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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Potential third party candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election

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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 keep the cleaned up version, as it addresses the earlier concerns. Turnstep 06:53, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Potential third party candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election[edit]

Even without invoking the fact that Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, this article is nothing but unsourced speculation, opinions, POV and OR, and at this early stage, that's all it really can ever be. Delete until there's actually something to report here. Crabapplecove 02:48, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep: article has relevant information pertaining to a possible election; does not speculate of any outcome. Somerset219 03:10, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Political speculations about a future event: "mentioned by some as a possible candidate", "He is said to be considering", "has been frequently discussed", "has been mentioned by some", "has been the subject of ", "has not ruled out running". This is speculation, just as Potential winners at the 2008 Academy Awards. Obviously, an article about official candidates who has accepted nomination would be fine. Thuresson 03:17, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per the above. When candidates firmly commit to running or not running, it will merit mention on 2008 U.S. presidential election. SliceNYC 03:22, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Unbelievable. How is it that the nature of an encyclopedia article appears to be so poorly understood by so many contributors? —Encephalon 04:30, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Delete as speculation. Ace of Sevens 14:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Changing to Keep The page seems to have been fixed up nicely. Ace of Sevens 23:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I agree with your reasons to delete the page. For that reason I went through and drastically changed the site to include only names of candidates that ARE running for their party, or candidates that have viable sources for their rumor (they told so-and-so that they are considering). I removed anyone that I could not find a souce for. Including even Ralph Nader (I totally expect him to be back up later). Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, and it was getting to the point that anyone with a name could be added. The arguments here are right. If the page can not be used for serious wikipedian documentation of ongoing campiagns and events, then it is not worthy of wikipedia. SargeAbernathy 16:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you do that it's no longer potential candidates, it's actual candidates and just has an inaccurate namespace. Ace of Sevens 18:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You're confused here. This is for potential candidates in the U.S. Presidential Election of 2008. The people listed here are saying they are going to run, yes. But for their PARTY'S nominiation. Just like Democrats and Republicans all third parties must go through a process where the main party elects one person to run. So the people are ACTUAL Primary candidates ... but only POSSIBLE U.S 2008 election candidates. Furthermore this list even indludes names that there is only sourcable rumor to their primary run as well. I removed anyone that had no source SargeAbernathy
  • Delete: I am a potential third party candidate, and so's my dog. There is no exclude criterion here. Geogre 20:26, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: this is basically a list of natural-born citizens of the USA who will be 35 years old, etc. in 2008. Not me, and Geogre's dog, either. Carlossuarez46 21:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete as gross crystalballism. Would anyone have predicted John Anderson two years before his run? Perot two years before his first one? No. This is just unsupported speculation, and too many things can change between now and then. Fan-1967 21:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete potential candidates= crystal balling + WP:OR + lots of guessing. -Royalguard11Talk 00:19, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - recreate it in 2008 when all these stuff get fixed and become verifiable. Just because a party wants to compete in two years' time it doesn't necessarly mean he will. Lajbi Holla @ meWho's the boss? 11:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hold on. Why don't we just delete everyone who isn't running and rename it to "Third Party Primary Candidates of the U.S. 2008 Presidential Election", and do the same for the other two pages? SargeAbernathy
Which I just did. The page is now Third party primary candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election, and lists only those people with actual campaign pages. A small paragraph detailing a bit of speculation is still there, but can be removed.SargeAbernathy 17:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I also added "these people are actively" in the first paragraph to disassociate the page from crystalball predictions. These are current campaigns, not rumored ones. SargeAbernathy 17:55, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This argument has been used before, that it's POV or "unfair" to only cover the parties and candidates that are well-known, but let's face it: Wikipedia is not the League of Women Voters candidate guide, and does not exist to publicize or promote unknown parties and candidates. Of the five parties listed, most people have only even heard of two, and very few have heard of the candidates even for those two. The independent candidates are even more obscure. This looks to me like a list of non-notable people, in addition to the crystalballism of guessing whether they'll matter at all. Fan-1967 13:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep/Move Back While the page needs to have more consistent maintanence than it has in the past, it is both encyclopediac in itself and necessary to prevent POV bias towards the 2 major American political parties. This does not mean that "anyone and his dog" can be listed, rather, people who are considering a serious bid for a political party nomination. Also, as this article's move was improper (taking place during an AFD and without concensus), I propose it be moved back.--Tim4christ17 06:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize for that. I should have asked for consensus. However, I feel that "potential" alludes to much to rumor and specualtion and that a clear definition about what the article is and what is going on NOW is needed for the title. If people want to change it back, go ahead. It should have been discussed, but since no one was acting on editing it ... I went after it. SargeAbernathy 01:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I restored it to its original location - pending the end of the AfD and a concensus on the name/location of this article AND its companion articles: Potential Republican candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential election and Potential Democratic candidates in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. --Tim4christ17 11:21, 2 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • NOTE This article has been moved and had major modifications since the AfD started. Please keep this in mind when discussing further. ---Tim4christ17 06:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as above. It's not crystal-ballism or speculation if they've already announced interest in running. And listing the candidates themselves is no more non-notable than the third parties they represent. Schi 16:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. As stated in the nomination, the article is peppered with POV and OR. --Gray Porpoise 18:34, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where's the POV? I don't see any opinions being expressed, only facts. Though they could use a little more sourcing... --Tim4christ17 19:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changing to keep after rereading carefully. --Gray Porpoise 12:24, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete--Dan 18:38, 3 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I would encourage anyone who hasn't looked at this page recently to look again. The cleanup is substantial, and to delete this page seems to imply that the Green Party, Constitution, Libertarian, et al aren't worthy of pages. (Fan-1967 only confirms my suspicion with his honest comment.) There are really obscure non-notable candidates. A candidate that gets 0.31% of the popular vote--thousands of thousands of thousands--is not a "non-notable person". Possible removal for the "Independents" section, as those listed tend less notable.
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.
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