Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Matthew McLauchlin

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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. bainer (talk) 09:59, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Matthew McLauchlin

Non-notable person. I came back just to put this on afd. Delete --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 06:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Legislative candidates

  • Delete, as above. Jachin 06:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak Delete. Google isn't helping me very much, but he does seem to be some sort of political figure, albeit a low-key one. JHMM13 (T | C) 07:47, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Running for a major political party in Canada. Wikipedia policy in the past has been for keeping major party candidates. Plus his expertise on the Montreal Metro should not be ignored. -- Earl Andrew - talk 08:31, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge to relevant article, delete otherwuse, Capitalistroadster 09:54, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that if we delete McLauchlin, we should delete all the candidates in this article Ohio second congressional district election, 2005. -- Earl Andrew - talk 08:41, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I'd just like to note that comparing a candidate article with the article about an election is flawed. If there was an article about Jack Mehof, Congessional candidate I'd vote for him to be deleted as well. Movementarian 09:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Read more carefully. Earl's not comparing a candidate article with an election article; he's comparing a candidate article to the dozen or so unelected primary candidates who have distinct articles linked from the election article. Bearcat 19:25, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete, it appears that he's running for the equivalent of city council in the city of Montreal. He wouldn't be notable even if elected. Frankly, Ohio second congressional district election, 2005 is just disturbing. -- Kjkolb 09:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. If he wins he can have an article. Candidates should only be listed in an article about the election. Movementarian 09:56, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
    • If articles such as this one are deleted, it shows how blantantly American-centric Wikipedia is. There must be consistinency. -- Earl Andrew - talk 12:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep major party candidate in a Canadian election. - SimonP 13:59, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia is not consistant. Arguments of "We have articles on those insignificant things, so we must have an article on this insignificant thing" are very wrong in my opinion. This isn't Wikipedia being American-centric; being a candidate in any location is the same. Friday (talk) 14:42, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
    • If being a candidate in any location is the same, then candidates in any location should actually be treated the same when their articles show up on Wikipedia. But they're not. Unelected Canadian candidates get AFD'd; unelected American candidates get kept. "We have articles on those insignificant things, so we must have an article on this insignificant thing" is a blatant mischaracterization of the real issue; it's more accurately described as "these two things of precisely equal significance to each other are being treated differently from each other based on some criterion not communicated in Wikipedia guidelines". It's entirely understandable in such circumstances that some people might suspect the mystery criterion to be "American vs. not-American". Bearcat 19:53, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Comment. American legislative candidates are different from Canadian ones because the American political system emphasizes individual candidates rather than parties. Please see Wikipedia_talk:Centralized discussion/Legislative candidates for more discussion. -- Mwalcoff 23:12, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
        • That's not what was stated in the comment I was responding to; Friday's exact words were "being a candidate in any location is the same". Bearcat 20:50, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete First off, not all candidates are equal. As a denizen, I can elucidate that running for the NDP means the candidate has no chance whatsoever to get anywhere close to being elected. The NDP prides itself (and why not) on running candidates in every national riding, but frequently must resort to nn students and the like, since in no-hope ridings like, oh say, every single riding in Quebec, few else can be bothered. Some seem to be putting the cart before the horse with respect to the notabilty of these candidates. Running for election because an individual has achieved notability is one thing, and certainly a number of candidates who lose are, in other respects, notable. But running for office, in and of itself, is not grounds for establishing notability. Finally, shame on any Canadians who hide behind systematic bias as a basis for inclusion. That is unworthy. Eusebeus 17:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The NDP does have MP's in the House of Commons, and IMHO those people do deserve articles. --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 19:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Some of your arguments violate Wikipedia policies. First, Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, you don't know who is going to win. Second, Wikipedia:No original research it is not up to a Wikipedian to decide who has a chance at winning. --maclean25 00:36, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Anyone who wins is worth an entry. As to the points made by maclean25, it's clear the NDP will win no seats in Quebec, ask anyone with even passing familiarity. I agree with you about crytsal ball and all that, but in this case, c'est voyons donc, 'stie calisse!
  • Merge with whatever article is going to be created listing all the federal candidates in the Jan. 23 election. If and when he wins, then he becomes notable and gets an article of his own. 23skidoo 20:34, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge to the NDP candidate list, if there's one. -- p_b1999 (Talk|Contribution) 02:29, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge, the reason we are here, and in the other candidate afds, is because Wikipedia does not have a clear policy to deal with these cases. WP:BIO just doesn't clearly deal with these situations. It is a guideline and not a hard-and-fast regulation. The candidates are in the middle of their 15 minutes of fame. Right now they are big news (locally and in Canada), people want to know about them, and they want to tell people about themselves. However, the vast majority will disappear in a few weeks. Therefore, I support the mergist's solution, like that of 23skidoo and p_b1999. Convert these articles to redirects to the list of small bios. If an article pops up, just revert to the redirect (don't let it linger for 5 days in afd). --maclean25 03:15, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete or Merge. I really don't understand the argument that candidates of major parties deserve their own articles simply by virtue of running for election, given that in this particular case, this guy's only apparent claim to fame once the election is over is that "he is an avid enthusiast of the Metro". I agree with maclean25's comments. Skeezix1000 19:35, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • The "merged candidate list" solution creates problems of its own, but to date it's the only workable solution anybody has found to balance some people's concerns about the notability of unelected candidates against other people's equally strong concerns that selective inclusion constitutes a political bias. So...merge. Bearcat 20:01, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep or Merge. An NDP candidate in francophone Québec is a bit of a stretch in terms of a serious candidate. But I don't think delete is the answer. Nfitz 21:55, 17 December 2005 (UTC) Okay, after three elections, not merge but keep Nfitz 00:58, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge into a list of NDP candidates. Reconsider if more news about the candidate develops. -- Mwalcoff 23:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete -- Candidates do not merit articles unless notable for other reasons. 209.202.119.248 14:44, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Merge into NDP candidates list for 2006 election. --GrantNeufeld 00:26, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
    • Only if we merge Grant Neufeld first ;-) -- Earl Andrew - talk 02:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Nice call - what a nasty , self-promo, makes your skin crawl vanity page that is! It's pages like that surviving deletion review that make you despair about Wikipedia! Neufeld needs to be relisted for deletion, particularly in light of the current spate of candidate articles being tossed out. Eusebeus 14:16, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
        • Back on afd at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Grant Neufeld --Image:Ottawa flag.png Spinboy 01:41, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
        • I strongly oppose a merge because he has run in three elections, and it will make it confusing for those who click his name from another election. Not to mention other candidate lists for other elections. You cant redirect to more than one page. -- Earl Andrew - talk 19:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
          • Why would redirect to multiple pages be necessary? Frankly, after the election I think the redirects from mainspace articles, like Matthew McLauchlin or Grant Neufeld, should be deleted because after the election the list loses it proactive nature in preventing election ads. There doesn't seem to be a problem of them popping up between elections. As for the internal wikilinks, they would need to be made in context of the discussion, to not wikilink to a redirect. For interest sake: Category:Candidates for the Canadian House of Commons. --maclean25
        • Comment. (Re: Eusebeus' comment above). Just a clarification that the article on me was not posted because of my past status as a candidate. Some still think of it as unacceptable vanity (which is being debated yet again), but it's not an article "about an unelected candidate". --GrantNeufeld 04:30, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment, this article's content has been merged to the appropriate list at NDP candidates, 2006 Canadian federal election. --maclean25 02:23, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. Other pages link to here too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Whatlinkshere/Matthew_McLauchlin --Sonjaaa 18:32, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Delete. I doubt anyone will ever look this guy up in an encyclopedia, and I don't think he's done anything significant enough to warrant inclusion. --NormanEinstein 21:12, 21 December 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.