Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bruce Guthrie

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 of the debate was No consensus. Deathphoenix ʕ 04:47, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bruce Guthrie

Nom, & vote
Del on, this pathetic also-ran, who doesn't even qualify as a politician: people who neither are involved in making policy, nor have any chance of starting to do so without an election upset that would be of interest mostly for its bizarreness, are fringe activists, and may be presumed n-n until real influence or attention to them is demonstrated. This guy's greatest distinction is polling best among 3rd-party candidates in one state in one year. Running 3rd with 3%, where the victor got a landslide, is the height of irrelevance. I may be too cautious in having made this a ProD instead of a speedy-del.
Jerzy•t 16:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

• Weak keep The article seems to assert enough notability to warrant being kept. He is only a third-party candidate on the state level, but if Washington state's Libertarian Party- a major third party, as far as third parties go- supports him, he must be one of most important (or, at least, politically active) Libertarians in the state; also, "Bruce Guthrie" + "Libertarian" gets 925 Google hits, of which a little over 200 are unique (which may or may not be enough to say that this guy is notable via Google), and there's certainly a chance that more of the 23,700 G-hits for "Bruce Guthrie" pertain to him. I would usually vote delete on some little-known candidate for Congress from the [Insert name you've never heard of here] Party, but Guthrie is apparently sufficiently notable. -- Kicking222 16:28, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep If a candidate is able to get on the ballot in a U.S. Senate race, he or she is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Although it is highly unlikely that Guthrie or the Libertarians will even come close to winning this race, Guthrie's name will appear on the ballot, and Wikipedia would be violating its policy of neutrality by deleting his entry simply because some might consider him irrelevant or an also ran with a "fringe" viewpoint. -- Freedom Lover in Olympia 16:56, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Does not meet criteria of WP:BIO. It also does not meet the proposed guidelines for candidates, which should be persuasive even if not binding. From the article itself, there is little to denote the notability of this person other than being an also-ran in an election. This person can be included in the Washington United States Senate election, 2006 article. Fluit 18:00, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete; I essentially agree with Fluit's opinion here.--Isotope23 19:07, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Folks seem to have trouble wrapping their heads around "Political figures holding international, national or statewide/provincewide office or members of a national, state or provincial legislature." If you haven't, then you don't meet WP:BIO as a pol. Merely running for office is prima facie not in of itself notable. RGTraynor 20:06, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep, major third party candidate for a US Senate seat. User:Zoe|^(talk) 20:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. I live in a congressional district where the Democratic candidate can't plausibly be described as notable. Merely making it onto the ballot doesn't make you notable. It's too easy to do. Fan1967 01:18, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep He's a three-time nominee for a notable U.S. political party. Aside from plenty of "by the way" type mentions in articles about the Senate race, his candidacy does receive some degree of featured coverage. ScottW 01:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per Fluit. BryanG 02:45, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
• Keep per Zoe. — CJewell (talk to me) 04:28, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
• Delete. A three-time candidate, even for a notable party, is not enough to make one notable, and the page lists nothing else that he's done. Are we going to make start listing every unsuccessful candidate for every elected position in every democratic country in the world? You could be looking at 5000 odd every three years just for Australia. Paddles 16:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. In my congressional district, the Democratic candidate was the same for the last two elections before this year. Does this mean he's notable? No, it means he volunteered to be the sacrificial lamb in a safe incumbent's district. Fan1967 02:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Strong Keep - I'm amazed that people want to delete this article. I restored his bio information. He's an active member of his community, and an active participant of our Democracy. Leave him out of the print version if you wish, but leave the online version. It's been here since December of 2004, and we're just now lookingn for viability? That's wrong. Chadlupkes 20:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

• "Print version"????? Fan1967 22:36, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• No change to earlier delete vote. I would consider changing vote if he had a published book or often-cited research papers, or had notable speed skating performances at a national or international level. Simply being a lecturer doesn't automatically confer notability. Simply being a competitive speed skater doesn't automatically confer notability; I know someone with a world ranking in snowboarding but wouldn't consider him wikiworthy. The argument that the page has been present since December 2004 is specious, I'm sure there are hundreds of pages on non-notables that haven't been marked AfD simply because they haven't been found yet. AFAIK no-one is suggesting Guthrie is a bad person - just, in the context of an international encyclopaedia (he's not a participant in my democracy) and on the basis of the information in the article, not notable enough to warrant inclusion. Paddles 00:30, 13 May 2006 (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.