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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 delete. I beg people to please review Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions. I have discounted the following genres of comments: "this article is useful", "someone needs to maintain this information", "We have an article on these local elections", and "This other AfD binds this one". Once I did that, the clear consensus is to delete this article. Guerillero Parlez Moi 12:36, 25 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1996 Chorley Borough Council election[edit]

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1996 Chorley Borough Council election (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Reviewed during new page patrol. I wasn't sure what to do with (ones like) this one and opened a discussion at NPP and there were mixed thoughts/ no clear answer there. Accordingly, I would like to request a thorough large-participation review as the results this might set a direction or provide guidance. This is about a 1996 election in an area with approx 107,000 residents. It consists about 99% election results data with the other 1% being a few intro sentences. There is nothing unusual about the election. Wp:not is not explicit on this but in a few places seems to preclude this type of article. There was doubtless some local coverage. Saying that "presumed local coverage" alone should green-light it would mean that there probably I'd guess about 100,000,000 stats-only local election articles that could be green lighted. I believe there is no applicable SNG, nor precedent documented in wp:outcomes. The editor appears to be in the process of creating separate article for each election / year for this borough. Thanks in advance for your thorough review of this. North8000 (talk) 15:35, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was mistaken, there is an SNG which is Wikipedia:Notability (events). IMO it pretty clearly fails that, but being an SNG, that still leaves the overall wp:notability question open. North8000 (talk) 15:20, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm replying as a comment because I am treating this as a general review of this sort of article, rather than a typical AfD. I am convinced we should have articles only on notable local elections. To be notable, a local election would have been extraordinary: perhaps legal issues arose that led to a change in the procedure of elections; perhaps there was a huge scandal associated with one of the candidates that aroused sustained interest in the national press; perhaps the election was the straw that broke the camel's back, and toppled a government. A measure of non-notable is that all we have are tables of how many people voted for each candidate, as in the present case. If there is nothing interesting to say about an election, beyond bald statistics, then it does not belong in Wikipedia, which is not a database of statistics. Incidentally, I think this is a general trend in Wikipedia. For example, we have older articles on sportspeople recorded as competing in the Olympics, which we're now deleting as we know nothing more about them, and they didn't win a medal. The day will, I'm sure arrive where we stop focussing on the medal, and instead focus on the coverage: did anyone say anything interesting about this subject? In the case of local elections, we need more than the local newspapers' temporary interest over a few weeks. Elemimele (talk) 16:03, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politics and United Kingdom. Shellwood (talk) 16:09, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think it is possible for an election to be notable. Elections for executives, upper chambers in a bicameral legislature are notable. Election to a lower chambers in a bicameral legislators or for state/provincial legislatures may be grouped together. Other elections, including local elections, may be notable when there are secondary and retrospective sources that illustrate how the election as noteworthy (perhaps for some of the same reasons described by Elemimele) or is the first election for a president, prime minister, or similar political figure, where the election article is a spinoff. In any case, the article should consist of significant prose that describes the context and outcome(s) of the election. --Enos733 (talk) 17:52, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Fails WP:EVENTCRIT. This notability guideline for events reflects consensus reached through discussions and reinforced by established practice, and informs decisions on whether an article about past, current, and breaking news events should be written, merged, deleted or further developed. Among the criteria:
"Events are probably notable if they have enduring historical significance and meet the general notability guideline, or if they have a significant lasting effect."
"Events are also very likely to be notable if they have widespread (national or international) impact and were very widely covered in diverse sources, especially if also re-analyzed afterwards (as described below)."
"Events having lesser coverage or more limited scope may or may not be notable; the descriptions below provide guidance to assess the event."
"Routine kinds of news events (including most crimes, accidents, deaths, celebrity or political news, "shock" news, stories lacking lasting value such as "water cooler stories," and viral phenomena) – whether or not tragic or widely reported at the time – are usually not notable unless something further gives them additional enduring significance."
"In evaluating an event, editors should evaluate various aspects of the event and the coverage: the impact, depth, duration, geographical scope, diversity and reliability of the coverage, as well whether the coverage is routine. "
The election 1) does not have enduring historical significance, 2) does not have widespread impact, 3) has limited scope of coverage, 4) is routine.— rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:11, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete IMO, per the normal decision making process there are two different guidelines ( Wp:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (events) ) plus one policy ( WP:not ) taken into consideration. Since the routine description wiki-conversations is not couched in those terms, in the end I think such needs to be expressed as clear-cut SNG decision and a calibrated WP:GNG decision. I would agree some of the highest level / largest scale/ inherently highest impact elections per the criteria/examples set by @Enos733: are inherently notable enough to be eligible for an SNG type "by-pass"/ addition to the SNG. Most of the other ~100 million elections are not one of those. There is an SNG which covers this ( Wikipedia:Notability (events) )and IMO this article and similar ones clearly fail it. This still leaves open the possibility of passing via WP:GNG. IMO, the clear failure under the SNG also provides some guidance of or reinforcement for a thorough interpretation of sourcing required for GNG. Specifically, requiring in-depth coverage of the titled topic which is not just routine short-term election coverage including that only of individual races within it. This article (and others like it) do not have that. Further, the generation of a near "stats-only" article with no such sourcing and no "non-stats" material (not counting a perfunctory Wiki-editor-generated into sentence and Wiki-editor-generated unsourced summary) is a further indicator that such is unlikely to exist. Finally, further reinforcement comes from at least two places in WP:Not including, by being a near "stats only" article, falling far short of "mostly prose". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 16:12, 18 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Why did you !vote on your own AfD? Elli (talk | contribs) 19:52, 19 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    In seeking a broader discussion on an open question rather than a particular outcome) I wanted to put a thorough and neutral description in the nomination and not make the case for deletion in the nomination. And so I put my input, including analysis and resultant rationale elsewhere. North8000 (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I am rather concerned that this AfD has apparently taken place without any involvement by participants in either Wikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom or Wikipedia:WikiProject Elections and Referendums, both of which regard the very similar 1998 Burnley Borough Council election article as being within their scope. The latter article is certainly currently somewhat more informative and better cited than this one - but the topics of two articles are very similar (Burnley is only a few miles from Chorley, and the councils themselves are generally comparable), and it is almost certain that the better sourcing of the Burnley article is due to more competent searches for (and use of) reliable sources rather than any inherent differences in the quality of those sources. (Indeed, while I don't have the expertise to get at such sources myself in any reasonable time, I would reckon that all the cited sources for the 1998 Burnley election would have almost precisely equivalent ones, from the same publications, for the 1996 Chorley one.) I would therefore strongly urge that the two projects are informed of this AfD, and that the AfD should be held open for a few more days for them to be given the chance to make their own assessments of this article and respond. PWilkinson (talk) 15:05, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    The concern is not about reliable sources. The concern is the election 1) does not have enduring historical significance, 2) does not have widespread impact, 3) has limited scope of coverage, 4) is routine. Sources need to be found that contradicts at least one of those points for the election to be notable. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 16:09, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd echo what rsjaffe said. I'd also add that the types of attributes described typically would end up with substantial prose-type coverage of those type of things. And so an article lacking that or being a 98% "stats only" article can tend to be an indicator of that. When I opened this I requested a thorough review / discussion. I'd like it help open long enough for that to occur. So please keep this open until at least July 1. But I'd like sincere discussion on the general issues mentioned, not just hitting an area likely to come up with "keep" votes and I'm concerned that people focused on the particular geographical area involved might be that. I was hoping for a discussion of this type of thing in general which might help provide general guidance. Putting a note at a notability page might also be good....I think I'll do that. North8000 (talk) 17:00, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This doesn't look like a good way to structure this information to me, and I think it should probably be reduced to a summary paragraph in the parent article (which would require reorganizing that article somewhat). The level of detail here is useless to the reader without further context. There is also the sourcing issue, but even if the current primary source for the election stats were replaced or supplemented by an independent secondary source, it wouldn't really change things. If there were, hypothetically, good local sources giving context and analysis (or ideally historical analysis) of the election, such as could support an article, then the fact that those sources are local should not matter. Beyond that, I don't think AFD is a good place to have this discussion, because (a) it is highly unlikely to attract a representative cross-section of knowledgeable editors, and (b) AFD is by nature a zero-sum discussion (see !votes above), but this seems like an issue that could be brought to a positive-sum solution through ordinary processes of editing and consensus. -- Visviva (talk) 18:32, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Local scope matters for notability. — rsjaffe 🗣️ 19:58, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • My own experience of this type of just stats UK local council election article was that I moved some to draft space for improvement and requested deletion of the redirects (before I got page mover rights). The over enthusiastic admin deleted the articles themselves as G13 even though they'd just gone to draft - he was later de-admined for other issues and retired. Later the creator of the articles requested their un-deletion and moved them back to mainspace. I'd had enough of them by then, regards Atlantic306 (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: I'm relisting this AFD as there is concern that interested editors are unaware of this discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 00:23, 25 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Wikipedia has become one of the few remaining sources for detailed local election results, some from the very beginning of Wikia itself. They are honest, true, accurate, and encyclopaedic. They've survived AfDs before on the basis of being records of electoral results and should do so again. doktorb wordsdeeds 17:40, 26 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the post. My main goal here is to try to "sort this out", and so my following post is towards that end rather than for a particular outcome. Well, Wikipedia is only supposed to contain information that is published elsewhere. Perhaps you meant "on line" or "easily searchable on line". But that argument would seem to be an argument for a complete transformation of Wikipedia. A quick ballpark guess is that there have been about 100,000,000 governmental elections. Right now having GNG type coverage is the additional criteria to screen them. With a "stats only" article condition being perhaps a flag for that. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:30, 27 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the outcome should be the same as for Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2022 St Albans City and District Council election, which was open at the same time. Any apparent difference in consensus is likely to be because that one was listed under England deletions whereas this was not, the tendency for later votes to follow the earlier ones as editors like to keep their AFD stats looking good, and the nonsense about 100,000,000 articles. Even assuming we had the results of similar numbers of elections around the world, that many would mean either going back a few millennia, or separate articles for each parish council election (unnecessary even if they were notable, as they are usually only 1, 2 or 3 wards) or equivalent. Chorley borough elections only go back to the 1970s for the current district (and the 1880s for the former municipal borough, which was smaller). I think that non-metropolitan district/borough elections are an appropriate level of coverage, and that is what consensus has always been. 82.132.186.25 (talk) 00:06, 2 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A quick guess of 100,000,000 elections is plausible, not nonsense.Every governmental entity that has elections for every year in history could easily hit 100,000,000 elections. North8000 (talk) 13:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America1000 08:08, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment The St Albans AfD was closed after only two comments, so it's not an exhaustive opinion of WP editors. It shouldn't set a precedent that can never be overturned. I am worried by this. There are over 200 elections of this size every year in the UK alone, and because WP is a global encyclopaedia, we have to consider how many similar elections take place across other countries that expect coverage here: the US (obviously), Canada, India etc. etc.; we will be adding thousands of articles a year, most of which contain nothing but statistics that could easily be found elsewhere. Yes, there will be press coverage - there always is for an election - but there is no lasting interest, and if all we report is the results, then we are merely mirroring primary data as laundered through a secondary source, rather than truly secondary-sourced material. There is no doubt the information ought to be available to the public, but it's not encyclopaedia stuff. Elemimele (talk) 08:25, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In promoting this as an example article and requesting thorough debate, I think that there could be two useful outcomes. One is that referring to to this AFD might be useful taken in the context of it being for the particulars of this election and the particulars of what is and isn't in the article and its sources. The second is that if we can get a very thorough close which summarizes the discussion, I think that that would also be very useful. And so I'd like to request such a thorough close. What this would NOT be is using the a mere "keep" or "delete" result as a blanket indicator for all election articles. North8000 (talk) 13:54, 3 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete fails the criteria for EVENTCRIT. It does not have widespread (national or international) impact. These types of local elections are WP:ROUTINE and not really newsworthy or important, except to a relatively small local population. Fails GNG by lacking a sufficient amount reliable sources. A statistical chart or official government publications and notices are not independent reliable sources. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think that to really deal with these, we need to recognize that dealing with these intelligently needs to acknowledge assessing by multiple considerations combined, the unacknowledged way that Wikipedia actually operates. Another way to say it is about wp:notability, but also taking into account the degree of compliance with wp:not which is a measure of the degree of enclyclopedicness. A "stats only" article means that wp:not weighs in against this, but not to the extent of clearly precluding it based solely on wp:not. "Stats only" also influences a GNG evaluation. And also acknowledge that the scale and prominence itself also matters. Wikipedia:How Wikipedia notability works acknowledges this combination of considerations. So on the "prominence/scale" aspect, this comes in low-medium...an entity with ~107,000 people and not state or national level (thus no support from any SNG, and wp:events weighing in against it), "stats only" means that wp:not weighs in against if not so strong to specifically forbid it based solely on wp:not. WP:GNG weighs in against it, although if it weren't for those other considerations we might bend the GNG rules a bit. IMO, my "delete" probably considered this to be just below the "keep" threshold via combined consideration of all of these factors, which (if you need to oversimplify it) could also be called a wp:notability decision. North8000 (talk) 12:48, 7 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Ultimately, this comes down to Wikipedia not being an indiscriminate collection of information. Stifle (talk) 15:49, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to Chorley Borough Council elections. This is a comment on this article, which can also serve as a guideline for all such articles. Wikipedia is not the place that people are going to go to for a borough by borough recap of a council election. The net result - winner or loser - should go in the election history section of the main article. I looked at Chorley Borough Council elections and sadly it's just a list of links, but those should be replaced with the summary results from the annual elections. Source with a link to the more detailed tallies on the municipal sites. That will cut down the number of these these articles by a good factor. And it reflects a better understanding of how people use Wikipedia. And it's easier to keep up the info. We won't create the expectation for future readers that this info will be here for every election, since it more than likely won't be. TimTempleton (talk) (cont) 18:43, 13 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Leaning delete. Perhaps we need to establish specific guidance on what elections should be included, but I don't see this occurrance of strictly local significance as being among them. BD2412 T 17:47, 14 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete I agree that it fails WP:EVENTCRIT and GNG. Additionally, I notice some of the "keep" votes are making arguments that have nothing to do with this subject's notability (complaints about padding AfD stats, etc.). Those should probably be disregarded. Wes sideman (talk) 12:57, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Procedural keep close as wrong venue. North8000 is trying to establish general guidelines for local elections with an AFD. AFDs should be about one specific article, not about policy principles. This discussion has become hopelessly entangled with the general principle. A Request for Comment would be more appropriate, or a proposal made at Village Pump. This could affect a very large number of articles; Chorley Borough Council elections shows that every election since 1994 has its own page, and they are all similar to this one. Other councils such as Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council elections are similar. It would be entirely wrong to delete them all piecemeal on the basis of one AfD. SpinningSpark 14:57, 15 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
A single AFD would have no such reach, and I never said otherwise. But a thorough discussion on a real edge-case example would be useful. North8000 (talk) 15:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes it would because it would set a precedent that can be referred to in later AfDs. You said as much in your nom with "the results this might set a direction or provide guidance". The inevitable result of a delete here would be a mass nomination of thousands of articles with similar structure/content for UK elections alone. SpinningSpark 10:58, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Spinningspark: You view the potential impact of this AFD to be much larger than I do. And BTW it's much more plausible to take my statement that you quoted in it's context (including me saying that i wasn't concerned about the overall result) and intended meaning. Which is that the particulars of an in-depth conversation could be helpful for future discussions. North8000 (talk) 13:02, 20 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: No clear consensus yet, but very recent ongoing discussion, which may be useful.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, TigerShark (talk) 00:53, 16 July 2022 (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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