Wikipedia talk:Notability (politics)

Missing content

Hello, The second paragraph under the heading Applicable policies and guidelines seems to be incomplete. If someone can fix it, that'd be great as I am not experienced enough to look into such changes. TIA NotJuggerNot (talk) 16:55, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggested Revision re Notability Criteria

Hi there, I am surprised that notability would exclude minor political parties. We are talking about including or excluding mention of parties and people who run for elected office? If anyone has run for political office, even for a minor party, I think I should be able to find mention of that on Wiki. That person's whole life story shouldn't be on wiki - but the fact that a name appeared on a ballot - and a minor party's tenets - is pretty central to how democracy is supposed to work. The Green Party in Canada is not considered a "major party" - but it should qualify as notable simply for its importance - even if the newspapers weren't writing about the party. So too with the Communist Party and the None of the Above Party in Canada. Voters want to know their options and may come to wiki to learn about these minor parties - and we should not be censoring critical voting information, based on mere popularity. SabaBPC (talk) 14:16, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

Could you add more context about what is being excluded that you think should be included? The Green Party of Canada has a page, so do their candidates. Now, if a candidate that is so minor that they get no coverage in the WP:RS, should they get a mention in the election coverage on-wiki? I think that's harder. There are a lot of joke candidates, crackpot candidates, where maybe a mention in the final tally is enough, but it would be very hard to write a good article about them because there's not WP:RS coverage for them. Chris vLS (talk) 22:05, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Need for this

Before this goes anywhere, I would be interested in understanding what issue this guideline solves; why it is needed? BilledMammal (talk) 01:11, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: The current status quo is shaky at best. I have seen WP:POLOUTCOMES get cited as a reason to delete an article that would otherwise meet WP:GNG, WP:NBLP, and even WP:POLITICIAN. That really shouldn't be how things work.
Then you have questions of articles which clearly meet WP:N, but WP:NOPAGE may apply. I see that often with Presidential campaign pages which kind of get created and redirected basically on a whim. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 18:07, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Government Departments

Should this section include statutory agencies? Adondai (talk) 05:17, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Qualms

• The person serves as a diplomat and has received significant coverage in crafting an international agreement or related to a notable diplomatic event. This seems contrary to WP:ONEEVENT.
• The person is a member of the supreme court for a country's national or subnational judiciary. What is the standard for "subnational judiciary"? I've found it difficult enough to write articles on chief justices of African Supreme Courts in the 20th century (see Nicolas Bayona Ba Meya and Joseph Bukera, rather skimpy but they do pass the bar), and while I've seen various appellate court justices named in appointment ordinances and whatnot, I've found it very difficult to find any biographical info about them. Even a lot of members of the highest courts remain illusive.

-Indy beetle (talk) 06:34, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Goldsztajn put together this page WP:Notability (people)/Subnational politicians as a start to help editors understand what counts as a subnational government. I believe it could be edited to encompass courts. - Enos733 (talk) 17:51, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

NPOL (or succesor) strict

Currently, POLOUTCOMES and NPOL have a de facto agreement that people who purely gain their notability through politics, but don't meet NPOL criteria, aren't notable...even if they would pass NBIO, unless the coverage is appreciably in excess of the norm.

This is most commonly seen for unsuccessful candidates, such as for US HOR elections.

This is something I support (it's what keeps us from being flooded by candidate pages). I can't quite tell how your proposed rewrite comes down on the question, but I'd like to see (like NCORP) a formal designation that the rules may well be stricter than the traditional NBIO. Nosebagbear (talk) 09:27, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Note

There is not, and never has been, any consensus that merely being nominated by any political party for a political contest at the national level is automatically sufficient grounds for a Wikipedia article.

To be fair, in some countries it's virtually impossible to get nominated as a candidate at that level without already having preexisting notability anyway -- nobody is ever going to win the Democratic or Republican nominations in a US presidential election without already having held other NPOL-passing offices (or other notable roles in business or the military) that meant they already had a Wikipedia article before becoming a presidential candidate, for example -- but there's never been any consensus that merely being a candidate is always grounds for an article in and of itself for a person who didn't have any other preexisting notability claims. As written, that criterion is also ambiguous enough that it could be cited as forcing us to keep major party candidates for the House of Representatives or the Senate (which are, after all, at the "national" level) regardless of their success or failure, which is also not the consensus position.

So "Politicians #6" is a no. Bearcat (talk) 17:29, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

How to deal with unknown social media political candidates posting their candidacies on Wikipedia?

Coming off the issues of disruptive editing involving a niche political Twitter account declaring his own candidacy for the 2028 US Pennsylvania Senate election, it feels like more instances of this will occur with younger generations who are experienced with Wikipedia that will take advantage of the site for self-promotion purposes (particularly if their niche fanbase is so determined to add his/her name onto Wikipedia despite having no outside public recognition). Therefore, I feel that if more of this phenomenon occurs in time, that there should be some advisory on how to regulate which candidates get featured on to specific election articles.

This issue is particularly annoying when there's a dozen or so of these self-proclaimed candidates on every election article, backed by social media accounts of this user under "Endorsements" (which also happened with the 2028 Pennsylvania Election article). Yourlocallordandsavior (talk) 00:10, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Request for comment

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closing as unsuccessful per WP:SNOW. Editors are welcome to continue workshopping this idea and/or consider revising WP:NPOL, but there's clearly not consensus for the current proposal. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 08:50, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

---

I think that this proposed guideline should be a notability guideline. It think this because it has more detailed information than WP:NPOL and there are many new criteria in .Wikipedia:Notability (politics). ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️^{Let's Talk !} 06:46, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Survey

• Comment – interesting, and looks promising, but holding off for now, pending discussion. Mathglot (talk) 08:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Comment - I am leaning towards opposing this as I don't see any advantages that this provides over GNG, and I see a disadvantage as it may encourage editors to create articles without finding sources. BilledMammal (talk) 08:41, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose this and any other proliferation of SNGs. The GNG should be Wikipedia's only notability guideline.—S Marshall T/C 09:08, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

  There are many division of GNG (see this category Category:Wikipedia notability guidelines) so it is wrong to say that "The GNG should be Wikipedia's only notability guideline.". I think that Wikipedia:NPOL is correct but it is not in detailed that's why I want this proposal should be a notability guideline and also a division of GNG. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️^{Let's Talk !} 09:24, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is either a much more verbose version of WP:NPOL, in which case it should be rejected for being too verbose (we should be reducing the size and number of guidelines rather than increasing them), or it introduces new things into the guideline, for which no need has been explained. WP:NPOL works well because it cuts out most of the inevitable partisan bickering that we would otherwise get from people saying that coverage of "their candidate" is significant but that coverage of others is not. Phil Bridger (talk) 09:59, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose We already have WP:NPOLITICIAN, which seems like an appropriate bar for politician notability. This is simply unnecessary. Number 57 12:45, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. As I said at WikiProject Politics, this would need a lot of work before it was viable. As it stands, it really doesn't provide any benefit and would just complicate the already fraught process of determining notability in a contentious subject matter. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 15:00, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - Less is more when it comes to WP:PAG. Before nominating something to be a notability guideline, you should probably ask yourself and the community if this is actually needed to begin with. And if you don't get any response back, the answer is probably no.--⛵ WaltClipper -(talk) 15:27, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:NPOLITICIAN works quite well, especially combined with the guidance in WP:POLOUTCOMES, and the explanatory essay WP:NSUBPOL. I am working on an essay for political candidates User:Enos733/Political candidates, which I welcome feedback on. --Enos733 (talk) 17:58, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• (Procedural?) Oppose - the new criteria here seem like they should be proposed as a change to the existing text at WP:NPOLITICIAN, rather than creating a parallel guideline that covers essentially the same domain of topics. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 18:16, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Even disregarding how useless this is, as NPOL and outcomes are quite clear, significant workshopping is still needed on this. You were told to go to VPI to workshop the page, not immediately put it up for RfC. Curbon7 (talk) 19:02, 18 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose It's not so much just that this would clearly create a policy fork of WP:NPOL as pointed out above: it also in various places fundamentally misrepresents and/or just does not work with the existing baseline notability scheme. It's not that subjects "should" comport with WP:GNG: WP:Notability as determined but substantial, independent coverage in reliable sources is essential to inclusion. Nor are SNGs typically permitted to say that a subject "is notable": at best they typically say "presumed notable", and even that has been controversial in the community for a long time, with "presumptive notability" (as sometimes defined in SNGs at a standard very different from the core meaning found in WP:NBASIC) being somewhat clawed back in recent years. These days, even much more modest proposals than this one are given a very skeptical look by a community that prefers to avoid rule creep in this area and leave the matter to a more organic case-by-case analysis, especially if the alternative involves lengthy idiosyncratic standards unconnected to WP:WEIGHT as it influences WP:V and WP:N.

I also want to inquire (not that I'm presuming or implying bad faith, either way): did this get at least published somewhere at WP:VP? For a WP:Proposal that would so substantially change the inclusion criteria for tens of thousands articles at the least, it's best to have that discussion in a central community space. Absent that, it should at least be advertised there, rather than leaving this call to those of us fortunate to have been invited by the FRS, or those previously familiar with the proposal. If there has not been much community input on this proposal despite urging, as seems to have been suggested in comments above, that goes a long way to explain the current approach, wording, size, scope and general non-starter nature of the proposal as it exists. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 02:57, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

I would be opposed, if § Basic criteria #8 remains as is, and the general rule is "any of these". This potentially allows a completely insignificant spouse to have a page where almost nothing is known about them. Wouldn't vote to support with #8 included in any form I can think of; spouses should stand or fall on their own notability. Also opposed, if #9 remains as written; too weak. Add something like, "in at least two other countries", and I'd accept #9. (This comment refers to rev. 1119768269 of 3 Nov.) Mathglot (talk) 08:07, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

If you don't think that this should not be a criteria so I am removing it. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️^{Let's Talk !} 09:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand what do you want with #9. Can you please explain in detail that what you want with 9th criteria. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️^{Let's Talk !} 09:31, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Sure. For example, change "outside their specific region" to the stronger "from two other countries".

With respect to "...so I am removing it", I don't understand; I don't see anything removed. I do see that you modified #8 by adding "got significant coverage from reliable and independent sources", and due to this I can now support #8. However, with this addition, you also don't need #8 anymore, because in this form, it's already covered under GNG. Mathglot (talk) 09:51, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Okay thanks I have removed #8 and changed #9. ​​​​​​​𝐋𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐕𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐭𝟕𝟐𝟖🧙‍♂️^{Let's Talk !} 11:12, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Requiring "significant press coverage from two other countries" raises the bar for local pols high enough I'm not sure there's any sense in even mentioning local politicians in a guideline like this, other than to say they're not included in this. It seems much beyond what either of WP:GNG and WP:NBASIC suggest. What would be the purpose of such a requirement, for this particular proposed notability guideline? Skynxnex (talk) 04:28, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Comment - I don't have anything to say for or against this specific proposal, but I wanted to point out that the current version of WP:NPOL mistakenly (in my view) cites the WP:GNG, when in fact for living politicians the more restrictive criteria of WP:NBASIC should (indeed, I would argue, already do) apply. Newimpartial (talk) 10:08, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

What are the situations where this would be useful compared to NPOL? — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:11, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

What is a country

You might want to think about whether you want "country" to apply only to sovereign states (WikiProject Countries), or also to entities such as dependent territories (sometimes with varying degrees of autonomy), former countries, micronations, and self-declared independent regions with limited recognition. Mathglot (talk) 08:42, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Origins of this page

Honestly, I am surprised by the RFC above. This page has never been in a state where I would consider it ready for primetime, and I am disappointed most people's first exposure to it will be in this state.

If I do ever come back to this, I'll probably cut out most of the politician stuff. I really wanted to change things on that front originally. A lot of WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS kind of stuff if we're being honest. If only Nosebagbear was still alive because I think he got the point of what I was trying to do (even if he disagreed with it). If I had to do it over, I'd just copy/paste WP:NPOL and leave out most of WP:POLOUTCOMES.

Anyways, the parts of the guideline that I always felt were going to be the most important anyways were the government departments and campaigns. We need some stricter guidance for when WP:NOPAGE kicks in on that front. If I come back to this, I'll probably start there. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 05:46, 2 October 2023 (UTC)