Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian Progressives

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 no consensus. — Coffee // have a cup // beans // 01:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Australian Progressives

Australian Progressives (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This group only registered as a party less than a month ago, has not run a single candidate for office (much less elected one), and does not involve any notable politicians. Only one neutral source is provided, which basically says the party hasn't done anything yet. It's too soon for an article for this group. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 17:06, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 19:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

• Userfy. I agree with the nomination statement - but the party is registered with the Australian Electoral Commission, which indicates at least some organisational presence. The article should be userfied until the party contests an election, though. Frickeg (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Being registered only requires 500 members, which is a tiny number in most countries. That said, userfy could be appropriate so this stuff is prepared if they do have success. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 02:50, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Given dwindling party membership in Australia (even the major parties have fewer than 50,000 members [1]), it's not really trivial - plenty of quite long-standing groups have struggled with it (although declined registrations have decreased drastically in the last year or so, which is why there is a fair bit of talk about raising the threshold - 750 members, the NSW requirement, is viewed as almost draconian there). Generally there has been an unspoken convention in the Australian politics project that parties that are both registered and have contested elections are notable. Parties do quite often register and then fade away by the time the election comes around, though, which is why userfication is the appropriate response here, the next federal election being more than a year away. Frickeg (talk) 04:26, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm in the middle of a lengthy rewrite of a piece on the Communist Party of New Zealand, which didn't break the 500 member mark for more than a decade. We shouldn't be obsessed with such things. If a party exists, write it up — just like we do for rivers, inhabited places, highways, high schools, etc. Carrite (talk) 20:59, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

I can feel the consensus going keep, and frankly I'm pretty OK with that; my understanding had always been that registration + contesting elections was the bar, and if it's going to be just registration in the future, fine. I do think that "existence" is way too low, though; there will be unregistered parties that are notable, but if we're writing up everyone we'll be writing articles about five blokes in a garage ranting drunkenly about th'immigrants. We have to have something reliable to write, after all. For the CPNZ, there are clearly a ton of sources so it has no trouble passing GNG. But I'm getting off track here. Frickeg (talk) 22:50, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Just clarifying that we're in complete agreement about "existence" being insufficient, which is why we've both been consistently voting delete on unregistered parties for as long as I can remember! Unregistered parties a) frequently never do get registered, and b) may well be just "five blokes in a garage ranting drunkenly", but now that these guys have got registered, at the minimum their preference designations are going to factor into the Senate results in every state they run in. This is not inconsiderable, either: we may never hear of the Australian Independents again but in 2013 there was a roomful of tons of party scrutineers spending weeks specifically checking each vote for them because the entire Senate result hung on the order they and a handful of other parties finished in. The Drover's Wife (talk) 00:54, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

• Strong keep. For once, I strongly disagree with Frickeg. I have always argued (and until now thought it basically accepted) that AEC registration meant inherent notability, regardless of whether an election has been contested. There hasn't been a case of a party successfully becoming registered for the AEC and then fading away before a federal election in quite sometime, and the significance of new registered microparties is higher than it's ever been before. Our system of preferential ticket voting in the Senate means that all registered microparties seriously matter, both in determining who gets elected, and at the moment, in terms of the chances of actually getting themselves elected. I think it weakens our coverage of federal politics a lot if we start picking and choosing which registered parties get articles. Two microparties on the same level of notability as this one got people elected in 2013 (though one was later overturned in the WA revote), and all the others played into the Senate results in a very significant way through their preferences. The Drover's Wife (talk) 05:16, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
• Userfy if someone is willing to take it, or Delete otherwise. Unless or until the party contests elections and get significant coverage in more than one reliable source it does not meet the notability guidelines. Davewild (talk) 09:07, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 12:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. Wasn't too sure at first, but The Drover's Wife's comments have swayed me. A few more non-niche sources would be nice, but I agree that AEC registration (or the equivalent at state level) renders a party notable. IgnorantArmies (talk) 01:10, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
• Keep' - I favor the lowest possible bar to inclusion of pieces on political parties, their leaders, and their youth sections, without regard to size or ideology. If you wanna file this under an argument based on the site policy of WP:IAR (Use Common Sense), fine, but this is the sort of information that a comprehensive encyclopedia should include. Carrite (talk) 20:56, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

References

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.