keep! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Profoundfrustration (talk • contribs) 17:30, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

List of universities with BDSM clubs (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Fails WP:NOTDIRECTORY and WP:LISTCRITERIA - this is a directory of universities with a specific type of club with no encyclopedic merit past that the club exists. We could perhaps merge the lead into the main article (BDSM). ~ Matthewrb ^{Let's connect · Here to help} 16:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Sexuality and gender and Lists. ~ Matthewrb ^{Let's connect · Here to help} 16:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete, no merge/redirect. This is simply something that we shouldn't be cataloging here and is certainly not for a general reading audience or anyone actually attending a school. Nate • (chatter) 17:18, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  • Plenty of pages here aren't written for a "general reading audience", whatever that might be; the people joining these clubs are attending schools; Wikipedia is not censored. XOR'easter (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Passes WP:NLIST due to multiple sources (starting with the first three currently given in the article) discussing the set as a set. XOR'easter (talk) 18:15, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. The sources alluded to immediately above might justify an article for the overarching topic of BDSM clubs at universities, but not a directory (WP:NOTDIR) of universities that happen to have one at the moment (or ever?). WP:IINFO applies here as well -- even in such a hypothetical article, I'd argue against the inclusion of such a listing within it. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 23:15, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

  What's "indiscriminate" about this list? It's not a list of all student groups of all types. WP:NOTDIR points to WP:LISTCRITERIA, which is an easy standard to meet here. XOR'easter (talk) 01:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  "To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources. As explained in § Encyclopedic content above, merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia." This doesn't do that, nor is there any particular way that could be done here. The fact that random college X has random student club Y isn't noteworthy. Again, notability of an overall topic is not an automatic license to compile a list of every single example that can be found. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 01:46, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete I agree that the sources could justify an article about BDSM at universities. My problem with this list is that student clubs are so temporary and informal that it seems impossible to produce a useful encyclopedic list of universities that "have a BDSM club" in any real sense. The sources in this list range from very credible (e.g. Columbia University) all the way to the many entries that may well have been jokes (universities often make it really, really easy to 'register' a club!), or that appeared in a student media outlet or directory years ago and probably didn't exist for long. One citation is a full twenty years old - surely it's doubtful whether that club still exists? And several entries seem to be for one-off events rather than actual clubs. I think the nature of student clubs just makes it impossible to have a verifiable, objective inclusion criteria for whether a given university "has a BDSM club" in any meaningful sense. Does the club have to have members? Does it have to hold actual events? Does it be more than one person's short term project? At the moment this is really just a list of trivia about universities where something vaguely BDSM-related has ever been reported, not a verifiable list of universities per WP:LISTCRITERIA where you would actually find a BDSM club. MCE89 (talk) 09:29, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Passes WP:NLIST, like List of countries with McDonald's restaurants or List of typefaces included with macOS does. I Agree with MCE89, that the criteria is a bit vague and should be defined better, but I think that is possible. In opposite to List of chemical compounds with unusual names having a BDSM club is objectively check-able by specified criteria. Nico Düsing (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Just because WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS, doesn't mean this one should too. The McDonald's list is...middling, because there's at least some background info along with the list entries, but the primary sourcing to the company itself is troubling. It would be better off in prose about the company's activities around the world generally. The typeface list is terrible and I would strongly argue for its deletion as well. You're merely stating that it passes NLIST without really explaining why, or addressing the concerns about NOTDIR, IINFO, etc. that have been raised. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per the significant coverage in multiple independent reliable sources.

  The subject passes Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists, which says, "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list." I will show below that "universities with BDSM clubs" has been treated as "a group or set by independent reliable sources".
  
  Sources

  1. Johnson, M. Alex (2012-11-30). "50 Grades of Grey: Harvard becomes latest college to accept BDSM club". NBC News. Archived from the original on 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-06.

     The article notes: "While Harvard's club drew widespread attention this week, it's far from the only BDSM club officially recognized by, or at least tolerated at, U.S. colleges. ... At the University of Minnesota, Kinky U is Student Organization No. 2370. ... At Tufts University in Medford, Mass., Tufts Kink started meeting this semester. ... There's no national registry of campus BDSM groups, but consensus is that the oldest is at Columbia University, in New York, where Conversio Virium meets on campus every Monday night at 9. ... The point is to "raise general awareness of kink and to promote acceptance and understanding of BDSM," according to the bylaws of Risk-Aware Consensual Kink, or RACK, at the University of Chicago."

  2. Grasgreen, Allie (2012-12-04). "Fifty Shades of Crimson: Harvard is just the latest campus to sanction a kinky sex club, which students and experts say is a healthy and positive educational tool". Inside Higher Ed. Archived from the original on 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-06.

     The article notes: "For all the ruckus it’s causing, you’d think the new BDSM club at Harvard University was actually a new idea -- and a controversial one, at that. Not so. A lot of people seemed taken aback by last week’s widely reported news that – gasp – Ivy League students like kinky sex, too. But clubs for students interested in BDSM – short for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadism and masochism – have been around for quite some time, at least on a handful of campuses (including Cornell, Tufts and Yale Universities). And sex educators say that’s a good thing."

  3. White, Rachel R. (2012-11-16). "The Story of 'No': S&M Sex Clubs Sprout Up on Ivy Campuses, and Coercion Becomes an Issue". The New York Observer. Archived from the original on 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-06.

     The article notes: "The popularity of 50 Shades of Grey has accelerated a mainstreaming of the BDSM subculture already underway—the initials stand for bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism—and the trend has been especially pronounced in our more elite institutions of higher learning. Columbia has a BDSM group. So do Tufts, MIT, Yale and the University of Chicago."

  4. Křivánková, Lucie (2024). BDSM Communities in Central Europe: Societal Perspectives. Cham: Springer Nature. p. 159. ISBN 978-3-031-75618-4. Retrieved 2025-01-06 – via Google Books.

     The book notes: "The interest of university students in activities related to alternative sexual practices is also evident from the increasing number of official events at universities in the USA and even the establishment of clubs dedicated to BDSM and other sexual activities under the auspices of universities such as the University of Columbia, University of Chicago and Vassar College (Crocker, 2012). In Europe, academic and university activities devoted to BDSM can be found, for instance, in Ghent University (2020) in Belgium and the University of Helsinki in Finland (2020)."

  5. Coslor, Erica; Crawford, Brett; Brents, Barbara (2017-08-01). "Whips, Chains and Books on Campus: How Organizations Legitimate Their Stigmatized Practices". Academy of Management Proceedings. 2017 (1). doi:10.5465/AMBPP.2017.12142abstract. Archived from the original on 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-06.

     The study notes: "We examine the intersection of core stigma and strategies in emergent, purpose-driven organizations through the provocative case of official university student organizations focused on kink and kinky sexuality."

  6. Meeker, Carolyn (2011). "Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, and Sadism and Masochism (BDSM) Identity Development". Proceedings of the Tenth Annual College of Education & GSN Research Conference. Florida International University. p. 158. Archived from the original on 2025-01-06. Retrieved 2025-01-06.

     The article notes: "Iowa State University Cuffs is an educational group through which students learn about BDSM and safe, consensual, and non-exploitative human sexuality. Their educational topics include how to safely meet a play partner; bondage; negotiating a scene; and preventing sexual assault (CUFFS, 2010). Risk-Aware Consensual Kink (RACK) is the University of Chicago BDSM club. As a registered student organization, RACK raises awareness about kink and provides resources to interested students (RACK, 2010). Though such groups seem to be safe forums in which students choose to explore and develop their identities, not all colleges have similar groups."

  There is sufficient coverage in reliable sources to allow the subject to pass Wikipedia:Notability#General notability guideline, which requires "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject".

  Cunard (talk) 13:29, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• The list can be improved by removing entries that are not sourced to reliable sources. The list can be improved by modifying the inclusion criteria to be "former and current" clubs so that entries can remain even when the clubs no longer exist. The policies say that articles containing flaws should not be deleted if they can be improved. Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion says, If editing can address all relevant reasons for deletion, this should be done rather than deleting the page. Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required says, Perfection is not required: Wikipedia is a work in progress. Collaborative editing means that incomplete or poorly written first drafts can evolve over time into excellent articles. Even poor articles, if they can be improved, are welcome. Cunard (talk) 13:29, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of these sources addresses the concerns raised or demonstrates notability sufficient for creating such a list, rather than for general topic itself. Also, please stop spamming walls of text into deletion discussions, as it's generally disruptive. 35.139.154.158 (talk) 16:53, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Given Cunard's late addition of sources this seems worth a relist of what would otherwise be weighted (weakly) towards deletion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Barkeep49 (talk) 03:04, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Comment If the issue is having a list, rather than an article for the general topic itself, then we could resolve that by changing the title to something that doesn't say "list of" (and some ordinary editing within the article text). Per WP:ATD, that's an argument for moving, not deletion. The issue of information growing out of date (student clubs are known to shut down on occasion) could be addressed by, for example, including "as of" dates in the article text. XOR'easter (talk) 21:06, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree with this. The topic is notable, but the list is sorta kinda just a directory. Conyo14 (talk) 18:33, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The list passes Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists through the significant coverage in reliable sources, so I think a title with "list" in it is fine. An article about the general topic of "universities with BDSM clubs" possibly could be written but care must be taken to write it in a way that complies with Wikipedia:No original research#Synthesis of published material. The list could be improved by adding more information about each entry and possibly converting it into a table. The "Description" column of List of selfie-related injuries and deaths is an example of a list that provides more context. I agree with you that per Wikipedia:Deletion policy#Alternatives to deletion and Wikipedia:Editing policy#Wikipedia is a work in progress: perfection is not required, an article having room for improvement is not a policy-based reason for deletion. Cunard (talk) 13:46, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete per 35.139.154.158 Buffs (talk) 15:34, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]