Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/James Thompson (American politician)

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 Kansas's 4th congressional district special election, 2017. Sandstein 13:14, 27 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

James Thompson (American politician)

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WP:BLP of a person notable only as a non-winning candidate for political office. As always, this is not a claim of notability that gets a person into Wikipedia by itself -- to pass WP:NPOL, he must win the election and thereby hold political office, not just run and lose. But this is not referenced to the degree of reliable source coverage needed to get him over WP:GNG as that rare special case where the candidacy is more notable than usual -- there are just four references here, of which one is his own self-published campaign website, one is a glancing namecheck of his existence in a blog post about his opponent, one is a YouTube video by an advocacy organization and one is a dead link whose content is impossible to verify. This is not even close to the volume of sourcing required to get him the Jon Ossoff-Christine O'Donnell "this candidacy is an isolated special case because it got so much more coverage than usual" treatment — as of right now it's not even showing one acceptable reliable source, let alone Ossoff's 60 reliable sources or O'Donnell's 150. Bearcat (talk) 18:14, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Bearcat (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Kansas-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 20:43, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'm not ready to take a stance just yet, as "James Thompson" is too broad of a search term for online news and it will take some research and time to pick through the results. However, I disagree that a politician (or anyone) must "win" the election and "hold" office to be notable. It's possible that one could run and lose and still be notable if there is enough coverage to surpass WP:GNG or perhaps another notability guideline. We have yet to see if that is the case here... but it's not an absolute. I think this is what the nominator is stating. I agree that the sources provided are not enough to pass WP:GNG as I don't see them as independent, but I'm not convinced that there are not some out there.--Paul McDonald (talk) 22:04, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify, it is indeed possible in very rare, specialized circumstances for a candidate's campaign-related coverage to explode to the point that we have to keep the article because the candidacy has become a lot more notable than most other candidacies. Jon Ossoff, Christine O'Donnell, that kind of thing. But the vast majority of candidates don't achieve that — it requires a depth and breadth and range of coverage that goes way outside what could be ordinarily expected to exist for any candidate in an election, not just the run of the mill level of coverage that candidates always get, and candidates are not deemed to automatically pass our notability standards for politicians just for the fact of being candidates in and of itself. Bearcat (talk) 22:14, 19 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I also urge caution on a pro-forma deletion on the basis of the UNELECTEDPOLITICIAN high bar. This was a candidacy which drew national media attention beyond the ordinary norm for such a race. There may need to be a merge target found and a redirect left up, that would be fine, I suppose, but this is not ordinary-run-of-the-mill deletion territory. Carrite (talk) 10:59, 20 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If there's any evidence that his candidacy drew national media attention beyond the norm, it sure ain't being shown by the sources — every one of which is unreliable, routine and/or primary — that are present in this article as written. Bearcat (talk) 21:01, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Redirect per WP:CHEAP and that there was a bit more than the usual, local coverage. Bearian (talk) 16:22, 22 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Kansas's 4th congressional district special election, 2017. A redirect to a page about the election is an appropriate outcome for a candidate for Congress. The election contest is notable, even when (or if) the candidates may not be. - --Enos733 (talk) 18:13, 22 August 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.