Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Paul Babbitt

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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 (8 keep, 5 delete). Robert T | @ | C 01:44, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Paul Babbitt

Unsuccessful candidate in a single election. Minor political figure, fails WP:BIO - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:10, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Keep. In addition to being a major party candidate in a congressional election, he was mayor of Flagstaff, Arizona, a city of more than 50,000 people. That seems notable enough to me. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:13, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: Which section of WP:BIO supports inclusion of unsuccessful candidates in a single election to a national office, or mayors? - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:17, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
      • WP:BIO says "This list is not all-inclusive". :-) Seriously, by my standards a city of 50000 is quite large, and when this is coupled with him being a main party candidate in an election, I believe that the article may be of interest to those who want to read about American politics. Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
        • Yeeeees, but he was an unsuccessful main party in a single election - there are a hell of a lot of those! There is another model which would work well, and that's to cover the election itself (all the candidates and issues) as has been done for other races. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 10:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
          • I don't think we'll come to an agreement here, and I realize that the issue of the notability of such people can be disputed. I stand by my keep vote based on holding the top political position in a city of 50,000 and running for congress, and I will await the input from others. :-) Sjakkalle (Check!) 10:55, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, more notable than Tom Nipp. Kappa 12:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • The mere fact of the existence of articles on other politicians who fail WP:BIO is not good grounds for keeping all such articles (that's the two wrongs fallacy). It's actually rather better grounds for deleting the others. Or perhaps merging them into an article on the town, in a section on the particular office. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] :: AfD? 12:56, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Bogus argument. Being more notable than a non-notable person does not, in itself, make someone notable. → Ξxtreme Unction {yak yak yak ł blah blah blah} 12:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Wake me when he wins a major election. → Ξxtreme Unction {yak yak yak ł blah blah blah} 12:58, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep Mayors of Flagstaff are inherently notable.--Nicodemus75 13:15, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep all mayors. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:32, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep large-city mayors. BD2412 T 20:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree whole-heartedly with this sentiment. However, Flagstaff is not a large city. There are several suburbs of Fort Worth and Dallas which each have a larger population than Flagstaff, Arizona. → Ξxtreme Unction {yak yak yak ł blah blah blah} 22:29, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete until he wins a notable office. -- Kjkolb 22:20, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete agreeing with above. Dottore So 00:04, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I'm not sure if Sjakkalle knows how many counties there are in the US alone with 50K people, and running for office and failing is not a claim to encyclopedic notability. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 00:17, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I am quite aware that the US has in the order of about 1000 cities with a population of 50000, but Flagstaff is not merely a suburb, is the main population centre of the area. Sjakkalle (Check!) 06:56, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. Flagstaff is the major city of Northern Arizona, and Babbitt was a major-party candidate for Congress. Information on Babbitt is certainly of far more use to the public than info on Joe Quimby, whose town doesn't even really exist. -- Mwalcoff 04:11, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep mayors of cities of 50,000 inhabitants or more. Suburbs are part of VERY large cities, which doesn't invalidate the fact that Flagstaff is a pretty large place itself. - Mgm|(talk) 10:43, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: I'd like to point out that congressional candidates now meet WP:BIO. Two weeks ago, I suggested on the talk page that congressional and legislative candidates should be considered automatically notable. The only objection was that it should be limited to credible candidates. I went ahead and made the change before reading AfD Thursday. Anyway, it seems to that BIO lists people who should gain automatic recognition but does not claim that anyone not on the list should be deleted. -- Mwalcoff 22:37, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
  • In the UK we have an election every 3-5 years; at each election 600-odd seats are contested, every one meeting the old WP:BIO - now, there will be at least three candidates per constituency meeting WP:BIO, and often more (in Wales you might get Labour, Conservative, Lib-Dem, Plaid Cymru, maybe UKIP and sometimes a credible independent as well). And while the winner tends to stay for several terms, the defeated candidates usually disappear back to the day job and are never heard of again. This is going to result in an avalanche of gushing articles about people who, but for losing one election, would never be considered for a Wikipedia article - do they get dleeted afterwards because they are no longer running for office? Who's going to do that maintenance? In the mean time we have people on AfD who aren't even on the ticket yet. - Just zis  Guy, you know? [T]/[C] (W) AfD? 23:09, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
This discussion should take place on the talk page for BIO, not here. But I'd point out that even if every major-party 2006 U.S. and Candian legislative candidate gets an article, and we throw in every major-party candidate from the 2005 UK election, they would still make up only a tiny percetage of the 1 million plus articles Wikipedia will have by next year. Articles on losing candidates who don't go on to do anything special can just sit there until the candidate dies.
It's also worth noting that it's rare that you would get a complete non-notable person as a credible, major-party congressional candidate. Usually, congressional candidates have served as state legislators, mayors, county officials, etc. -- Mwalcoff 23:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
But it would be hundreds (eventually thousands) of unexpandable, likely unmaintained stubs, most of which will be ignored after the election by both readers and editors. - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 01:13, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
I would very much disagree that articles on losing congressional candidates would be unexpandable stubs. You can see how much was written on Paul Hackett, whose only prior political experience was as a village councilman. Imagine what we could write on Ann Womer Benjamin, a former Ohio House speaker who lost a congressional race in 2002. (Her article is just a stub now, but it doesn't even mention her pre-2002 career.) -- Mwalcoff 02:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
And for every individual like that, you'll have literally dozens of other articles that will never be expanded beyond "This person was a nominee in such-and-such election, and didn't win. They're now selling insurance in Poughkeepsie." If the person is notable, the article will be created on its own and will survive an AfD. The notion that we must create an article on every person who might, someday, be notable under the proper confluence of circumstance is not a notion that will lead to a quality Wikipedia. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 02:19, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Are you saying that there's not enough to be written on most congressional candidates, or that people won't bother? As I pointed out with Paul Hackett, detailed articles can be written even about "outsider" candidates with little political experience. I would guess that with so many Wikipedia editors interested in politics, we can expect to see full articles on many if not most major-party congressional candidates next year. But for AfD, the key is not whether people want to expand stubs but rather whether there is enough verifyable info out there to do so. With campaign websites, campaign-finance databases, newspaper stories, League of Women Voters guides, etc., there is more than enough available for any major-party candidate. -- Mwalcoff 05:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
  • KEEP. I don't see any reason not to keep it. And the argument that, because a policy might ALLOW (not DEMAND) the creation, and keeping, of an article for any credible candidate in the offices mentioned above, there would be a huge load of articles is no reason to get rid of an article on a mayor of an important city and who additionally has run for Congress. Yes, the article is tiny at the moment; but who's to say it won't become bigger and have fascinating information and loads of cross-references to all kinds of other interesting Wiki stuff? One could already be writing an article on the Babbitt political family—for apparently this guy's brother was not only governor but also Secretary of the Interior. I don't know whether that's Arizona's interior or at the federal level; but, either way, this could be the start of Wiki pieces well worth keeping. President Lethe 21:31, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. Only participate in a single election. *drew 01:26, 16 November 2005 (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.
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