Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ben Konop

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was DELETE. dbenbenn | talk 17:30, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ben Konop

This political figure is running for office to challenge incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Michael G. Oxley. Does this make him inherently noteworthy to begin with, regardless of the outcome? GRider\^talk 23:27, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Delete until he wins the election. RickK 07:02, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Major party candidates who run for President are notable. I'll even say the same for the Senate. But not for the House. There's 400+ of them every two years. Even the winners barely clear the bar just for taking their seat. Delete. -R. fiend 07:41, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Keep; major party candidates for national-level office are inherently notable, and good articles can certainly be written about them. I'll see what I can expand in this one, perhaps. Meelar (talk) 08:49, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Agree with Fiend - Delete. There's far too many low-level political figures in any country, and most of them aren't notable for encyclopedia entries. Radiant! 09:30, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Weak Delete. Not quite notable enough. Trilobite (Talk) 10:26, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Keep in support of Meelar. Kappa 14:25, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: If wikipedia is going to have entries on everyone who's run for Congress, then we must prepare for about 20,000 substubs from just the past hundred years. Even if elected these guys wield little power individually. Are we going to have articles on everyone who's run for State Senate too? -R. fiend 16:55, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: Depending on the outcome of this vfd, I have begun separating bio-stubs into a new cat called {{politician-stub}} to simplify my next go-round. GRider\^talk 17:00, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: No, we won't have articles on state senators unless they're exceptional in some regard; they have smaller constituencies and less impact on national policies. But winning a major party nomination for high-level office means notability in my book. Also, I've somewhat expanded the article. Please look over the new version, future voters. Meelar (talk) 19:00, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • The expanded article still doesn't give much useful information; the minor details of the campaign that are given can basically be said about every race in the country. Being outraised in contributions is, as the article says, conventional, as is accusing the incumbent of being out of touch with voters, as is a Democrat receiving money from labor unions. And working as a laywer before running for congress is pretty run of the mill too. Nothing here really. I still maintain that running for an office like Congressman (whose constituencies aren't that big, really) does not make one notable. I think time spent expanding stubs would be better spent on current and past House members, not the people they defeated. And I think someone who actually serves in a state legislature is at least as significant a figure than someone who merely ran for Congress. I do not look forward to 20,000 "This guy ran for congress once and lost" articles, unless, as you said, they are exceptional in some way. -R. fiend 19:25, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
    • In retrospect, you're right: we should have articles on individual state legislators. Still keep this one, though. Best, Meelar (talk) 03:05, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Vagrant 20:12, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete I believe some candidates can be notable just because they're candidates, but IMHO, in 99% of cases, the following guidelines should apply:

  Is the election itself particularly historic (for example, almost all defeated candidates who were even marginally significant in the Iraqi election should probably have a stub, as it was the first. In contract, another significant election, the california recall of 2003, probably only merits page creation for relatively major defeated candidates)

  Did the candidate do anything groundbreaking as part of the campaign? (Can't think of an example right now, but what if Howard Dean had revolutionized fund raising methods by running for state senate? That sort of a guideline)

  Does the fact that this person was a candidate push them over the threshold for notability when you look at all merits as a package? (for example, semi-notable business leaders who run for office)

  If none of the above apply, no dedicated apply, they may deserve mention on another relevant page, but not their own article

  While I'm relatively new as a registered user, and my opinion might carry less weight than most, I'm thinking of the long term future of the wikipedia namespace -- you don't want to establish precidents that make the quantity of articles required in 50 years completely unmanagable, but you want to credit truely notable individuals, still. Obviously, you all can disagree, but I feel like more explicit standards to resolve this issue are badly needeed.EggplantWizard 03:16, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Running for office does not make one inherently notable. Wile E. Heresiarch 07:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, just underthe bar of notability for me. Megan1967 08:23, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Keep running for the US House is at least as significant as publishing one book or releasing one album, and we regularly keep authors and bands who have done no more than this. Johntex 15:53, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't think we generally keep authors who have written one book unless that book was particularly notable. Am I right? Literally millions of people have written books. Also, writing a book is, in a way, more notable than running for office in that a book may survive for centuries, but once someone's race for office is over, it's over, they're not really leaving anything behind. -R. fiend 16:29, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Johntex, "there are other questionable articles in Wikipedia" doesn't seem like an argument for keeping this one. I'd recommend voting each article on its merits. For what it's worth, Wile E. Heresiarch 19:57, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Having articles on failed political candidates isn't like having articles on published authors or bands that have released an album. It's more like having articles on people wrote a book and couldn't find a publisher, or bands that couldn't get a recording contract. Isomorphic 20:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Weak delete. Would set a precedent for an unmanageably large number of articles that would never be read. Isomorphic 20:28, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per the arguments above. I like EggplantWizard's recommended criteria. Rossami (talk) 22:00, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. ComCat 02:34, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Not quite notable enough yet. May be in the future. Jonathunder 22:38, 2005 Feb 20 (UTC)
• Keep. Bogus nomination - David Gerard 23:17, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Just because you disagree with it doesn't make it bogus - especially as the consensus is wavering on this one. Please be civil. Radiant! 12:14, Feb 21, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep, seems notable. JamesBurns 09:41, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.