Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Andre Barnett

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2012 March 25.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 21:10, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Andre Barnett[edit]

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Non-notable. Fails WP:BIO and WP:POLITICIAN.-JayJasper (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. —Tom Morris (talk) 23:52, 5 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 01:10, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:02, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I favor a low threshold for inclusion of articles about actual candidates for U.S. president. Barnett is recognized here on the website of the Reform Party of the United States of America, a party that received over 8 million votes in 1996, as one of their four officially recognized presidential candidates. Although he is clearly not a major candidate, we ought to have an article about him. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I am in agreement with Cullen above that candidates for President of the United States should have the lowest of all possible barriers for inclusion. This is the sort of material that SHOULD be in an encyclopedia. The fact of the candidacy is sourced out in the footnotes, that is sufficient for me. Carrite (talk) 16:48, 12 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect/merge to United States presidential election, 2012. I'm afraid I have to disagree with Cullen and Carrite and, in fact, would say that their keep votes have no basis in policy. I would be strongly opposed to US Presidential candidates having any special treatment or lower notability threshold. Ah, but you might say, the US Presidential election is the most important one in the electoral calendar. Well probably, but it's for that very reason that candidates for President don't need any special treatment. It's precisely because the election is so important that we don't need anything other than WP:GNG. The importance of the election means that there will be far more written about it than other elections. As a result there will already be thousands of English language sources dealing with the election. If in all those sources, there is not enough to scrape together an independent biography, then we can say with near certainty that the candidate is not at this time notable. That situation may change later in the year and for that reason I'd go for a redirect, so that the article can easily be recreated if the subject does meet notability criteria later. Valenciano (talk) 13:07, 14 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comment If we are going to Redirect/Merge this, a move that I as the nominator am agreeable to, it should be redirected to Reform Party of the United States#2012 presidential candidates given that he is already listed there. Not to mention that the current standard for United States presidential election, 2012 is to list only candidates that meet the notability threshold and have a stand-alone WP article. I am in agreement with Valenciano's reasoning for not lowering the notability threshold for all presidential candidates. I have no problem with a "lowest of all possible barriers for inclusion" for candidates who become the official nominee of a notable party (however obscure) or for independent/non-affliated candidates who attain ballot status in multiple states in the general election. In fact, this appears to be the existing de facto policy per longstanding consensus. However, consider there are 350+ declared candidates in the 2012 race, and such a figure is typical in recent election cycles. If we were to have an article for every candidate that (at best) had only a small handful of articles written about their campaign in relatively obscure sources (and that had no evident claim(s) to notability outside thier candidacy), we would easily have hundreds - and eventually more than 1,000 - articles on candidates who were either (for lack of better terminology) one-shot also-rans or perennial candidates who never managed to be so much as a blip on the radar screen of reliable sources. Certainly this would defeat the purpose of having notability standards. In Barnett's case, he has only one reliable secondary source in which he is given "significant coverage" (and just barely at that) and another in which he is given only brief mention in two sentences. The other citations are primary sources or blogs. He clearly does not meet the crieria of either WP:BIO or WP:POLITICIAN. That said, in light of the fact that his candidacy is recognized by the Reform Party and has received minimal coverage, redirecting as suggested would seem a fair and reasonable alternative to deletion.--JayJasper (talk) 18:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Additional comment In the event that this is redirected, no objection to keeping the edit history intact for ease of recreation later if the subject should draw enough coverage in reliable sources to establish "standalone" notability.--JayJasper (talk) 20:35, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Keep If this were a new party formed by himself, I would possibly agree with the deletion. But it is an established party--it's the one that was founded for Ross Perot's presidential run in 1996, That's an important enough minor party to make its candidates for President notable,even if he's only running for that party's nomination. DGG ( talk ) 06:25, 18 March 2012 (UTC) .[reply]

Comment: I don't think its too hard to run for the Reform Party nomination.[1]: "It's easier to sign up as a candidate for president than it is to apply for a job at McDonald's. Just ask Andre Barnett or Ken Grammer or Samm Tittle. They're among the 259 Americans who have filed as 2012 presidential candidates ..." But there's no need to delete content, Reform_Party_of_the_United_States#2012_presidential_candidates is a good merge target if no kept.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:47, 20 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect/merge to Reform Party of the United States#2012 presidential candidates per JayJasper. There is no policy basis for a specially low notability threshold for the 350+ candidates for this election. Granted that the Reform Party is not a new or fly-by-night one, the fact that they are fielding four candidates for the same post suggests that they are not serious, and tips the balance for me. JohnCD (talk) 09:55, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

They are just running for the nomination; the rough equivalent of the current Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, and Paul race, except none of them have six-pack abs like Andre.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 12:49, 20 March 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.