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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 No consensus, although from the arguments below it is clear it needs rewriting and/or moving. - Yomanganitalk 23:07, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sixth Party System

[edit]

Deleted through the WP:PROD system and requested undeleted through WP:DRV. There were actually 5-6 "endorse deletion", but since any objection to a PROD results in an immediate undelete, I have restored the article and bringing it here for discussion. No vote. Sjakkalle (Check!) 15:01, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: Sjakkalle, is it possible to please restore the article Discussion page as well? The original {{PROD}} notice refers to it. Thanks, Satori Son 15:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The DRV is here, though it may close and be archived in the next few minutes. Google results, including books and journal articles, clearly establish this as a real phenomenon. Someone just needs to add citations. Also per the JSTOR results Trialsanderrors cited in the DRV: 13 hits for "fifth party system", six for "sixth" and one for "seventh". Academic topics, even of narrow interest, should be covered if there are sources with which to do so. We don't have any notability guidelines for them and there's no other reason that I can see that they shouldn't be in a compendium of human knowledge.--Kchase T 15:46, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Counting hits isn't research. Research is exemplified by the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Seventh Party System, where people actually read what Aldrich et al. wrote, and discussed whether U.S. political historians actually agree upon the existence of a seventh party system. It's clear that whilst Aldrich uses "if", "guess", "should", and "would" to talk about a seventh party system (John H. Aldrich (1999). "Political Parties in a Critical Era". American Politics Research. 27 (1). SAGE Publications: 9–32. doi:10.1177/1532673X99027001003.), xe is firm about the existence of the sixth party system. Uncle G 16:19, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep In concurrence with Kchase and Uncle G. This system, even more so than the 7th, is widely utilized in political science discourses. Joseph 18:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per UncleG. Looks pretty clear to me. --badlydrawnjeff talk 18:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per the arguments made at DRV (I voted to keep deleted there), which I thought were pretty compelling. Eusebeus 18:35, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete, for undue weight bordering on original research. When V. O. Key published this periodization of American history in 1955, he divided it into five "Party Systems", with the latest beginning with the New Deal. There has been some publication on the idea since, some two dozen articles on the Sixth Party System (scholar.google). Some of these have been explanations of then current events as the end of the Fifth Party System, at dates ranging from 1960 to the present; some of them have been comments on the Fifth Party System still existing after so long. (The other four Systems all lasted about thirty years.) None of these appear to support the idea that he Sixth Party System has already come into existence, and has been replaced by a Seventh, as the article claims. Aldrich's article is a fringe variation on a relatively minor idea. There are hundreds of articles on political realignment in the United States (scholar.google). Septentrionalis 18:45, 7 October 2006 (UTC) Septentrionalis 19:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Septentrionalis, would you be comfortable with removing this article from the template (or perhaps retitling it to reflect it's exclusion from Key's book), and boldly noting that it is not one of his original five? To me, this other scholarship makes the SPS not original research, though one might argue that it's poor research.--Kchase T 19:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • It should certainly be removed from the template. The present article is worse than poor research; it is asserting one opinion, from one paper, in Wikipedia's voice. Scholar.google.com shows twenty-three articles that use the term with various dates for its beginning; at least two of them mention the SPS to assert that it does not exist. There is no consensus on any other claim on the SPS either; I think all that can be said is presently in Fifth Party System, which see. Wikipedia does not exist to abstract every academic paper in a separate article. Septentrionalis 20:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • What if we heavily revised the article to reflect that this is one logical progression from Key's ideas, but that it has been rejected by scholars and is only referred to as a null idea?--Kchase T 10:27, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • That is still in error on two points: Aldrich's is clearly not the only proposal of an SPS, and it has not been rejected as much as ignored. (There also appears to be a British series of numbered Party Systems, which has a handful of papers.) If I see a rewrite, I will react to it (please notify my talkpage); but why is a null idea notable? Why have an article on it? Septentrionalis 14:57, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • After a couple of days, I agree with you in part, that a totally null idea mentioned by a few scholars isn't notable enough. However, Aldrich and Niemi (from the summary, which is all I can see), is making an argument for a sixth party system, although it lacks a party realignment. Unfortunately, I don't have time to rewrite this article, now.--Kchase T 09:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a very important point. I am dismayed to see people voting Keep simply based on a google scholar count without thinking of the context of the scholarship, which does not change the fact that this is WP:OR. Eusebeus 09:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Septentrionalis, Your argument is against the Seventh Party System, not reason to dismiss the Sixth Party System. You provided an emphasis on and when stating that "support the idea that he Sixth Party System has already come into existence, and has been replaced by a Seventh." Qwertyqazqaz 17:36, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If we take out the chronological limits (which are not consensus), we are left with: "at some point between 1960 and 2006, the Fifth party system may have collapsed and given way to a Sixth." That's not an article; that's a tautology. Septentrionalis 19:59, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: your opinion is pure WP:OR, and is not an argument as to which guideline or policy would either favor keeping or deleting this article. If a description of American politics in "Systems" was moderately popular 60 years ago, and is very obscure now, then it is reasonable to have an article describing that old theory (the first five systems), and to delete an article describing later additions (sixth and seventh). Seventh is already deleted, and I see no reason in your "strong keep" why the sixth shouldn't go either. This is not about claiming that the fifth is continuing or has stopped or never existed at all, this is just noticing that further systems (sixth, seventh, eigth, ...) are hardly discussed and even then no agreement is reached on them. They are no viable, common scientific theories but the ideas of a very few scientists which do not get any attention and consequently have no place on Wikipedia. Fram 19:19, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Response: Your comments are what reeks of WP:OR, as your only argument is that it has less scholars referring to the Sixth system than the Fifth system. And as I have demonstrated, that is because a) it is newer b) it came into existance after the initial author established the series. No one denies that the Sixth has scholars backing it. And as mentioned by others (above, and in the Seventh Afd) some scholars already have us in the Seventh Party System, let alone the Sixth. And logically you cannot argue with these scholars, given the time frame involved, and the series ~ 30 year per system. Qwertyqazqaz 16:15, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is actually no consensus of a "party system" enumeration beyond the third one (see Poole & Rosenthal quote below). The subdivision of the third, Democratic/Republican era into fourth, fifth, etc., systems is speculative and the higher the number, the less support it gets. The idea that the subdivision must follow a thirty year pattern is complete hogwash and unsupported by sources, as are most of the keep votes here. ~ trialsanderrors 07:13, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion from WP:DRV, mostly on the merits. Note: the duplication of the commentators below with their comments above and these comments, which are posted here as separate, but related, to the discussion above, have been removed as the only edit of an anon account; sockpuppetry is not welcome:

Sixth Party System was an article regarding the U.S. Party Systems, from the nations founding until today. It was deleted, leaving it the only missing piece from the 1st thru the 7th Party Systems.

The Seventh Party System recently survived an AfD. It is illogical to delete a previous party system, leaving an inconsistancy between the First Party System and the Seventh Party System.

Please excuse me if my formatting of this request is somewhat inconsistant. I'm not a habitual undelete requester (in fact this is my first :-) Thank You Joseph 19:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse deletion. This series of article stubs does not describe a generally recognized system; it appears to be just one author's schema. I didn't see citations in other N-th Party System articles I checked (not all of them) to suggest that this topic meets WP policy. The others should probably be brought up for AfD as a group, so we can either identify sufficient sources or delete the articles in consistent fashion. Barno 20:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This term scores a few tens of unique ghits, and seventh party system scores even fewer. There only apears to e one fountain source of these neologisms. Guy 22:28, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I quote from Poole & Rosenthal, which captures the mainstream reading of partisan eras: "The United States has had three periods with distinct two-party systems. The first, the Jeffersonian Republican/Federalist party syste, ended with the Era of Good Feelings. The second, the Democratic/Whig system, was organized after the Era of Good Feelings and lasted until the early 1850s. The third, the Democratic/Republican system, was organized by the late 1850s and continues today, although we will frequently refer to this system as having perturbed into a three-party system (northern Democrats, southern Democrats, Republicans) by civil-rights issues that arose in the mid-twentieth century." (p. 35) The split of the D/R era into sub-eras is certainly a minority position that hasn't caught on in the poli sci community. I get 17 article hits on JSTOR for "fourth party system", 13 for "fifth", six for "sixth" and one for "seventh". (Compare with 112 for "era of good feelings" and 302 for "republican revolution".) Endorse Deletion but if you want to start an AfD for all articles past the third I'd be glad to contribute. ~ trialsanderrors 03:03, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse Deletion completely in agreement with TaE; the others should be mass nominated for AfD as unacceptable original research. in fact, I'll be bold and do it soon. Eusebeus 16:49, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion per TaE. Maybe Poole & Rosenthals's book deserves its own article, but that's about it. --Aaron 18:47, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse deletion. See Wikipedia:Deletion review/Log/2006 October 7#Seventh Party System above; the five Systems postulated in the original idea should be considered separately. Septentrionalis 18:50, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy undeleted since the article was deleted through the WP:PROD system. Sjakkalle (Check!) 14:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The DRV on Seventh Party System has been closed, here Overturn and Delete. Septentrionalis 15:09, 10 October 2006 (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.
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