Talk:Ed Choate
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[edit] NPOV and Prod
I see the article has been proposed for deletion and tagged for POV. I can't say I'm surprised, honestly, given that Choate nearly completely unknown and because most of the article content is referenced to his website.
Before I continue, however, I wanted to say that I think Ed Choate is completely wrong about nearly everything in a political sense.
I wrote the article, much like I wrote another article on an unknown Tennessee Senate candidate (David Gatchell) and another editor wrote another article about another unknown candidate (Bo Heyward), out of a desire to have an article on every candidate for the 2006 Tennessee Senate election. Unfortunately, because these people receive little press attention (rightly so, in my opinion), a lot of information in their articles has to be sourced to their website.
The article on Choate merely reports his political views without spin (if anything, my center-left bias might have caused me to cherry-pick negative stuff from his website). It was my intention to merely report the facts, not create a political advertisement. I disagree that it is POV and request reconsideration of both the prod and POV tags. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:55, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Comment If a fringe candidate is so far off the radar that the information cannot be Verified from independent Reliable Sources, I take that as an indication that the person fails Notability. Notable people get press coverage. Fan-1967 20:00, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Note that there is a reliable source (a newspaper article) linked in the article (The Commercial Appeal). Choate's political views are referenced to his campaign website, background facts are referenced to the newspaper article. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- I second User:Jersyko. This article discusses a candidate in an important race who has been profiled by an important Tennessee newspaper. What's more, in a race as close as this one, minor left and right-wing candidates take on a greater importance, as they often siphon off votes from the major candidates; ocassionally enough to change the outcome of an election. (cf. the Nadar effect on the 2000 U.S. Election)
As for allegations of POV, I believe that the article simply reports Choate's views, for which sources are provided. I fail to see how this can in any sense represent POV. (By the way, I wrote Bo Heyward -- an article about a candidate whose views I find repugnant. I strove to accurately represent those views without any bias. Wikipedia is an excellent source for voters looking for spin-free information about electoral candidates; the more complete our selection of election-related articles is, the better a resource it will be.
I propose that the NPOV and Deletion tags be removed unless it can be demonstrated that this article is biased or fails to meet notability criteria. (And a candidate who has received press coverage in a U.S. Senate race seems notable to me) --Zantastik talk 20:35, 25 September 2006 (UTC)- I would note that there are no "set in stone" notability criteria for political candidates at the moment. Consensus on this issue is still developing. I agree with Zantastik that candidates for statewide or national office are notable. Notability lines should be drawn somewhere on a local level. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- You're free to delete the Prod tag at any time. Can I just make a suggestion: On November 8, think seriously about getting rid of it, unless you seriously believe he retains any notability then. That's my main objection to these fringe candidate articles. Like the campaign signs by the roadside, no one ever cleans them up when the election's over. Fan-1967
- Thanks. I'll leave the prod tag for a little while to encourage more debate (it's a discussion that needs to be had, I think). Regarding removing or deleting the article after the election, I have to disagree on that point. It's a valid one, of course. But consider that the article Tennessee Senate election, 2006 is going to exist forever (hopefully). In the future, having articles on each of the candidates, minor or not, could be a useful tool for, perhaps, someone studying elections in the early 21st century. The continued existence of the articles isn't going to hurt anything but a tiny bit of Wikimedia's servers. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Think about the number of elections, just at congressional/parliamentary level and above, in the English-speaking world. Think of the number of fringe candidates, who throw their names in the ring, get 0.123% of the vote, and are never heard from again. You really think they're worth noting and keeping? Fan-1967 21:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- From the perspective of someone studying elections at some point in the future, absolutely. Sometimes it's quite telling when candidates with well-defined views don't get votes. For instance, what if political science professor Joe was doing a study on far right-wing candidates in America the early 21st century? Or one on theocrat candidates? Or communist, anarchist . . . you get my drift. Almost none of these women and men are going to get a lot of votes, but could be interesting to researchers in the future. Finally, it's certainly not going to damage the project to have articles on these candidates, assuming that they are updated after the election. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Which is itself an issue. Looks like you're specifically paying attention to this race. The vast majority of the candidate articles I've seen seem to get forgotten by their creators (and never noticed by anyone else) even before the election. (I've been keeping an eye out, and the Democratic sacrificial lamb in my congressional district still doesn't have an article. I don't have a problem with that, since his main qualification seems to be that he's willing to be a good sport for the party this year, after another guy did it the last two elections.) Fan-1967 21:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- From the perspective of someone studying elections at some point in the future, absolutely. Sometimes it's quite telling when candidates with well-defined views don't get votes. For instance, what if political science professor Joe was doing a study on far right-wing candidates in America the early 21st century? Or one on theocrat candidates? Or communist, anarchist . . . you get my drift. Almost none of these women and men are going to get a lot of votes, but could be interesting to researchers in the future. Finally, it's certainly not going to damage the project to have articles on these candidates, assuming that they are updated after the election. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:38, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Think about the number of elections, just at congressional/parliamentary level and above, in the English-speaking world. Think of the number of fringe candidates, who throw their names in the ring, get 0.123% of the vote, and are never heard from again. You really think they're worth noting and keeping? Fan-1967 21:31, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- Thanks. I'll leave the prod tag for a little while to encourage more debate (it's a discussion that needs to be had, I think). Regarding removing or deleting the article after the election, I have to disagree on that point. It's a valid one, of course. But consider that the article Tennessee Senate election, 2006 is going to exist forever (hopefully). In the future, having articles on each of the candidates, minor or not, could be a useful tool for, perhaps, someone studying elections in the early 21st century. The continued existence of the articles isn't going to hurt anything but a tiny bit of Wikimedia's servers. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:06, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- You're free to delete the Prod tag at any time. Can I just make a suggestion: On November 8, think seriously about getting rid of it, unless you seriously believe he retains any notability then. That's my main objection to these fringe candidate articles. Like the campaign signs by the roadside, no one ever cleans them up when the election's over. Fan-1967
- I would note that there are no "set in stone" notability criteria for political candidates at the moment. Consensus on this issue is still developing. I agree with Zantastik that candidates for statewide or national office are notable. Notability lines should be drawn somewhere on a local level. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:46, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
- I second User:Jersyko. This article discusses a candidate in an important race who has been profiled by an important Tennessee newspaper. What's more, in a race as close as this one, minor left and right-wing candidates take on a greater importance, as they often siphon off votes from the major candidates; ocassionally enough to change the outcome of an election. (cf. the Nadar effect on the 2000 U.S. Election)
- Note that there is a reliable source (a newspaper article) linked in the article (The Commercial Appeal). Choate's political views are referenced to his campaign website, background facts are referenced to the newspaper article. · j e r s y k o talk · 20:01, 25 September 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:Candidates and elections#This policy is relevant to this discussion and this article, if anyon is interested. · j e r s y k o talk · 02:08, 26 September 2006 (UTC)
Where is my freedom of speach? i was CENSORED in here after telling the truth about choate—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Felipetenor (talk • contribs).
- Please read Wikipedia Policy on Biography of Living Persons. You might also want to investigate the laws regarding libel. Fan-1967 17:28, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
