Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Parti PRO des Lavallois

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 redirect to Gilles Vaillancourt. (non-admin closure) f e minist 12:05, 24 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Parti PRO des Lavallois[edit]

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Article about a political party at the municipal (i.e. city) level, without the necessary depth or breadth of reliable sourcing. The problem with municipal political parties in Quebec is that they're not generally stable entities -- as a rule, they emerge as ad hoc coalitions around a particular mayoral candidate, and tend to splinter or dissolve relatively soon after a crisis of any sort (defeat, the mayor's resignation for health or criminal reasons, any other sort of leadership contention, etc.) with a whole new political party emerging around a new mayoral candidate the next election after that. And there's just not the required depth of sourcing here either -- Laval is a suburb of Montreal, so the Montreal Gazette represents local media coverage, not the more-than-local kind that it takes to satisfy WP:ORGDEPTH. Generally we can justify articles about the major (but not necessarily the minor) municipal parties in Montreal, because it's a major metropolis where coverage of municipal politics nationalizes on a regular basis, and so the major parties can be sourced beyond Montreal's local media -- but in Laval, the case for inclusion is much weaker. This can and should be mentioned in the article on Gilles Vaillancourt, since he was the mayoral candidate that the councillors congealed around in this instance, but there's just not much basis for a separate spinoff article as a standalone topic. Bearcat (talk) 15:11, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 15:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Quebec-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 15:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Leaving aside for the moment the question of this article's notability, I'm going to disagree with one aspect of Bearcat's argument: I don't believe that coverage in the Montreal Gazette (i) constitutes purely local coverage, or (ii) would in any event be insufficient as a core base of reliable sourcing for this article. With regard to the first point, the Gazette has for many years been the primary English-language paper of record in Quebec, and its influence and readership extend far beyond merely local coverage. There's probably an inescapable subjectivity in using the terms "local" and "regional" in this context, but I would contend that the Gazette represents at least a regional paper. With regard to the second point, there is specific guideline on WP:ORG as regards the use of local media: "The source's audience must also be considered. Evidence of significant coverage by international or national, or at least regional, media is a strong indication of notability. On the other hand, attention solely from local media, or media of limited interest and circulation, is not an indication of notability; at least one regional, statewide, provincial, national, or international source is necessary." There is, in fact, at least one national source (here) that mentions the Parti PRO des Lavallois – not as the focal point of the article by any stretch of the imagination, but as a significant component of an important, unfolding story. For these reasons, the article does not automatically fail to reach a notability standard. I'll also note that the party wasn't simply an extension of Vaillancourt's personality or his mayoral campaigns; it was founded well before his first successful run for mayor, and it ideology, focus, raison d'être, etc., all seem to have shifted over a period of time. That being said, I don't have a strong view one way or the other on this vote. Laval is the third-largest municipality in Quebec, and the Parti Pro des Lavallois was its dominant party for a considerable period of time. Is that enough to make the party notable? You tell me. CJCurrie (talk) 02:36, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

ORGDEPTH's requirement for regional coverage is not passed just because the topic's local media has extralocal distribution — the coverage's point of origin has to extralocalize, not just the geographic range of the local media's readership. That is, a topic of purely local notability within the Gazette's own local coverage area doesn't get past ORGDEPTH just because the Gazette has readership beyond the local — the coverage's point of origin has to jump out to Halifax or Toronto or Ottawa or Vancouver before it counts as extralocal coverage for the purposes of satisfying ORGDEPTH. But the party isn't substantively enough the subject of that Globe and Mail article for it to seal the deal all by itself. Bearcat (talk) 15:09, 26 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not certain I agree with this definition of ORGDEPTH. If the Victoria Times-Colonist (for example) were to run a story about a reasonably substantive event taking place in, let's say, Nanaimo or Comox, I think we could agree that this would constitute an instance of regional rather than purely local coverage. If the same event occurred in, let's say, suburban Langford, would a Times-Colonist story automatically fail to reach the standard of regional coverage simply because the event took place closer to the place of publication (bearing in mind that there are no other papers operating at the same level as the Times-Colonist anywhere in the Vancouver Island region)? This doesn't strike me as a fair standard – if there's only one major paper operating in any given regional market (or several papers operating in the same city and nothing otherwise), it hardly seems right that, outside of the city limits, an event's notability would increase in inverse proportion to its distance from the printing press or uploading server. Separately, I see that there has been some credible coverage of the Parti PRO des Lavallois scandal in Le Soleil (Quebec City; here) and the Ottawa Citizen (here) – these appear to be reprints/reposts of stories from Montreal newspapers, though I suspect that has more to do with historical patterns of media ownership concentration than with the geographical extent of interest in the story on the part of either publishers or readers. I'm still not casting a vote one way or the other, but I'll reiterate my view that this article doesn't automatically fail to reach a credible standard of notability. CJCurrie (talk) 01:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For one thing, if the event in Nanaimo or Comox were notable enough to have a Wikipedia article at all, then there's no way in blazes that the Victoria Times-Colonist would even be the only possible source for it — in the event of a terrorist attack in Nanaimo, for instance, the coverage would be Globe and Mailing and National Posting and Peter Mansbridging and Lisa Laflamming it all the way to St. John's and in all likelihood CNNing and Diane Sawyering it into the United States too. But secondly, an event is not an organization and wouldn't be covered by ORGDEPTH anyway. What ORGDEPTH is meant to cover is things like condo boards in Victoria not getting Wikipedia articles just because coverage exists in the VTC, chip stands in Stanley Park not getting Wikipedia articles just because coverage exists in the Vancouver Sun, civic advocacy organizations in Winnipeg not getting Wikipedia articles just because coverage exists in the Winnipeg Free Press, and on and so forth: companies and organizations, not events. Bearcat (talk) 02:31, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I take your point on events not being covered by ORGDEPTH, but the principle is the same for organizations. If there's a group in Nanaimo that isn't obviously notable on a global level but that receives some credible coverage over an extended period of time in the aforementioned Time-Colonist, you could easily make an argument for said coverage fulfilling ORGDEPTH. I don't think it makes sense for a (hypothetical) identical organization in Langford to not be regarded as fulfilling ORGDEPTH by virtue of receiving the exact same coverage. CJCurrie (talk) 04:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 04:34, 25 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Kurykh (talk) 00:48, 2 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spirit of Eagle (talk) 05:18, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect to Gilles Vaillancourt. The party appears to be notable mainly as an extension of his personal political popularity. Power~enwiki (talk) 06:05, 9 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, CAPTAIN RAJU (✉) 00:31, 16 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect and merge to Gilles Vaillancourt Founder and leader of this party. the move will alos provide context to enable readers to understand this Party's rise and demise "Laval’s ex-mayor faces gangsterism charges " Globe and Mail [1].E.M.Gregory (talk) 15:56, 22 May 2017 (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.