Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republican Party Sex Scandals

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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 Delete --JForget 01:01, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Republican Party Sex Scandals

Republican Party Sex Scandals (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Page is definitely a violation of NPOV. Focusing on the Republican Party scandals in particular due to their "running a platform on family values" (as stated in the article) is definitely anti-Republican and does not belong in a neutral encyclopedia. TheCatalyst31 Reaction•Creation 23:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Oppose deletion. These scandals just happen; the Republicans do it to themselves by running the family value platform while not being holy.... Although I would recommend a Democratic Party Sex Scandals article to balance the odds.Arnoutf (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Oppose deletion. This article isnt intended to be anti republican at all - I have started this article about an hour ago and it will contain factual, objective and referenced material that focusses on other public republican figures. There should be a Democratic version of the page (I simply started with republican because one has to start somewhere). in this case however there is a real value in the article because of its contradiction to the republican political platform. I would find an article about democratic environmental scandals or health care scandals to be equally valuable because they are components of the democratic platform. were it not for this contradiction to the historical political platform the article would have little interest. Jacksonmahr (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Response The problem there is that you just said it yourself - "there is a real value in the article because of its contradiction to the republican political platform." If you're trying to contradict a political party platform, then you have to assume a position which is contrary to that political platform, therefore making your position biased. Yes, it is possible to write about politics neutrally and objectively, but if the puropse of the article is to contradict, then the entire article will be biased against the Republican party. Calgary (talk) 23:40, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Any 'sex scandals' will be covered in articles on individual people. This article currently features Mike Huckabee because a rapist was released while he was in office who went on to offend again. How is that a 'sex scandal'? Every political party runs on family values anyway. Nick mallory (talk) 23:27, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The article itself violates NPOV by taking two subjects which are not directly related and implying a connection. It is really not possible to have an article about "Republican Party sex scandals", because this would suggest that the sex scandals in question were an act of, or directly involved the Republican Party, when in fact they were simply committed by people who are members of the Republican party, which is something different altogether. The scandals themselves are the responsibilities of the individual people whocreated them, not the political party to which they belong. In any case, we have a "sex scandals" section as a part of Political scandals of the United States. Calgary (talk) 23:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete-- Arnoutf (and the text of the article) seems politically motivated, and it is true that the title suggests a connection which is opinionated, and not NPOV, which is mandatory. Better delete it, as mentioned, we already have Political scandals of the United States. SeanMD80talk | contribs 23:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Blatant POV fork. See also Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Democratic Party Sex Scandals. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 23:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Oppose btw there is a democratic party version now. in response to calgary - it is not my article that is contradicting the political platform but rather the actions of those who have used it and contradicted it by being involved in the scandals. the article on roman catholic sex abuse cases is a similar use of this contradiction - apart from its newsworthy nature, it is the contradiction of the actions of the priests involved and their public position on moral behaviour (particularly sex and homosexuality) that made the scandals especially important. the article isnt suggesting that catholics are immoral or that other religions arent capable of similar corruption, but it is illustrating the contradiction. The reason this article discusses Cathoic sex abuse and not Jewish or Buddhist is not because the article is biased agaist catholics but because this is the church where it happened to be discovered.
    • Response Yes, but what you're ignoring here is the fact that the Republican Party is not contradicting itself here, it is the individual people involved who are doing so. The Republican party as a whole has never taken part in a sex scandal, and so the Republican party is not contradicting itself. Grouping politicians who have been involved in sex scandals together by political party suggests that somehow the two are related, when they're not. Even if each of the politicians holds a strong position on family values, and even if each of them has seemingly contradicted themselves, this does not demonstrate anything to do with the Republican party as a whole, only the individuals involved. Calgary (talk) 00:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

As far as bias of this particular article, I am british, living in London - I hardly have a dog in the race. I agree the article needs to be written objectively, but simply because it exists doesnt make it politically biased.Jacksonmahr (talk) 00:07, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Delete both articles for both parties. Quite apart from it being non-neutral, divorcing these "scandals" from their wider context just makes for a prurient and unedifying list. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Response No one is defining how the article is biased here - simply being in the context of one political party doesnt make it biased, especially if it is referenced and factual. It may be unpleasant, granted, but simply being unpleasant doesnt make it biased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacksonmahr (talk • contribs) 00:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • As I see it here's the problem. The topic is Republican (or Democratic) Party Sex Scandals. However really there's no such thing. There's a sex scandal of Mr. John Doe, who's a member of the republican party ... and his college alumni association... and the neighborhood book club, all unconnected with his scandal. To link the two in an article becomes by nature a POV article, by implying that the membership in the party is connected to his scandal.--Cube lurker (talk) 00:31, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The whole idea is steeped arbitrary bias. What defines a "sex scandal"? This is an arbitrary value judgement often made by people with axes to grind. In essence anything called a "sex scandal" is assumed to be one. Why is a "sex scandal" more important than any other type of "scandal"? Again, it is an arbitrary value judgement. How serious does a "sex scandal" have to be to be included in the article? How senior the politician? How can a standard be set and enforced fairly and consistently for both articles? If this article was "List of US national level politicians convicted of sexual offences" then it would at least have a solid factual frame work to work from. "Sex scandal" is just too arbitrary and that just invites bias. We might as well have a List of dingbats by political party and just forget any notion of encyclopedic standards. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Response to DanialRigal I agree that the inclusion of everyone would be arbitrary and (probably) never-ending. it would be pointless. however lets take as a reference point the case of Newt Gingrich and his actions in impeaching Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal. It was later discovered that Gingrich was himself having an affair and contradicting the values that he was not only judging Clinton on but he had run for office on himself. This is a scandal. Some minor member of congress simply having an afair is not, in this context, the same thing - its not of interest because it involves no level of profile or hipocriscy. Perhaps it is a question of relabeling the article or refocussing the content. - unfortunately its disappearing as fast as it was written.Jacksonmahr (talk) 00:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete both Although I don't see the merit in "Democratic" and "Republican" sex scandal articles (other than to demonstrate that both red and blue get in trouble), I don't agree with the idea that scandals should be mentioned only in individual articles either. The quality of both of these articles is poor-- the Democrat article is limited to Bill Clinton (author is probably too young to remember Gary Hart), and the Republican article focuses on Rush Limbaugh's drug rehab ("whilst not a sex scandal..."). However, political sex scandals merit their own separate article. Mandsford (talk) 00:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Election year already? Delete unless these are going to be sourced to (WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NPOV) sources that talk about the phenomenon of Republican Party Sex Scandals. Stringing together a laundry list of 'scandals' and asserting a phenomenon called 'Republican Party Sex Scandals' seems pretty WP:OR to me. Article would also need to justify fork from general Political scandals in US article (i.e., there would have to be WP:V, WP:NPOV cited substantial difference between handling of scandals in parties). Even then, seems excruciatingly minute for an encyclopedia. The after-thought of an article about the Democrats should share the same fate. - Aagtbdfoua (talk) 00:30, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Response in response to Mandsford, author is indeed old enough to remember gary hart, but thank you for the patronising comment anyhow - always helful in forwarding debate! The reason one article exists on Democratic page is because both articles are less than 2 hours old when the big debate started - hart would need to be included, along with others. Response to Aagtbdfoua - I agree - election year already! do all queried articles receive such as hailstorm of debate? I agree with comments in terms of relevance to existing political and political scandal articles - quite neccessary to do if the subject even survives this heated scrutiny Jacksonmahr (talk) 00:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete both. Wikipedia articles shouldn't be an amalgam of tabloid journalism and attacks. Independently notable incidents, like the Lewinsky scandal, have their own articles. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 01:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. Not only is this list hopelessly presentist (only 2 scandals are listed, both of which were in the past year or two), but the first 3 paragraphs are also pure original research. Also, there is absolutely no good reason to separate political sex scandals by party. *** Crotalus *** 01:21, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- -- pb30<talk> 02:16, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete and redirect to Political scandals of the United States per various delete recommendations above. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - this is not a useful or NPOV way of organizing this information. I agree entirely with Aagtbdfoua. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete This type of article should be deleted from Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a place for 'sex scandals'! Masterpiece2000 (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete along with Democratic Party sex scandals Notable articles such as the Lewinsky, Foley, and Craig incident has already received enough mention on Wikipedia. миражinred 15:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - with the same reasoning I offered for the other lot. Xdenizen (talk) 00:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete and redirect per Metropolitan90 Will (talk) 14:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete, article functions as an open invitation to soapboxing and pov pushing. --Soman (talk) 18:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - inherently POV --skew-t (talk) 00:38, 7 January 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.