Talk:National Union of Students (Australia)

Factions section

@Salvationichor, I've reverted your reinsertion of the material you added to the factions section. Those source provided in support of the material aren't reliable for the claims being made. Per WP:ONUS you need to obtain consensus prior to re-inserting the same or similar content. Please discuss. Regards, TarnishedPath^talk 10:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, as per WP:RSSM student papers can be considered a reliable source if the subject matter is relevant to schools / their community. As the NUS is a student-led organisation, I believe that information reported by student media can be considered reliable, particularly when it comes to reporting on criticisms made by students of the NUS. Could you please explain why you believe that student media is not a reliable source for reporting on these criticisms? Newspapers like Honi Soit and Pelican

The articles by student media that I cited, were already cited within the factions section, I simply added extra information and removed information that I could not find reported elsewhere.

If your issue is my addition to the mention of vote binding, I would appreciate an explanation on why you haven't edited the section on NLS within the Factions section which currently lacks citations and currently includes the claim that the faction binds votes.

Would love to have some clarification on the issues you see so that we can come to a mutual understanding. Salvationichor (talk) 14:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

1) WP:RSSM says "Reputable student media outlets, such as The Harvard Crimson, are considered generally reliable sources for news on their school and local community". These outlets are not Harvard Crimson and are not automatically considered reliable. See Talk:National_Union_of_Students_(Australia)/Archive_1#Return_of_factions_section_and_addition_of_new_section_on_organisational_crisis where there was some discussion on Honi Soit. I went to ANU so I personally know that Woroni (one of the sources you were adding) is a not reliable. In fact I've just noticed Woroni is still used in the article, added by editors prior to you, and should probably be removed. The Pelican peice is an opinion peice, only good for determining the opinions of those quoted and of the author. In generally student newspapers are as bad as or worse than tabloids. Full or gossip, inuendo and SFA fact checking. Refer to WP:RSOPINION. We don't build encyclopaedias on the basis of opinion pieces, where there is no reason to giving some weight to those specific opinions.

2) Being a reliable sources for news on their school and local community, where a paper can be considered as such and here that isn't given, does not extend to being reliable about things external to those schools and local communities, i.e. NUS.

3) Please don't ask me to WP:SATISFY you and edit the entire article for consistency. I have limited time, as I expect you do. We all do the amounts we are prepared to do on a voluntary basis. Bottom line, as far as I could tell only one reference in the new material you added, had anything on binding and that was only about Student Unity. Saying Student Unity binds is not the same as saying most factions bind.

Now if you want to dispute me saying these student newspapers are not reliable for the purposes that you were using them, you can raise it at WP:RS/N. Per WP:ONUS, you need to establish the reliability of the references where they are in question. TarnishedPath^talk 23:13, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, could you please elaborate on why you don't see Woroni as a reliable source? Their publications must be approved by a board and the paper is over 50 years old. Similarly, Honi Soit is nearly 100 years old and has 6 Directors of Student Publications who check over the paper each week prior to publication. Obviously, these papers are not the Harvard Crimson, but they can be considered the equivalent for their universities.

Perhaps I am misunderstanding you, but from my understanding, your view seems to be that student media is automatically an unreliable source regarding the NUS.

Currently, the only citations under the "Delegates and factions" section are different student papers. If you do not believe that any of these are reliable sources, then I propose that we remove this section entirely as the information is unverifiable and much of it currently lacks citations (my previous edits did not add any additional sources but simply made clear where information had originated). However, I believe including information about the factions is important to provide context to readers as structural and financial issues for the organisation have been linked to factionalism. Salvationichor (talk) 03:29, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@Salvationichor my previous edit summary was making a broad universal statement which I shouldn't have made. The issue I see with many student newspapers is that they engage in a lot of gossip. Additionally a lot the articles I've seen from them are clearly opinion pieces but they are often passed off as if they are straight-forward factual reporting, often with no indication that the articles are opinion. I know this firsthand with Woroni, having attended ANU for 5 years.

Looking at the references you added; Honi Soit, Honi Soit again, Woroni and Pelican Magazine, all of them are clearly opinion pieces and are not marked as such. They are passed off as factual reporting. This clearly marks them out as unreliable for anything other than the opinions of the authors and those they quote.

If you want to remove material that is inadequately supported I am not adverse to that. If you're going to do so, I'd suggest having a look at each source used and determining if there is a straightforward reporting of facts or if there is clearly language used in the articles which indicates that they are opinion pieces, in which case WP:RSOPINION applies. TarnishedPath^talk 05:20, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @TarnishedPath, so just to confirm I understand you correctly, your issue is primarily that you see the specific articles cited as being primarily opinion pieces? Would you be amiable to inclusion with a qualifier clearly asserting information as opinion e.g. "Honi Soit has said... "? My perception of these sources is that they factual reporting with opinion commentary intermixed in the article, for example reporting of delegate percentages for each faction is factual information reported.

I believe there is some value in reporting some of these opinions within the article as these student papers are the primary source of information for many students about the NUS and therefore are indicative of broader student perspectives on the NUS. Salvationichor (talk) 06:17, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Opinion pieces are often of the sort you describe (facts mixed in with opinion). To the question though, yes that is the primary issue I see not only with those particular articles but with student newspapers in general. In regards to attributing the opinions, I really don't see the value of attributing to the opinions of nobodies. Their opinions have no great weight to them. TarnishedPath^talk 07:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

In the case of the Pelican article, some of the reporting is based on comments made by NUS delegates from the University of Western Australia in official reports to the UWA Student Guild Council as well as commentary provided by election candidates including a presidential candidate that was ultimately successfully elected and is currently in power. Additionally, past editors of Honi Soit have gone on to hold positions on the University of Sydney SRC. Therefore, I disagree with your argument that these opinions are held by "nobodies" as some of these people have been elected to represent students. Salvationichor (talk) 07:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I was elected to ANUSA (the ANU student association) when I was an undergrad. It's not notable or particularly significant. I wouldn't try and insert quotes of my opinions in here (even if WP:COI wasn't a thing) because it would violate other core policies to do with WP:NPOV, WP:RS and WP:V.

For myself, when it comes to attributing to opinions in political articles, I'm looking for the person with the opinion to be a columnist who's opinions are notable or a subject matter expert in politics (i.e., someone who has done postdoc training in politics or who lectures in politics) for me to think that opinion is worthy of quoting. The idea of attributing to undergrads doesn't cut it by a long way in my thinking when it comes to upholding WP's core policies.

We're not here to insert every last possible thing into articles. We don't need to include the WP:KITCHENSINK. TarnishedPath^talk 11:22, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

If anything we should probably pear back the faction section given the lack of reliable sourcing and only include material which is reliably sourced. The inclusion of that section has been contentious in the past with some editors taking to completely remove it. Refer to the talk archive at Talk:National Union of Students (Australia)/Archive 1 for discussions. TarnishedPath^talk 11:25, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@Salvationichor, I just went over the faction section and I immediately spotted some of the problems with using a source which is unreliable. In a number of places factually incorrect information was presented about NUS factions being affiliated with the party factions. TarnishedPath^talk 11:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah all good, I do agree with some of your points. I think inclusion of the Faction section is important simply because of how factionalised the NUS is / has been and therefore not including it would miss important context. Glad that we are both satisfied with the state of the Faction section now though.

Personally though I think that a SRC President's official opinion on a stupol matter during their time in office is noteworthy as they have the ability to act on that opinion and influence stupol on the basis of their opinion. Additionally, an SRC President is supposed to be the peak student representative for a given university, regardless of your personal opinion on whether or not they are representative.

I agree with you when it comes to articles on federal politics, but at a student-level I think the standard for a noteworthy opinion should also be appropriately adjusted. Salvationichor (talk) 12:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I can't say that I'm satisfied with the section completely. You might have noticed I've tagged that ANU Oberver article as requiring better sources each time it is used. Most of that section relies on that one source. Better sources need to be found if they can and if they can't then the whole section might need to be completely rewritten to only cover material in the SMH and ABC articles or any others that can be found. TarnishedPath^talk 12:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I am planning to further update it as it is always better to have corroborating sources where possible. I hadn't noticed that you had tagged it previously. Could you please explain your issues with the ANU Observer article? I view it as presenting a neutral viewpoint. Salvationichor (talk) 12:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

A) it's an opinion piece. It mixes in opinion with fact. B) it makes factually incorrect statements that various student groups are affiliated with certain political bodies. Per Google the definition of affiliated is:

(of a subsidiary group or a person) officially attached or connected to an organization.

That it mixes opinion with fact and doesn't clearly label that it's an opinion piece is bad enough. That it goes on to make factually incorrect statements is an even bigger problem. TarnishedPath^talk 13:16, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

References

NUS statements posted on social media

Hi, currently the NUS has been posting their official statements via social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram on their official social media accounts instead of through their official website. For example, the NUS's official statement regarding the ongoing genocide in Gaza was posted to Facebook and Instagram. I have noted that some Wikipedia articles have used social media posts as a source for information in the article. However, I do not feel that social media is generally a reliable source. Does anyone have objections to using social media as a source solely for the NUS's official positions on issues as an interim solution until their website is appropriately updated? Salvationichor (talk) 06:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@Salvationichor have a read of WP:ABOUTSELF and in particular some of the exceptions which rule out covering such material. TarnishedPath^talk 07:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for linking, I missed that page when I was scanning through existing policy. Some of the statements are limited solely to discussion of the activities of the NUS but the vast majority of them are not (like the statements that I linked). Salvationichor (talk) 07:40, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah that's the problem with a lot of WP:ABOUTSELF sources. In the material the subject often starts addressing other people and orgs. Even if all we're doing is inserting prose into the WP article which is about the subject and not about the other people or orgs, just putting the article as a reference is an invitation for readers to read about what the subject has to say about the other people or orgs. I tend to be a bit more conservative when it comes to ABOUTSELF sourcing given that a lot of WP:SELFPUBLISH sourcing is not considered reliable. TarnishedPath^talk 11:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a suggested method of referencing these sorts of statements then when it comes to the NUS official position on issues? I think that this can be important to include where relevant and it seems appropriate to refer back to a primary source in that instance for example, for a direct quotation. Salvationichor (talk) 12:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

If you want to reference NUS positions on something then I'd think it might be covered on the NUS website? If their website doesn't have a statement about it then I'm thinking to you shouldn't rely on the opinions of student newspapers about what NUS's position is on something. TarnishedPath^talk 12:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @TarnishedPath, as I mentioned in my initial message, the NUS website is very poorly updated with the 2023 officers still listed on the website instead of the 2024 officers that were elected at NatCon in December. For this reason, the NUS has taken to posting their official statements through their official social media channels. There is no reason that the official social media accounts should be treated any differently from the website. Salvationichor (talk) 12:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot about that. Yeah, as I wrote above Social media is fine as long as the statements are coming from official social media accounts. Again though we're not going to cover what NUS is saying about others per WP:ABOUTSELF, we're only going to cover what they have to say about themselves. Also, those sorts of sources are primary sources and we should favour secondary sources. TarnishedPath^talk 13:08, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Financial mismagment allegation

@Salvationichor, you can't use Honi Soit in any manner which accuses people of crimes. Doing so is a WP:BLP violation. If the material is that significant it will be covered in the mainstream press. TarnishedPath^talk 12:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, as someone part of the Council of the SRC when that edition of Honi Soit was published, I can assure that the SRC's lawyers were quite confident of the contents of that article, and would stand up in court. Larger mainstream press outlets wouldn't bother with reporting on things like this, and so it would be best to take student journalism as sources for student politics, each existing within the student culture ecosystem. Pandainapeartree (talk) 15:43, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

No we can't take a source, which doesn't separate opinions from reporting in a lot of it's stories, as being sufficient on reporting these sorts of things. To do so would be a WP:BLP violation. TarnishedPath^talk 03:24, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I think given the specifics of the article, and the lack of opinion within this precise article, it isn't a WP:BLP violation - it is simply reporting on facts. To claim all student newspapers are opinion, discredits the significant work they do in investigating student- and university-specific issues. Annabelle Crabb of the ABC frequently uses Honi Soit as sources when discussing the student politics days of federal and state politicians, and thus I think it similarly be ok for us to use it. Pandainapeartree (talk) 03:27, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Pandainapeartree that the particular article in question has less opinion passed off as factual reporting does not particularly redeem it. Honi Soit from my reading of it makes a regular habit of mixing opinion with factual reporting and passing the whole lot off as factual reporting and not declaring what are clearly opinion pieces to be opinion pieces. This makes it generally unreliable for reporting on matters of fact. Speaking of the particular article it still contains opinion which is passed off as fact, even if it less than other articles. It is unreliable for statements of fact. That mainstream media hasn't covered this might suggest that it's of no particular significance and doesn't belong in the article. We don't give special dispensation to student newspapers to allow a level of unreliability just because the mainstream media isn't covering a topic. TarnishedPath^talk 03:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe your understanding of student newspapers is inherently flawed. For the mainstream media to cover issues of which is usually quite a niche area (student politics) would be quite odd, but this article is precisely about that niche area. It may not be entirely desirable with the general usage of "opinion" in student newspapers, but these are often the only sources that can be used (apart from limited NUS meeting minutes), and if we find later on that the information is incorrect we can change it. Pandainapeartree (talk) 03:57, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Your argument that they are the only sources doesn't make Honi Soit any more reliable. We simply can't use sources which pass off opinion as factual reporting as if they were reliable. This becomes especially important when those sources accuse living people of criminal acts. We simply can't do it as it would be a WP:BLP violation. If there are no other sources then the material should simply not be covered. WP:BLP policy is not negotiable. TarnishedPath^talk 04:48, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I have to agree with TarnishedPath here. WP:BLP says Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. If the only source that exists for wrong doing by a living person is a student newspaper then it shouldn't be included. Nor would meeting minutes help, because of WP:BLPPRIMARY. WP:BLP details must be correct and properly sourced or left out, there is no middle ground open for correcting it later. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:25, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

References