Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian Party (United Kingdom)

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 was delete; discussion indicates that the subject is not covered in reliable sources as required by the policy on notability. --jonny-mt 16:25, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Libertarian Party (United Kingdom)

Libertarian Party (United Kingdom) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) (delete) – (View log)

Non-notable minor political party. Sources provided are for the most part it's own web site. Article admits to virtually no coverage from the press. Ninety members out of millions of voters is hardly an accomplishment. DarkAudit (talk) 05:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- Wisdom89 _{(T / ^C)} 06:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. A political party that was created on 1st January 2008 and has gathered no significant coverage in independent, reliable sources in the short time it has been around. It is clearly not notable at this time. Should that change at some time in the future then the article can be restored. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 07:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Strong keep. If Wikipedia can have extensive coverage of the various non-registered one-man-band communist political groupings in the UK (see Category:Communist parties in the United Kingdom), then this mainstream democratic party should surely be included here. --Hereward77 (talk) 16:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid argument for keeping an article. The article in question here is what's relevant. If the articles you are trying to cite fail notability and sourcing guidelines as this one does, they are sure to be weeded out in due course. From the article's content itself, it's obvious that the party is not mainstream. Ninety members out of a population of millions is hardly mainstream. DarkAudit (talk) 17:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
    • I have just mentioned in the article that the party has received a critical welcome from the Adam Smith Institute, that makes it a notable and mainstream party. --Hereward77 (talk) 17:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
• Strong Keep. The original article that I submitted was deleted. Someone else then started another article which has been around for a couple of months and has not been nominated for deletion. Now, I have updated the article, and suddenly it is nominated for deletion again. Interesting. Membership is now at around 150: for a party that has garnered no mentions (that I know of) in the mainstream press as yet and has been taking memberships for two months, this is not too shabby.

It seems to me that notability should not be an issue in any case. This is a party registered with the Electoral Commission in the United Kingdom: the party exists and the fact that the party exists is documented in the records of the UK state. I don't quite see how Wikipedia can pretend that it does not exist, for that is what is occurring here.

Is Wikipedia aspiring to be a proper encyclopaedia or is it merely aiming to be an aggregator of what is popular? If Wikipedia denies the existence of this party, despite UK state records to the contrary, then it is merely a populist aggregator, not an encyclopaedia (and should therefore remove "The Free Encyclopedia" tag from its logo.

The party has hundreds of mentions across tens of political weblogs. Whilst I am aware that blogs probably carry no weight with the Wikipedia's editors, they nevertheless testify to the party's influence throughout the UK political blogosphere.

As I say: the party exists and it would be perverse to deny that fact (and even more perverse when Wikipedia has articles on far smaller and less significant parties). Devilskitchen (talk) 18:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Existence is not enough. Coverage is. Coverage by reliable, verifiable, and independent sources is. Those are the guidelines as laid out in WP:N and WP:RS for notability and sourcing, respectively. By your own admission the article fails notability because it has not "received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". Blogs and self-published sources like the party's own web site are not generally considered proper sourcing for an article. DarkAudit (talk) 18:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

SPA Activities Report. Devilskitchen is an SPA designed to promote minor blogger Chris Mounsey and the minuscule British Libertarian Party. It is no coincidence that Devilskitchen has the same name as Mounsey's blog. Chris Mounsey is also up for deletion, btw[1]. The SPA evidence is here: [2]. My guess is that Mounsey and the British Libertarians, who have failed thus far to get national, well-referenced notability for the minuscule party and its tangential blog, are now determined to confer notability upon themselves by hijacking Wikipedia toward that purpose. Both this article and Chris Mounsey should be deleted forthwith, then salted if recreated. Qworty (talk) 18:53, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

• Comment The idea that I'd need to use Wikipedia to promote my blog is, if you'll pardon me, laughable. You'll see in the original entry for Chris Mounsey that I put that "I quite expect this entry to be deleted, but I don't like links that lead nowhere" (or words to that effect); indeed, I am happy for that one to be deleted (I have little wish to broadcast my real name). Hijacking Wikipedia was not a motive: providing information was. When the original Libertarian Party article was deleted, I accepted that the notability reasons were valid and that I would reapply or ressurect the article when we had got coverage. That someone else ressurected (or, I think, started a new version of) the article was nothing to do with me. Given that they had let the stub stand for a couple of months, I assumed that Wikipedia had rethought the decision to delete the article. So, a few days ago I did update the article because I thought that Wikipedia would like to have as much information as possible. And, as I said, I don't like links that lead nowhere. Ironically, you will note from the entries that the Devil's Kitchen blog, minor though it may be, does actually have coverage from "reliable, verifiable, and independent sources". As I said, I provided information: if Wikipedia does not wish to use it, then that is fine. For Wikipedia representatives to imply conspiracy is perfectly understandable but is not the truth. Anyway, there is little more that I can say: I shall return to attempting to get the British MSM to take any notice whatsoever! Devilskitchen (talk) 21:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Just because an article is let to stand for a month or two, or even longer, does not mean that it is a proper article. There are millions of articles, and only so many eyes. It's not possible to expect every article to be vetted immediately. Sometimes it takes a while for something to catch an editor's notice. DarkAudit (talk) 21:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
    • And my attitude now is precisely the same as it was then. If you wish to delete it, you have grounds to do so and we'll return when we have coverage (although it was admitted by one of the editors, when the original article was Quick Deleted, that maybe the decision was a little hasty). The present article had stood for a while and I provided more information: that is all (and since I am one of the original five founders, I am one of only five people who could possibly provide that information). But, as I've said, it's your party... Devilskitchen (talk) 22:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
      • If you are "one of only five people who could possibly provide that information," then I think you'll find that this admission alone will sink you around here, since you are in violation of WP:OR. We can't have an encyclopedia article that's based on the private knowledge of five people! That's not what verifiable notability is about. Qworty (talk) 00:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• Weak delete for political parties, very small has usually been considered good enough if there's a real party, and not just a group of like-minded friends. In this case it seems to be five, individually named, like-minded friends. Maybe they'll get support. Then there can be an article. Of course, perhaps there will be a news item or two before the AfD closes, which would change this to a keep. DGG (talk) 16:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
• Delete. Saying that this party has been "formed" is a gross overstatement. Registering with the Electoral Commission in the UK is a similar process to registering a trademark. It simply means that you pay £150 to reserve a party name which can appear on ballot papers if you decide to stand in an election.[3] It doesn't mean that any actual party in any meaningful sense exists. Phil Bridger (talk) 22:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• Strong keep. "Notability" is so subjective. I read through WP:ORG and noted this section:

Notable means "worthy of being noted" or "attracting notice." It is not synonymous with "fame" or "importance." Please consider notable and demonstrable effects on culture, society, entertainment, athletics, economies, history, literature, science, or education. Large organizations are likely to have more readily available verifiable information from reliable sources that provide evidence of notability; however, smaller organizations can be notable, just as individuals can be notable, and arbitrary standards should not be used to create a bias favoring larger organizations.

This delete argument is doing just that -- promoting bias towards larger organizations. Never mind the fact that the mainstream media selects for itself what organizations are deemed "notable". I'm not sure why anyone would think that the MSM -- which is in a serious nosedive as far as revenue and readership is concerned, compared to internet news sources -- is a reliable indicator of notability. Further:

"... for political parties, very small has usually been considered good enough if there's a real party, and not just a group of like-minded friends. In this case it seems to be five, individually named, like-minded friends. Maybe they'll get support. Then there can be an article.

I'm not sure I understand this line of reasoning. The five members as stated were merely the party's founders. A party officer says there are currently ~150 contributing supporters -- in the face of a MSM blackout. 150 is more than 5, and those certainly 150 "support" the party. If one were to visit, say, the Labour Party page, there is only one leader (Gordon Brown) listed at all. Is there some standard by which the UK Libs need to list the names of their 150 members to have even a shot at being considered "notable", and some other standard by which Labour only needs to list its one leader? If this is the case, perhaps this should be clarified in WikiPedia's policies.

I was the person who established this iteration of the article back in January. I was unaware of the deletion of a previous article on the group. I would agree that some of the large number of edits from one individual have added what may well be irrelevant material, but the article itself is certainly relevant. -- MarcMontoni (talk) 23:48, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

• Delete. I posted above about the SPA manipulations behind this article's creation, but haven't voted till now. My trouble with the article is with the sources. The electoral commission is not a good source, since anybody can pay a certain amount of money and register a party--that is the equivalent of "publishing" a vanity-press "book." The rest of the sources are all blogs. Blogs (see WP:SPS) are generally not accepted as sources on Wikipedia because, well, anybody at all can write anything at all on some blog, so it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Again, it's like "publishing" a vanity-press "book." Apart from this problem, most of the other citations in the article come from the party's own website, which is just another variety of "blog," if you think about it. Using the party's own site falls under WP:SELFPUB, which lists seven requirements for an acceptable self-published source. In my view, this article fails on all seven criteria. So, given all of this together, we have an article that is completely unsourced. Clearly, anybody can pay to register a "political party," start a website about it, and then arrange for a few blogs to mention it. This is not notability--this is nothing more than self-promotion. Thus, this article has no place on Wikipedia. Qworty (talk) 04:05, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Note just in case anyone was thinking the nomination was politically motivated. Nom is from West Virginia, a registered Democrat, and has spent a total of 5 days tops in the UK, all in Rosythe in 1992. DarkAudit (talk) 14:46, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
• Comment I wouldn't like to think that my contribution has prejudiced this article's standing, though obviously it has. I am sorry for this. When I said that only five people could give certain bits of information, I meant that were, for instance, the MSM to do a profile of the party at some stage, the information would be coming from the same source, i.e. one of the five founders. That article would, of course, then be attributable, although the ultimate source would be the same.

As I've said, it's up to you guys. There really isn't a promotion motive here: average referrals from Wikipedia come to about 3 a day out of a daily average of 300 uniques. Wikipedia is surely about finding information and that is what I volunteered. Oh, and I never suspected a political motive, DarkAudit. Devilskitchen (talk) 15:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No worries, DK. All this is about is that Wikipedia has certain criteria for being included in the encyclopedia. A major one is a criteria of notability by which a topic is presumed to be notable if it has received significant coverage, i.e. addressing the subject in depth, in reliable sources, i.e. sources with a reputation for editorial control and fact checking. These don't appear to exist yet for the Libertarian Party, which is not surprising given it is less than 90 days old. That may change of course and when it happens, that will be the time to create the article. I'll be happy to help when that time comes. --Malcolmxl5 (talk) 21:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, Malcolm. As I said above, I quite understand that position and agreed when I last took part in this discussion.

• Delete. Definitely nn. This is a party formed on the 1st Jan 2008, with no news coverage, no membership figures, no reliable sources to show us anything much about them... Maybe things will change in the future in which case the article can be recreated then. Marcus22 (talk) 15:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

• 'Strong Keep' There's another list of 'Libertarian Parties of the world' the UK Libertarian Party is a libertarian party. If I wanted to find out about libertarians in the UK I would go to Wikipedia. I move to explain just how small and insignificant it is as a party in the UK. But in the end it is still a party and the person with the personal information probably shouldn't be editing this article any more than David Beckam, Gordon Brown, or Robbie Williams should be editing there own entries or Paul Mcartney should be editing the Beatles entry. But Libertarianism exists as a movement and the Uk Libertarian party exists and is registered no matter how insignificant registering as a party is in the UK its still registered. How much is this politically motivated anyway? And why isn't any one trying to delete the Belarussian beer lovers party? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.76.235.122 (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

• Keep for broadly the reasons in the preceding unsigned comment (and other positive comments). A registered political party, with a modest but growing membership base, and clear alignment. As in the definition of "notable", I feel this passes as "worthy of note". If the party flops, never contests an election, or similar, then there may be cause for deletion. But for the moment, it seems to have earned its notability in the current zeitgeist. AlanFord (talk) 10:33, 30 March 2008 (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.