Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Agricultural Foundation of California State University, Fresno

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 delete all and redirect to the appropriate campus, with the exception of Sonoma State University Academic Foundation, for which the result was ~~no consensus~~ keep. No one supporting keep has shown significant coverage in reliable sources for these organizations. T. Canens (talk) 03:09, 22 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agricultural Foundation of California State University, Fresno

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Series of stubs about CSU support organizations; unnecessary and non-notable fork of content at parent university articles. MelanieN (talk) 02:27, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages because they are all stubs about non-notable support organizations for schools in the California State University system, which either duplicate content which is already in the parent university article, or can readily be merged into the parent article. If a consolidated list of CSU support organizations is desired, the names could be added to the article Auxiliary Organizations Association.

Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. —MelanieN (talk) 03:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. —MelanieN (talk) 03:08, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete/Redirect - as per nom - all non notable, some may be valid search terms so maybe redirect them to California State University. Codf1977 (talk) 10:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would be fine with redirects, but the redirect should be to the individual campus of CSU, for example to California State University, Fresno. --MelanieN (talk) 14:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry should have made that clearer - obviously to the correct campus. Codf1977 (talk) 14:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- I don't see how any of these fails notablity. In the case of the student governments, they each have thousands (excuse me, sometimes tens of thousands) of members, each is one of the largest and most active organizations in its own community (if not region), each funds numerous programs, etcetera. In the case of the foundations there is an even greater case for notability because of the myriad progrmams they fund with the millions of dollars they have. Together the CSU system is the largest student body on Earth. I think we need a little perspective here.

The activity of these organizations are in third party sources regularly. I also don't see how we can fairly exclude some and not others. Associated Students, Chico is like a behemoth, whereas Associated Students, Fresno works out of a closet sized office. They both serve thousands of people in their communities, however with different resources available.

I also feel a duty to point out that being a stub is not a reason to support deletion. Stubs exist for a reason. The idea is that the presence of these articles makes a place for contributions that otherwise would not be made.

Furthermore, I think that the fact that these are academically related topics deserves higher priority in general on WP. I think it behooves us on WP to provide as much information on academic sources of information as possible. People make links to these sorts of things in their references, etcetera. I think we should be building this stuff not deleting it. These are organizations that give money for academic research. I am truly puzzled at the priorities here. Greg Bard 18:42, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Recent edits, especially long-worded ones are not helpful with some of the attached edit summaries. Suggest such edits stop and let the AfD debate take place. ----moreno oso (talk) 19:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are entitled to your opinion about the actual issue, as well as my long-windedness. However I have every right to be as "longwinded" as I feel I need to be. I am not getting in the way of any debate, and I find your last comment to be"not helpful" quite frankly. Perhaps restrict ourselves to the merits and demerits of the proposal? Greg Bard 20:13, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per nom. Fails WP:CLUB for non-profit organizations as reliably sourced citations have not been provided and as per Codf1977's observations. ----moreno oso (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In fairness, do you really think that any of these organizations do not meet the criterion for secondary sources? Some of these organizations have their own PR department.Greg Bard 00:13, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible that some of these organizations have received significant coverage from independent, reliable sources, as required to be considered notable by Wikipedia. If so, I would encourage anyone who knows of such sources to add them to the articles. Because all I could find was: their own websites, these Wikipedia articles, and an occasional item in the local campus newspaper. (Yes, I did follow WP:BEFORE.) That degree of sourcing is not enough to meet WP:GROUP. If the information about these organizations is merged to the article about the parent campus, or already included there as is the case with most of them, then it is still here on Wikipedia and available to interested parties - even without an article of their own. --MelanieN (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I have added third party sources for AS Bakersfield. I will certainly be able to do the same for all the others. They are all located in cities with newspapers, etcetera. Will this suffice to re-evaluate this proposal?Greg Bard 03:01, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's a step in the right direction, but I doubt if it satisfies WP:GROUP's requirement for "significant coverage in reliable, independent secondary sources." These seem more like "Trivial or incidental coverage of a subject by secondary sources is not sufficient to establish notability." Of these stories you found in local newspapers, two mention the group in passing as sponsor of an upcoming activity, and I can't find any mention of the group in the third one. --MelanieN (talk) 03:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep -- CSU campus auxiliary foundations have often been involved in controversy, For example, during the past year, the Sonoma State University Academic Foundation has been the center of a controversy over real estate loans made to a local developer and former board member, Clem Carinalli. A sample of article titles from the daily Santa Rosa The Press Democrat: Nathan Halverson, "SSU foundation hit by Carinalli loans," The Press Democrat, July 2, 2009, pp. A1, A11; Nathan Halverson, "Loans to Carinalli draw SSU rebuke: Faculty group says foundation 'betrayed public trust,'" The Press Democrat, July 3, 2009, pp. B1, B3; Nathan Halverson, "SSU foundation's private land loans," The Press Democrat, July 26, 2009, pp. A1, A6-7; Nathan Halverson, "State auditing SSU foundation," The Press Democrat, November 24, 2009, pp. A1, A9; Nathan Halverson, "SSU blames Carinalli, ousts official over loans: Crowd at hearing charges university officials mismanaged foundation," The Press Democrat, Dec. 17, 2009, pp. A1, A11; Nathan Halverson, "Carinalli suing SSU foundation to get $234,000 back," The Press Democrat, March 3, 2010, pp. A1, A5. Another controversy surrounded the secrecy about the amount in private funds raised by CSU Stanislaus' foundation to bring Sarah Palin to campus for a fund-raising speech this summer. A California Assembly committee will hold hearings on a bill to provide more transparency to CSU foundation activities. I'll refrain from writing up the story line in the foundation's article until a decision to keep has been made. Dwalls (talk) 21:07, 12 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- I would like to see this debate re-listed. The proposal involves several articles. I think that the fact that these organizations are among the most active in their own community and region ensures their notability. The student governments hold annual elections for officers. These are governments we are talking about here.Greg Bard 20:25, 13 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, JForget 01:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment responding to Dwalls: what you say certainly amounts to notability for those particular foundations. I remember reading about the Sarah Palin speech controversy, although I didn't realize it was the CSU Stanislaus FOUNDATION that was involved; most of the coverage made it sound like it was the university itself. (That story should be covered at California State University, Stanislaus but I see it isn't mentioned there.) In any case, the Stanislaus foundation is not included in this delete request. This is not a proposal to delete ALL such organizations, only the ones that don't satisfy WP:N. So you can go ahead and add the information to the Stanislaus article, it is safe. The sources you mention sound like adequate coverage about the Sonoma foundation, and if you add them, I will withdraw my delete nomination for that foundation. --MelanieN (talk) 15:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment responding to Gregbard: Yes, they are student governments and they have elections, but those elections do not receive notability outside of the campus itself. As noted above, some of the foundations DO receive wider coverage; those that satisfy WP:N should stay. The fact that some such foundations are notable does not mean they all are. According to Auxiliary Organizations Association there are 90 such support organizations for the CSU system; are you seriously arguing that all 90 of them deserve articles? --MelanieN (talk) 15:39, 14 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ninty of the most influential organizations in the state of California? Yes. You seem to be under the impression that the foundations are more notable than the student governments. Perhaps they should be, due to their $$$ and influence. However usually they get less attention from the media than the student governments. In every case, when there is a student government election there is coverage by the local non-campus paper, and certainly the events they sponsor also get regular coverage.Greg Bard 00:06, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not under any such impression - that the foundations are more notable than the student governments. I do not generalize at all; I judge each organization according to its demonstrated notability. Coverage of student body elections "in every case"? I have never seen any coverage of the San Diego State student elections in the local San Diego media, even though San Diego State is one of the biggest and most active student bodies in the system (and you will note I did not nominate it for deletion). It is going to take more than your repeated assertion about how influential these organizations are; it is going to take evidence in the form of WP:Reliable sources. In any case, I'm glad to see you assert unflinchingly that all 90 of these organizations deserve articles of their own; it allows other readers here to see where you are coming from. --MelanieN (talk) 00:19, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we were talking about a local philanthropic group like a chapter of the soroptimists, then that wouldn't qualify. However these organizations are very rich, and fund projects that gain third party coverage all the time. They are some of the most influential organizations in the state by any standard.

I do not appreciate your attempt to characterize me. For your information these are all verifiable, if not verified. At some point we are able to use common sense about it. If you are going to robotically delete every article that doesn't actually have all of its sources without regard to the common sense issues of notabity then there isn't any point in discussing it with you. You have every right to waste people's time on WP. I've already spent enough time for now on the Bakersfield group. Greg Bard 00:29, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment -- I feel I should also point out that the reason why a university has auxiliary organizations in the first place is specifically so as to create an entity that is separate from the university. Placing the information about these entities in the same article as their university defeats their efforts.Greg Bard 00:13, 15 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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.