Talk:University of Alberta Students' Union

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The contents of the University of Alberta Debate Society page were merged into University of Alberta Students' Union on January 2010. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected page, please see its history; for the discussion at that location, see its talk page.

According to Wikipedia style guides, it doesn't go by official name, it goes by commonly used name. According to their own website, the name is University of Alberta Students' Union Ardenn 05:52, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A good example is the Athabasca University Students' Union. According to the legislation, legally their name is the Students' Association of Athabasca University. Ardenn 05:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I favour the restoration of the deleted list of past presidents of the organization. There is a big difference between a directory and a list of historical significance. If you read Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not a directory, it provides a list of what constitutes a directory for the purposes of that section, and a list of people to fill a given office is not among those things. Moreover, several of the people in that list have gone on to become notable and have articles created about them. If nobody responds to this talk page posting within three days, I'm restoring the material.
In the interests of WP:COI, I should note that I am a former Vice President of this organization, and that Presidents Dumouchel, Boissonault, Chalk, Samuel, Hudema, Brechtel, Blatz, Lettner, Power, and Janz are known personally to me. Sarcasticidealist 04:04, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Great, but Wikipedia isn't a directory, nor is it MySpace. If you want that list somewhere, put it on their own website. It's not really that notable, and fails to cite sources. GreenJoe 04:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I addressed the directory argument above, and I honestly don't see where you're coming from on the Myspace thing - what resemblance does a list of past presidents bear to Myspace? As for notability, I agree that it would be inappropriate to create List of Presidents of the University of Alberta Students' Union. However, that's not what's being proposed here, and notability guidelines limit what articles exist; they do not limit article content.

You are correct on sources. I would be happy to cite a reliable third party source as soon as it's reinserted, which should address that portion of your concern. Sarcasticidealist 04:33, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The point of not myspace, is that the article isn't the advertising vehicle of the union. It's a factual article about the union, and the list of Presidents really is irrelevant. As for not a directory, a list of people who fill an office is a directory. GreenJoe 04:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The article certainly isn't an advertising vehicle of the organization (although I think WP:NPOV is much more on point than Myspace for that purpose). However, listing past presidents does not constitute advertising by any definition of which I am aware. As for a directory, in common usage it is a list of people who currently fill offices (for example, listing the current president, current vice presidents, current general manager, etc.). However, more relevant than the common usage of directory is the one used in WP:NOT#DIR, which does not include lists of past office holders.

Probably it would be easiest if you could quote for me an exact passage of policy that prohibits this sort of thing. If you can't, then please admit that it is a matter of preference rather than policy (there's no shame in that, if you make that admission we can go ahead and resolve it via normal consensus procedures). Sarcasticidealist 04:43, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the note of the presidents being noble. "Several" is not three people off the list, whos articles do not assert any significance except maybe one article. A section on "notable" presidents would be reasonable, how does a list of names help the general reader? As a former past president, the autobiography and biographies of living persons applies to you as well, in which case you're generally already in a POV issue. SpigotMap 04:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A quick correction - I was not president of the UASU (I was, in fact, soundly defeated in my attempt to become it). Sarcasticidealist 05:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From WP:EiC: Student council members are rarely notable enough to warrant mentionning in the school articles. GreenJoe 04:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It cites a discussion about a high school with enrollment of 1390. You'll forgive me for not finding it persuasive in the case of a university with enrollment in excess of twenty times that. Sarcasticidealist 05:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See also WP:N on lists of people. GreenJoe 04:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There we go - if you'd cited that in your deletion edit summary, it would have saved us all some time. You win this round, Joe... Sarcasticidealist 05:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So as far as we are now, a small section about the three persons who have a wikipedia article may be written. It should be in prose, and you should assert their notability in the article. SpigotMap 05:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll get on that tonight or tomorrow. Sarcasticidealist 05:11, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, thanks for cleaning it up, you can never have too many references. SpigotMap 06:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Do all of the people I included appear satisfactory to you? To be honest, I won't defend Pilkington's inclusion to the hilt - I had to read the WP:OUTCOMES section on academics before deciding to include her - but I'm pretty firm about the rest. Sarcasticidealist 06:15, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good to me, might add a reference about being "widely quoted", or add a fact tag to see if anyone else has a reference. SpigotMap 06:18, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]