Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Tea Party politicians (2nd nomination)

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 keep. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:37, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

List of Tea Party politicians[edit]

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Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Cliff Smith 17:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Cliff Smith 17:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Cliff Smith 18:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Me again. Sorry, and also sorry in advance for the longer-than-average nomination. My case at the first AfD could probably have been phrased better, but the gist was as follows: that the idea of a "Tea Party politician" is incredibly broad, and a list of "Tea Party politicians" will be impossible to maintain. I think there was something of a misunderstanding at the first AfD as to the meaning of the term "Tea Party politician" and the nature of the Tea Party. By way of analogy, I think "keep" !voters may have mistaken the Tea Party for an institution resembling the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, when really it's closer in nature to, say, "progressivism" or "establishment conservatism". While, if the former two were smaller parties, we might have lists of members and/or supporters; we couldn't ever have a list of progressive politicians or a list of establishment conservatives. To repeat myself, a list of politicians identified in some way with the Tea Party would have thousands of entries, and any version of this article which sought to drive that number down by imposing its own definition of a "Tea Party politician" (this includes a definition like "a person who identifies as belonging to the Tea Party") would constitute original research. Finally, a few "keep" !voters argued that further discussion would solve the issues I identified; I think that the frankly quite disastrous recent RfC demonstrates that this probably isn't the case. – Arms & Hearts (talk) 16:54, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I see a lot of hyperbolic assertions, none of which are self-evident and none of which do I see any actual evidence in support. Why would such a list be "impossible to maintain"? First of all, it should be limited only to notable politicians, i.e., those who have or should have articles, so the fear that thousands may qualify for inclusion is easy to address. Second, once someone qualifies for inclusion according to a reliable source, they don't get de-listed if they later decide to shift their political views, so there's no maintenance issue in keeping it "current" beyond adding new entries. Third, if we make an editorial decision to only list those who self-identify as Tea Party adherents, I don't see how that could possibly constitute original research if such self-identification is verifiable; in many instances, consensus throughout Wikipedia has been to limit many possibly contentious labels to instances where self-identification is verified under the interpretation that WP:BLP may compel it. Fourth, I don't see how the RFC linked to was "disastrous", it just didn't develop very far at all for whatever reason, and I see no cause yet for thinking any purported flaws with the list (assuming there are flaws) will never improve such that we need to urgently revisit the first AFD a mere two months after it was closed as "keep". WP:NOTCLEANUP, WP:DEADLINE, WP:ATD, WP:PRESERVE, etc., etc., etc. postdlf (talk) 19:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Limiting it to self-identified Tea Party supporters would be original research because the article is entitled List of Tea Party politicians, not List of politicians who have expressed support for the Tea Party or similar. To make a list of Tea Party politicians into a list of self-identified Tea Party adherents is to define "Tea Party politician" as "self-identified Tea Party adherent", and there's no source for that definition. That we've done that in the past is troubling; could you cite a specific precedent? – Arms & Hearts (talk) 20:39, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But of course, a list of politicians who have expressed support for the Tea Party would be a separate topic. In fact, we identify all politicians by parties that they self-identify with—it's just that in US politics, it's usually one of the two major parties. The Tea Party works a little different since it's not a party per se, but the fact is plenty of politicians identify as both Republicans and Tea Party members. Where they have done so, there's no problem identifying them as a Tea Party member on Wikipedia. It would only be original research if we picked out politicians with views similar to Tea Party ones and tried to label them ourselves. In fact, the three criteria that we use as definitions on this article are readily verifiable and very responsible ways of identifying TP members. I would have absolutely no problem removing members who renounce Tea Party affiliation or support, or unsourced entries. But the article as it stands is a good compilation of a major political group. --BDD (talk) 21:13, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to be saying this a lot of late, but I think you've misunderstood my argument. I wasn't saying that self-identification is insufficient; rather, it's too narrow a definition. I absolutely agree that there's no problem with describing people who say "I belong to the Tea Party" as "Tea Party politicians". The problem comes when we say that's the only criterion, and exclude people who've been described as "Tea Party politicians" by reliable sources but who've never uttered the words themselves. To do that would be to enforce an original definition of "Tea Party politician". – Arms & Hearts (talk) 04:37, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want to seem snippy, but in all candor I have to tell you that this is a silly argument. Belchfire (talk) 05:57, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I think everyone understands you; they just disagree and think you're not applying WP:OR correctly. I always wonder about AFDs where the nominator persists in thinking they are the one true voice of reason against unanimous opposition. postdlf (talk) 05:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Excuse us, User:Arms & Hearts, but understanding your arguments (which we do) is very different from agreeing with your arguments (which we don't). --→gab 24dot grab← 14:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Rereading your argument, I'm afraid I disagree even more. The Tea Party is much more like the Republican or Democratic Parties than it is like an ideology of progressivism or conservatism. This list is not restricted to self-identifiers; media identification and endorsement count too. But even if it were, erring on the side of exclusion by insisting on self-identification in reliable sources wouldn't be original research. --BDD (talk) 14:40, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep That the Tea Party is not "an institution" is irrelevant. The nomination smacks of WP:NOEFFORT; improvement is surely needed, but that's no reason to delete it, as recognized from the previous AFD. I'm informing WikiProject Conservatism, who may be interested in commenting here or working on the article. --BDD (talk) 21:30, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy keep per WP:NEGLECT and WP:SPEEDYKEEP#1, "nominator...fails to advance an argument for deletion...and no one other than the nominator recommends that the page be deleted". --→gab 24dot grab← 21:41, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The nomination is TL;DR, but by the time I got to the third sentence I could see he is grasping at straws. Belchfire (talk) 01:47, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - There is no doubt that there is a Tea Party movement in the US. There is also no doubt that there are politicians who have identified with the Team Party as documented in numerous news reports which represents reliable sources upon which to build such a list. As such, the list covers a notable topic, with reliable sourcing available for supporting the entries. Furthermore, I do not see any evidence in the first AFD to support the nominator's assertion that "there was something of a misunderstanding...(of) the nature of the Tea Party." -- Whpq (talk) 17:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per my above comments, and given the lack of any cogent deletion rationale. postdlf (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ per WP:BLP and WP:IINFO. Firstly, this article is almost completely unsourced. Identifying someone as a member of the Tea Party is arguably controversial, so all these claims should be sourced, but very few of them are; that makes this article a BLP nightmare. Secondly, a large number of the people on this list are non-notable. Down near the bottom we have candidates for 'NC Agricultural Commissioner' and 'Texas Railroad Commissioner'. Those are highly non-notable people, who would never be able to sustain independent articles, so why should we have a list that includes every single trivial one of them? If this list is kept, it should (a) be properly sourced and (b) be restricted to those who have Wikipedia articles only. Robofish (talk) 14:46, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on a completely new draft of the page, and I agree with some of your concerns. Unsourced entries can be removed, though I should note that there's been some irresponsible tagging where just clicking on the person's name gives plenty of sourcing for their being Tea Party-affiliated. And while I wouldn't object to removing most of the redlinks, we should use discretion—some of these people are just finishing up primaries and are about to be major party candidates for office that may be deserving of their own pages. On an unrelated note, someone was either whitewashing or trying to make this only a list of currently active politicians, so there was no mention of, for example, Sharron Angle or Christine O'Donnell. I should finish this up today so you can see what I've cooked up. --BDD (talk) 14:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fair enough - I don't actually think this article is such an urgent BLP problem that it needs to be deleted immediately, and I recognise that most of the bluelinks are described as Tea Party members/supporters in their articles. It's the ones who don't have articles that concern me. If someone's currently running for a notable position such as Representative, fair enough - they would become notable if they win. But those who fail to get elected are typically not notable, and those who lose their primaries certainly aren't, so in those circumstances they should be removed. Robofish (talk) 15:09, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, my rewrite is live. I've authorlinked all the names, so it's very easy to see who does and doesn't already have an article (and some people who do weren't wikilinked before). I've added a few references myself and replaced the byzantine formatting of the previous version. --BDD (talk) 16:03, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, on the premises that this article will eventually be referenced and that non-notable unsuccessful candidates will be removed, I'll switch to Keep. Robofish (talk) 18:27, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - this was quite a notable event in U.S. history. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 14:57, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep but require list entries to have a reliable reference saying that the politician is a member of the one tea party activist groups. That's member of, not supported or endorsed by. Stuartyeates (talk) 07:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as long as RS references confirm the affiliation. Ebikeguy (talk) 03:00, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: passes our policy regarding standalone lists. – Lionel ^(talk) 08:52, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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.