Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Students for Life of Illinois (2nd nomination)


 * 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. -- RoySmith (talk) 22:49, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Students for Life of Illinois
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Does not appear to be notable. The impressive-looking list of references are almost all to other anti-abortion organisations (ie not independant), there are a couple of trivial mentions in local press. TheLongTone (talk) 09:15, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * According to Independent sources - "Independent sources are not necessarily "neutral" in the sense of being even-handed. An independent source may hold a strongly positive or negative view of a topic or an idea. For example, a scholar might write about literacy in developing countries, and he or she may strongly favor teaching all children how to read, regardless of gender or socioeconomic status, but if the author gains no personal benefit from these children learning how to read, then the publication is an independent source on the topic." So the fact that a source is from another anti-abortion organization does not mean that it is not independent. In fact, because Students for Life of Illinois is a stand-alone non-profit it appears that these other sources likely derive no personal benefit from publishing about another organization in their field and therefore can be considered independent. Also, I've seen no references in the documentation that suggests that local press should be considered trivial. Smartedits5 (talk) 17:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

I created this page. I'm kind of new to creating pages here and I'm a bit confused as to why this is so quickly being considered for deletion. I did a quick search of other non-profit organizations in Illinois and there are several that have either no references or only reference the organization's website. Some have been flagged for notability but have not been deleted. Others have not been flagged. It seems that the Students for Life of Illinois page should be treated the same way. It's a registered 501c3 and it has more references than many of the other pages in the category. Here are some examples of pages being treated differently: Air-One Emergency Response Coalition Center for American Archeology Here's one that's even a student organization with only a non-reference to the state of Illinois website: Belegarth Medieval Combat Society Here's one with the only reference as their facebook page: Eastern Illinois Foodbank and some more: Al Khamsa (organization) Alliance for Audited Media Classic Car Club of America His Wheels International -- I only went through the C's in the non-profits of Illinois category and those are the ones I found, so I'm sure there are many more.

It seems to me that we should treat this page the same as these others in the same category and instead of immediately deleting it, work to improve it together. Smartedits5 (talk) 13:37, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * The fact that other comparable articles exist is not an argument that stands up: in wikipedia jargon WP:OTHERSTUFF. There is certainly a plethora of references in this article, but there are really none that serve to establish the notability of the organisation: see WP:GNG.TheLongTone (talk) 14:05, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Illinois-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 15:51, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * As a side note, it's fun to learn how all this works and participate in improving wikipedia. Thank you for the links, as I am still learning. Your first link WP:OTHERSTUFF seems to support my argument it says: "(This may be an argument that this article is not bad enough to be speedily deleted; but that does not mean it should be kept.) While these comparisons are not a conclusive test, they may form part of a cogent argument; an entire comment should not be dismissed because it includes a comparative statement like this." My argument seems to stand up in that I don't think this article should be quickly deleted and instead it should be improved. Smartedits5 (talk) 17:03, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * My concerns about the article are wholly about the organisation's notability. Coverage by other linked anti-abortion organisations does not establish this.TheLongTone (talk) 17:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)


 * IMHO the words anti-abortion or similar should best come early in first sentence of article. Might help to have some indication of organisation size: Staff numbers, turnover, something like that.  I'm not sure of convention here but perhaps a "see also" section pointing to a range of Pro/anti abortion topics may help Gregkaye (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the input. I can do some research on that. A quick look at the website shows that they are involved on about 20 college campuses and it has been around for 8 years. Smartedits5 (talk) 18:41, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It looks like they have 4 staff members, 2 interns, an alumni association. Your point about a see also section could help give context, though I did try to include a lot of links to related articles Smartedits5 (talk) 18:57, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

KEEPTheLongTone has not demonstrated this organization isn't notable, other than to say that he doesn't think it's notable. What criteria are you basing your assertion on? At what point is an organization notable? If you could list the definitive criteria that has been approved by the Wikipedia foundation, then we can use facts to determine if this particular organization meets the criteria for notability or not. You have stated that "The impressive-looking list of references are almost all to other anti-abortion organisations (ie not independent), there are a couple of trivial mentions in local press." How do you define trivial? What is your criteria for discounting the citations are trivial? The article includes at least three independent sources: The Daily Illini, which is the University of Illinois' Independent Student Newspaper, The Register-Mail (http://www.galesburg.com/), and Canada Free Press (http://canadafreepress.com/). In addition to these sources, other pro-life/anti-abortion website sources are provided. You would expect an article about baseball to cite other baseball or sports related sources like ESPN, Sports Illustrated, or baseball-reference.com, you would expect an article about art to have citations from other art related sources, so you would also naturally expect that citations from a anti-abortion / pro-life article to have references from anti-abortion / pro-life sources.

Thanks, hopefully we can get this issue sorted out.jptelthorst 20:20, 23 June 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jptelthorst (talk • contribs)
 * The onus is not on me to prove it is not notable (and it is difficult to prove a negative). Rather the notability of the organisation needs to be established. I believe it is not notable becaause it does not seem to have been the subject of any significant media attention. Please read WP:GNGTheLongTone (talk) 22:14, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

The notability of the organization has been established based on three independent citations that have been listed in this article, such as: The Daily Illini, which is the University of Illinois' Independent Student Newspaper, The Register-Mail (http://www.galesburg.com/), and Canada Free Press (http://canadafreepress.com/)

Again, I would ask you to cite the criteria for the establishment of notability and then explain how the article fails to meet that criteria. I have made an argument above on why I think the citations do establish notability, and you have not refuted my argument by explaining why the citations for the article fail to establish notability. Jptelthorst (talk


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, slakr  \ talk / 02:02, 3 July 2014 (UTC)



Delete Despite a long list of references, none of them denote notability. There is no significant coverage of this organization that I can find in news archives or academic journals. Fails WP:GNG. Tchaliburton (talk) 06:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Keep It seems that you're dismissing the links without looking at context. Under Identifying reliable sources it says "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication. Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in the Wikipedia article. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it." LifeNews and LifeSiteNews are considered industry news sources, for example. Just because they are in the same industry does not mean that what they report is not notable or reliable or independent. I think context is important as stated above and I think the context of most or all the sources supports reliability. So, we have independent and reliable sources. Also, Notability says "The evidence must show the topic has gained significant independent coverage or recognition," Again, just because there are sources from other organizations within the same 'industry' doesn't mean the coverage is insignificant. Smartedits5 (talk) 12:43, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.


 * Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, j⚛e deckertalk 16:16, 10 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. Seems notable.  I added some Guidestar info and a quote from a Chicago Tribune article. -- do  ncr  am  15:49, 15 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Under General notability guideline it says "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." This organization has been featured in the Daily Illini, Daily Northwestern, Young America's Foundation as well as a couple documentaries, most recently 'The 40 Film'. Any claim that this organization has not been featured in the news is, quite simply, not true. Merely because this organization has not been featured in the Wall Street Journal or Forbes magazine does not make it irrelevant to the general public." JerryVacha (talk) 16:44, 16 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep Apparently largest organization in the country of its type (organized on college campuses) in anti-abortion work. I think people on both sides of the issue would like to know of its existence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonh30303 (talk • contribs) 22:16, 16 July 2014 (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.