User:Enos733/sandbox/Candidate notability

Candidate notability

The perpetual question (especially in candidate-centered elections, like in the US) is under what conditions a candidate meets WP:NPOL. The community consensus is that candidates can be discussed in a page about the election in question and losing candidates are generally deleted.

In practice many pages about candidates are created. Those pages can receive lots of page views and the community does keep certain candidates on a regular basis (see India Walton and Teresa Greenfield). Deletion review of political candidates can be quite contentious as the discussion may include supporters of the subject, especially as the date of the election draws closer.

Here is my attempt at trying to develop a consensus for when a candidate is notable.

Notability of Political Candidates

Wikipedia is not a repository of campaign brochures and the community makes no effort to provide equal coverage to candidates running for public office. Articles about candidates should focus on biographical details and should not be a compilation of the candidate's policy stances or endorsements primarily sourced to a campaign's website.

A candidate is notable when:

• The candidate already holds (or held) an office that passes WP:NPOL.
• The candidate meets the criteria set out in another SNG or meets WP:GNG independent of the candidate's run for office.

A candidate may be notable when:

• The candidate is running for national chief executive and receives national or international press coverage, beyond the scope of what would ordinarily be expected.
• The candidate represents a historical first (for the nation), such as being the first LGBTQ+ person winning a party's nomination and received national or international press coverage.
• The candidate defeated an incumbent in a party primary for a national office and received national or international press coverage, beyond the scope of what would ordinarily be expected.
• The candidate's campaign is substantially covered or featured in academic writings, notable documentaries, or similar coverage after the campaign is completed.
• Note: candidates that lose their election, and do not otherwise meet these criteria or the criteria in WP:GNG, may subsequently be merged or redirected to the appropriate target after the election.

Other considerations for pages about political candidates

• Candidates who are not notable and are running for an office that meets WP:NPOL should be redirected into articles detailing the specific race in question, such as 2010 United States Senate election in Nevada, or lists of campaign hopefuls, such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates in the 1995 Ontario provincial election.
• Sourced biographical details and information about the campaign can be placed in articles detailing the specific race in question or in a list of candidates. Note that such articles are still subject to the same content policies as any other article, including WP:DUE and WP:NPOV, and may not contain any unsourced biographical information that would not be acceptable in a separate article.
• Candidates that do not meet a SNG or GNG are not moved to user space for fear of establishing a precedent that any premature article about an as-yet-unelected candidate for office can be kept in draftspace pending election returns, effectively making draftspace a repository for campaign brochures (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Siân Gwenllian).
• In general, candidates should not be promoted to the mainspace until they win the election (or are declared the winner) (see WP:CRYSTAL). However, candidates running for an office that meets WP:NPOL and are unopposed in the general election may be promoted to the mainspace after the filing deadline closes or after the completion of a party primary. Care should be taken to not indicate the candidate holds office until they officially take office.
• In general, it may not be prudent to nominate a candidate for deletion when, within two or three months of the election, the candidate for a national legislature is tied or ahead in multiple reliable independent polls or multiple political prognosticators suggest the election is a "toss up" or leans toward the candidate as deletion discussions conducted during the peak of an election campaign may conflate newsiness and notability.
• Candidates who are the certified winner of their election but do not assume office (that meets WP:NPOL) are generally kept.