Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Democrats

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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 was a split decision close: Consensus is clear (almost unanimous) to Delete List of Democrats, so be it. There is no consensus to the others, so I'm closing List of Hollywood Republicans, List of African American Republicans, and List of Latino Republicans as No consensus with no prejudice towards an individual nomination to gain a clearer consensus. List of fictional United States Republicans and List of fictional United States Democrats have a closing decision, based on discussion, of Keep. Again, I would not oppose to a separate relisting to further articulate this apparent consensus. Keeper | 76 | Disclaimer 20:26, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List of Democrats

List of Democrats (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Indiscriminate, arbitrary, and better served by Category:Democratic Party (United States) politicians. See also the recently concluded Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Republicans. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 05:36, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Delete based on the precedent set by List of Republicans. It's an overly broad and unessecary category. --Asmodeus Samael (talk) 05:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Needless to say it would be ridiculous to include a list of Republican party members for every ethnicity, although articles on individual movements like the AARLC might be appropriate. Keeping track of (rarely stable) celebrity political endorsements would be nigh impossible and doesn't actually inform the readership of the political process. Finally, the list of fictional Republicans is little more than trivia. These lists are poorly maintained, speculative, and redundant to categories. (sorry, I didn't get to add this part until after Asmodeus' comment) ˉˉanetode╦╩ 05:47, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep the List of fictional United States Democrats and List of fictional United States Republicans. Those pages only include those who explicitly identify as Republicans or Democrats, or who explicitly endorse a Democratic/Republican candidate. The categories does not make the lists obsolete because there are advantages of lists over categories, such as being able to provide references and further explanation on lists. Q0 (talk) 06:24, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
    • No they don't: most entries are not annotated, no independent sources are offered to verify any entry, and editors routinely add characters based on their own speculation. This is about as clear case of Wikipedia:Listcruft as I've ever run across. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 07:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
      • The instructions for the lists are to include only those explicitly identified as Democrats/Republicans. Entries that do not have citations (or are improperly cited, such as those that argue that someone is a Democrat because they are pro-choice, etc.) should be removed. However, I don't think the whole list should be deleted, just the uncited entries. Q0 (talk) 08:50, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Instructions matter only insomuch as they are followed. Consider that there are thousands of notable characters from hundreds of thousands of notable fictions. A small minority of these characters (e.g. The West Wing bunch) have unambiguous polticial views that define their actions and motivations. For the majority of fictional characters, however, political affiliation is a trivial attribute, one dependent on situation and the writer's mood. Encouraging contributors to cherry pick and analyze the political motivations of fictional characters is, at best, tantamount to encouraging original research. For example, a gag from the Family Guy had Stewie Griffin endorse a flat tax. This example brings up a few questions: why does a casual gag define a fictional toddler as a republican? why mention this in an encyclopedia? why would any reader actually care? why should we encourage lists based on half-assed appraisals of pop culture trivia? Sure, the same can't be said of every entry, but if political affiliation does play a major role in defining a fictional character, then there's no reason that it can't be fully covered in that character's article (e.g. Arthur Branch#Character background). ˉˉanetode╦╩ 11:31, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
          • It is original research to interpret a character's political party based on their position on the issues, but I don't see how editors are being encouraged to do that. It seems to me that the instructions to only include characters who explicitly identify as Democrats or Republicans is discouragement of editors to add original research to the list. It is true, that some editors ignore those instructions, but I have removed some of those entries. For some characters, the mention of political party affiliation might be relavent in one gag in one episode of a TV show, but there are some characters like Alex Keaton where it is mentioned in almost every episode. Some of the characters are politicians so political party is very relavent for them. There are some characters where a party affiliation is given in only one episode, but are also very opinionated characters, so in those cases the party affiliation is part of the character's personality. Q0 (talk) 13:43, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per nom and Asmodeus, it's unmanageable Travellingcari (talk) 06:25, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all. A non-encyclopedic style list --T-rex 08:09, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Break up AfD - These are not similar enough to warrant a single AfD, and deletion/keep reasons for each may be different. For example:
  • Keep the two lists of fictional R/Ds, and re-discuss the others separately. Before that, consider renaming to show the intent of the article, a notable R/D political figures. DGG (talk) 08:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep the two fictional lists per Torc2, Delete all the others. JohnCD (talk) 16:43, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete all but the fictional lists. Too broad scope, more appropriate for a category. Possibliities for WP:BLP, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR issues. The fictional lists need to be policed for WP:NOR and WP:NPOV to make sure someone doesn't label a character a Democrat or Republican based upon interpretations of actions and such. 23skidoo (talk) 16:59, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: I have started a cleanup on List of fictional U.S. Democrats and List of fictional U.S. Republicans to remove unsourced and improperly sourced entries. Q0 (talk) 17:26, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete List of Democrats. Why did you bunch all this crap together in one nomination? The first one is a no-brainer, and there's a precedent. The rest of it seems to have been added because you had time on your hands. Mandsford (talk) 20:34, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
    • To me, these are all no-brainers. Most of your comment seems to have been added because you were looking for an obtuse way to chastise the nominator - rest assured that how I manage my time is none of your concern. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 16:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep List of Latino Republicans and African American Republicans, since those are a notable minority of Latinos and African Americans. Mandsford (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep List of Hollywood Republicans (although I'd limit it to the ones who are alive) since celebrity endorsements are, for good or bad, a factor in national politics Mandsford (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete list of fictional Republicans and fictional Democrats; although a list of fictional Presidents has its purpose, the party affiliation is little more than a label for made-up characters. Nobody models their life after "Josiah Bartlett" as a model Democrat. Mandsford (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment A category is superior to the "List of Democrats", which is what this argument should have been limited to. Since all that other stuff is on the table too, there's a limit to categorizing everything, case in point being Sammy Davis, Jr., that famous "African-American actor/musician, American actor/singer, American singer, traditional pop music singer, vaudeville performer, American impressionist-entertainer, jazz singer, male singer, soap opera actor (?), tap dancer, miltary personnel of WW2, Black Jew, American Jew, convert to Judaism, Jewish American musician, Rat Pack member, throat cancer sufferer, Hollywood Walk of Fame star honoree, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Kennedy Center honoree, guy buried at Forest Lawn in Glendale, one-eyed... African-American Republican." Mandsford (talk) 20:53, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete List of Democrats: an excellent example of what can be much, much better served by a category. No opinion on the other articles in the same nomination. S. Proudleduck (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep the two fictional lists. No opinion on the others. —Quasirandom (talk) 01:54, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Close this AfD, and start over with a clean AfD for each article - this AfD was malformed. Start over. The Transhumanist 04:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Complicated? Definitely. Malformed? I don't think so. So far editors have been careful about specifying which lists should be kept and which should be deleted. It was my hope that this nomination could be used to determine an overall consensus on such articles, but I'll accept several differing conclusions. Remember that it is within the closing admin's discretion to derive multiple outcomes from a single discussion. When it comes to closely linked articles I'd rather err on the side of a comprehensive debate than perfunctory compartmentalization :) ˉˉanetode╦╩ 16:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Malformed, maybe not. But they are indeed overly complicated. No clear consensus is going to come out of this discussion, looking above many are referring to different parts of the nomination. Each on deserves its own conversation and I have to saying giving each that is probably deserved. SorryGuy  Talk  06:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete List of Democrats - but keep the rest. The above arguments make sense to me. The list of all Dems is far too broad for an article, but the others seem reasonable -- that is, verifiable and notable. BTW, I am a Denocrat. Bearian (talk) 19:43, 11 February 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.