be as important as you claim, and the section London_School_of_Economics#Student_body more than adequately covers it, if anything the bbc shows the unions irrelevance. but even if that was notable enough to fork out a seperate article, this is poor at best and represent the attempt of notability to shoehorn in alot non notable vanity, a list of class presidents treasurers etc are they notable? or is that your planning to become one WongCh2? the part of the article that you claim is notable constituents less than a fifth of its total size. You have also not established the union is involvement, often such protest are lead by a charsmatic individual outside the mainstream leadership and spread in a wildcat fashion. you need specific references to show that.

JMalky referencing is paramount and any article that lacks it should be removed, since it protects NPOV and makes it useful as an educational tool as more and more students use wiki over other sources when i grade i often find the students who state inaccuracies often reference wikipedia. Sherzo 06:18, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

lol. i can't believe you allow your students to cite wikipedia. that is crap. it's your job to tell them wikipedia is a useful comprehensive guide which allows you to look up stuff in short time periods, but NEVER, NEVER a replacement for the library, research from credible sources. the problem with students referencing wikipedia is not wikipedia. it is the fact they are even doing that. you yourself should realise wikipedia can never reach the state where its content is of assured and guaranteed reliability. Marshalapplewhite 12:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

i guess you can't read BBC articles, since all you do is misquote, misunderstand, or believe its content has malicious or self-serving intent. i do not see a list of class presidents or treasurers, i do see a list of sabbatical officers. i did not create this article, and you can jolly well see it for yourself in the history. if you have a problem with the quality of its content, suggest improvements, not ask for an article to be deleted. you are simply acting in petulance and demanding deletion of stuff arbitrarily and without sufficient knowledge on your part of the UK student political culture. Marshalapplewhite 12:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Given that your Secretary of education has recommended as much and not everywhere can afford a well stocked library such as the LSE has, but tell me how long have you been teaching, "you yourself should realise wikipedia can never reach the state where its content is of assured and guaranteed reliability" actually we could when experts mostly edited wiki it was rather reliable it was when people such as yourself stated adding nonsense that it became less so. but what a great way to destroy own argument i think that proves this not notableSherzo 17:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

yet again you overblow the LSE contribution to UK student culture, and again accuse me of the very comprehension you lack. "a rose by any other name" a class president is still a class president, you still have to say why it deserves a seperate article rather than being mentioned on the LSE paga as it already is? Sherzo 17:03, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

you are so qualified to speak on the topic i suppose. based on what knowledge of yours do you judge? that the LSE SU was involved in the protests is a fact, which is already stated clearly in multiple articles. you seem to assume every thing out there is biased and inherently unreliable, and nothing convinces you otherwise, simply because YOU THINK SO. why is your opinion more valid and more valuable? and considering you are not in the UK, on what basis do you claim to possess sufficient understanding and knowledge to judge on notability and siginificance of UK culture and history? if you wish to edit stuff that concerns OTHER PEOPLE more than it concerns you, you do things how it is done elsewhere. You call students' union social clubs and general secretaries class presidents, simply because where you come from, thats what they are and thatz what they are called. so sorry that you don't realise that things happen to work a little differently from state to state, nation to nation. and you wonder why you piss people off? haven't you considered that you are insisting on things your way rather unilaterally and calling things they way you see it even though things work differently in other countries? this arrogance that you know everything and have the right to call things you see fit. and you wonder why people aren't put off.

wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and that means the content is not guaranteed. you can never be sure at a given time that the information it contains is actually accurate. changes can be made at anyone at any time, and they can only be attributed to a username. in between the time when changes are made and reverted, when a "student" takes stuff he finds as fact, too bad for him i guess. and articles are perpetually changing, improving, incorrect stuff are removed, details are adjusted, who is to say the info you see today is actually entirely accurate? maybe you just visited the article one day too early before an errant fact is spotted. no accountability if the information is incorrect. you quote wikipedia, you take your chances. if the student is smart, he quotes the references listed and makes it look like he read the books. but who can guarantee that the information quoted in the article is taken in context, quoted accurately? i don't know where u get your experts from, but i'm sure uni professors and academics have better things to do than surf wikipedia everyday to keep tabs on information and ensure reliability. maybe some find it worth their time, but some is not good enough. encouraging your students to do "research" on wikipedia is encouraging intellectual stagnation. you don't learn at all. try doing your degree all over again, using wikipedia. i wonder how far you can go.

wikipedia is not useless as an education tool. like i said, it is good to pick up on stuff, for the basic knowledge, for the bare bones, which even then, you have to take with a pinch of salt. from there you go on, go to the libraries, read the real stuff. but i fear for your students if you allow them to quote wikipedia. you think they'd bother to read beyond, since you allow them to quote for assignments and get away with doing the bare minimum? Marshalapplewhite 19:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

That students of the LSE were involved is a fact not that LSE SU had any role notable enough to deserve it a seperate article. as i have stated several times the second BBC article is a good source however it does not back up your claim the LSE SU is notable of its own, only that students of the LSE are, and thus the LSE is. you have failed to show why the LSE SU is notable no one is debating that the LSE is notable Sherzo 13:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

on the yet again off topic matter of sourcing, I am not going to fail a student for failing to reference properly, and at least they've tried, not everyone has access to a multi million dollar library, in a city with the world's finest collection of museum and most well stocked library. Sherzo 13:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

that is a lame argument. not having access to the best libraries in the world is not justification for quoting wikipedia. wikipedia can never replace actual academic journals, archival information, library resources. dude, it costs money to access the internet. that is as much a barrier to wikipedia as anything else. your argument is not even valid on the grounds of accessibility to the less privileged. most libraries are open to public at no charge. The British Library is one. and it is one the best there is in the country. and sorry to disappoint you but the LSE library which you are hinting at is in fact accessible by the general public for non-profit research purposes, for free. an application process is required, but it doesn't cost u money to use the library.

you like to harp a lot about notability. you are not from the UK, so you are not in the best position to judge. just because you are not aware doesnt mean it wasnt notable. you were not in the UK, and certainly not during the swinging sixties. and you also should be aware number of google hits is not proof of whether something is famous or notable. the fact that the BBC is aware of the history of the LSE SU and interested in its workings today enough to commission an article, the fact that the 1960s student protests are iconic of the era, and is reflected even in the national portrait gallery display. just like MIT and CalTech are famous for their hacks, within their school and against each other. just because one is more publicised given its occurence in the age of the internet, does it mean it therefore has more notability than something that happened in the 1960s? when stuff are all in print? you are biased towards internet retrievable sources, which you should probably realise, is not comprehensive and nowhere exhaustive. how valid is a judgement call made based on googling? Wongch2 15:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

i'm glad you've finally stopped using sockpuppets. no one is disputing the notability of the university, who page already has a section on the student body mentioning these protests, but why is it notable enough for its own forked article? Sherzo 16:38, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

there should be a distinction drawn between the institution and its students. the LSE did not initiate the protests. its students did, using the students' union as a mechanism for organising, coordinating and executing their protests. the protests are the work of the students under the students' union, not under the school. the authority being challenged is the school authority. the body representing student interests in this row, is the students' union executive body. the students union is intrinsic in these disputes and protests. it is the body negotiating with the school, leading the students in the protest.158.143.177.27 21:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

oh a brand new IP pops up and joins the debate how convenient, still you have not show it was LSE SU rather than just groups of students, or any evidence that the LSE SU made an impact rather than the LSE Sherzo 01:50, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

cant you read? this is from JMalky's talk page.

Sherzo's argument is basically, if i have followed them right, that the protests were spontaneous, not organised by the students' union, and therefore, the notability is with the school. i have consistently shown and now will show you, that the students' union played a major role in coordinating, organising and directing student protests in the 1960s. most importantly, using secondary sources, from the BBC, which is the probably the most objective news source there is to be found in the UK.


1969: LSE closes over student clashes - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/24/newsid_2506000/2506485.stm

Students and staff held a meeting during the day to discuss the removal of the gates - but the student union president, Francis Keohane, lost a motion that removal should be by negotiation.

Within half an hour the gates were down. The union president, and treasurer Roger Mountford, announced their resignations saying they could not defend the law-breaking action.


Testing the student political mood - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6299579.stm

The student union has a tumultuous history, dating back to the 1960s. Demonstrations, sit-ins and hunger strikes were held in 1967 in protest at the appointment of Walter Adams as LSE director. When security gates were installed in 1969 inside the school, the students went on the rampage, pulling them down.


1967: Protest over student suspensions - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/march/13/newsid_2542000/2542639.stm

Hundreds of students at the London School of Economics are taking part in a sit-in over disciplinary action taken against two union officials.

The pair, David Adelstein, president of the Students' Union, and Marshall Bloom, president of the Graduate Students' Association, have been suspended for their part in a demonstration on 31 January against the appointment of the LSE's next director, Dr Walter Adams, in which a college porter died.

David Adelstein, 20, a third year Economics student from Manchester and Marshall Bloom, 22 an American student, reading for a master's degree in sociology, were found guilty of disobeying an instruction forbidding the use of the Old Theatre for a meeting.


1969: Once a rebel - http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/january/24/newsid_2639000/2639609.stm

A student union meeting took place and we debated what to do about it. There was a very vociferous, strong and well-articulated opinion that the gates should be just removed.

A motion to negotiate with the school was attempted. That was defeated and then some people went out and took them down.


students' union involved in organisation and leadership of protests - true and referenced adverserial conflict between school and student body led by SU - true and referenced

just what doesn't show what you claim it doesn't show? i would like you to prove your point. how are these articles not indicative of the accusations you've made. take some burden of proof. i've already proved it so many times, so clearly, and other people like some guy from exeter and jmalky have already confirmed to you the significance of the protests. Wongch2 06:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

insults aside you have failed repeatedly and your use of sockpuppets to vandalism this page and try and support to your discussion do nothing but weaken the argument. all notable information on here is a duplication of that already on the LSE page, it is merely an admit to shoehorn i a vanity page under the guise of notability. Sherzo 07:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AfD

I've restored this article and marked it AfD in order that there can be consensus over the notability. Edit warring should be avoided. TorstenGuise 19:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Incedentally, there are a few problem areas, and the article needs rewriting to remove some of the staff and student names. TorstenGuise 19:10, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

the section on LSE page is a bit long and i think alot of that information would be better placed here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.110.13 (talk) 23:48, 22 January 2008 (UTC)