User talk:Pete.linacre

Notability for an organization
Hi! I noticed that you protested the deletion of the Oxford University Biochemical Society's article. The problem with your rationale for it being kept is that we have to have sources that show notability for the group rather than for people that might be involved with it.

First off, the society running for a long time doesn't mean that it is notable. We have many things out there in the world that have successfully run for a long time, yet never gained any notice from reliable sources. Secondly, a group can have notable persons involved yet that notability is not inherited by the person working with or speaking for the group. It might make it more likely that the group itself would gain coverage, but this doesn't guarantee it. The problem with a lot of school organizations is that many times people tend to ignore them in general or only give them a WP:TRIVIAL mention in the press. I also noticed that you argued that other articles exist for other groups. The problem with arguing that other things having pages is that the existence of other pages means nothing as far as notability goes. It might just mean that those pages don't pass notability guidelines either and should be deleted as well. Then again, those groups could pass notability guidelines in some way that this group doesn't. Pointing out other pages doesn't really accomplish much and one Oxford group passing doesn't mean that all others would.

Now as far as reliable sources go, you have to show us where the OUBS has been mentioned in sources that are independent of Oxford and also considered to be reliable as far as Wikipedia is concerned. The issue with the sources on the article is that none of them are the type that would show notability for the group. Anything published by the group, by Oxford, or anyone involved with the group would be considered a WP:PRIMARY source, which cannot show notability. It doesn't matter how many records Oxford keeps, as anything they could produce would be seen as a primary source that can't show notability. There were also links such as this one which are pretty much a directory-type listing. Links of this nature can't show notability either, unfortunately. It shows that the group exists, but existing is not notability. What can be used as a reliable source? Well, if you had a notable magazine such as say, The Scientist or Cosmos write an article about you, that could be used. The same thing would go for if a newspaper not affiliated with the school wrote an article about the group. Similar good sources woudl be the society getting a lengthy mention in a book that wasn't written by the school or associated with it. Of course, if the book was published by a self-publishing company such as CreateSpace or iUniverse, that wouldn't be seen as a reliable source.

I've transferred a copy into your userspace for you to work on, but I have to say that offhand I don't see this passing WP:ORG anytime soon. There's no true harm in working on it in the meantime, though. You can find the article at User:Pete.linacre/Oxford University Biochemical Society. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡)   08:42, 6 July 2013 (UTC)