Wikipedia talk:Notability (political parties)

Previous discussions

Previous discussions on this draft notability guideline can be found at User talk:Doktorbuk/pp. Road Wizard (talk) 17:15, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:NOTPAPER

That Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia is a policy that I think gets overlooked too often, despite it being a well-known policy. Can we say that if a political party has an entry about it in a paper encyclopedia, that Wikipedia may also have an article about it? Or is there a point at which we must say "Wikipedia is not an Encyclopedia of (X)." For example, WP is an Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, but WP is not an Encyclopedia of Star Trek (though I don't quite understand why it couldn't be per WP:PAPER). Anyway, can we say, for example, Wikipedia is an Encyclopedia of Third Parties? Or is there some reason why WP would want to exclude entries that could be found in such an Encyclopedia? Шизомби (talk) 13:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

You make a very good point, and I think this should always be within the frame of any discussions on this. As I think I noted during the discussions on my talk page, poltical parties are rather more fluid than, say, actors or car makers. It's easier for Wikipedians to argue that "John Smith is not notable" if he only appeared in one episode of Scrubs, than it is to decide if the Communist Party of the Isle of Man should feature here or not.

I respect the general principle of WP:NOTPAPER, but Wiki is not an editable version of Company House either. If there is a Third Party of the strength of, say, Plaid Cymru or the Liberal Democrats, there should be no argument, but if we're talking about a party whose history is less successful, then we have to wonder if Wiki should contain them in a stand-alone article. doktorb _words^deeds 13:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if we're understanding each other or not. Clearly, I think any party which has an entry in a general use print encyclopedia warrants its own entry on WP. I'm also arguing that any party which has an entry in a print encyclopedia of pp like The Encyclopedia of Third Parties in the United States also warrants its own entry on WP. Notability (political parties) then must only concern itself with those historical pp which did not get an entry in a print encyclopedia of any kind, or with those too recent to have been covered by a print one. Шизомби (talk) 14:06, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the book at all or 100% familiar with US election practices but am I right in understanding that in most states third parties have to jump through particular qualification processes in order to get the right to nominate candidates for election? And in turn people writing about "Third Parties" have a clear idea of who the significant also-rans are? This is not the case in countries like the UK where any individual who pays £500 and gets nominated by 10 voters can stand for election and if they've paid something like £20 to formally register a one-man party they can use its name on the ballot paper. Plus some third parties have been regularly successful in getting elected to the Commons whilst others have gained prominence for other reasons, opening up a much greater level of tiers (indeed some of the parties in the Commons have been little more than "one man & his mates" bands). Timrollpickering (talk) 14:54, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, the book I used was just an example, I'd extend the argument to any book with "Encyclopedia" and "Political Parties" in the title. Generally speaking ballot access is a pain in the US for third parties, although at the micro level, maybe less so. There are some political parties=the only candidates, seemingly there was no convention. For example, a write-in candidate for President here [1] belonging to the "With Liberty and Justice Party." But I seriously doubt whether any print encyclopedia would have an entry on said party. Шизомби (talk) 17:24, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah right, I'm glad you have mentioned an issue very particular to the US, given that this is something missing from the original discussion. I would take from the situation you have described, if I have understood it properly, that to become a recognised Third Party means a lot of effort, more than, as has een explained above, the £120 fee in the UK? If the US situation means that a party must be notable to get registered (by this I mean, must have done more than just turn up, they would have to have done notable work on the ground before hand?) then that should pass the clauses in this policy. If any such party in the US is a one-man band known only in one state (or just a particular part of one state) then I doubt they would pass much of the clauses proposed. doktorb _words^deeds 19:04, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Can we say that if a political party has an entry about it in a paper encyclopedia, that Wikipedia may also have an article about it? That's not how WP:NOTPAPER works. WP:NOTPAPER is basically there to say that there is no practical limit to how many articles Wikipedia can have because, well, it's not paper. It does not mean that if an article is in a paper encyclopaedia then that warrants its inclusion into Wikipedia. No because a paper encyclopaedia might have different policies to Wikipedia on what they allow in. Any Wikipedia article must meet WP:N at least. Sure, the vast majority of articles in a paper encyclopaedia will also warrant inclusion into Wikipedia, but not because they are in the paper encyclopaedia: it is just a "coincidence" (see Correlation does not imply causation). Deamon138 (talk) 22:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

"WP:NOTPAPER is basically there to say that there is no practical limit to how many articles Wikipedia can have because, well, it's not paper. It does not mean that if an article is in a paper encyclopaedia then that warrants its inclusion into Wikipedia. No because a paper encyclopaedia might have different policies to Wikipedia on what they allow in." Hmm, well that seems odd. If there's no limit to how many articles WP can have, there's no reason for it to have a more stringent policy on what to allow in than a paper encyclopedia. Шизомби (talk) 13:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's true that there is no practical limit to how many articles Wikipedia can have, and I'd suggest that if a paper encyclopaedia has an article on a topic, then that is strong evidence that a Wikipedia article may be merited. But not all encyclopaedias are alike. Some have very short articles - essentially dictionary definitions - on minor topics, some divide topics differently to Wikipedia, and some - particularly those dealing with highly specialised topics - may have articles on very minor topics not well attested to elsewhere. Warofdreams talk 14:54, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I did not say Wikipedia's policies are more stringent, I said they might be different. Warofdreams sums it up by saying, "if a paper encyclopaedia has an article on a topic, then that is strong evidence that a Wikipedia article may be merited." This means that it's a good indication an article is merited, but this idea is not definitive. As I said, correlation does not imply causation. Deamon138 (talk) 15:43, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

One man parties and registration requirements

Of the various points raised:

One man parties. Two that already have articles are A Connecticut Party - a vehicle for a successful candidacy for governor and Connecticut for Lieberman, a vehicle for a successful Senate bid (which seems to have subsequently been taken over to take on a life of its own). There's also the Ulster Popular Unionist Party which was primarily one man for Westminster/Stormont and some supporting local councillors (and no sense of irony). Now all three were successful but there have been other MPs, Assembly Members and MEPs who, upon being either deselected or ranked too low on a party list, have gone off either to form their own micro party to fight the next election or joined some otherwise obscure group for no minutes of attention. And with MEPs, MSPs and the like especially usually their new party gets hardly any attention so I'm not sure they could automatically confer notability. We don't, for instance, have an article on the National Democratic Tyler Party even though it was formed by a sitting US President as a vehicle for his re-election hopes (he dropped out before the voting).

Encyclopaedia entries - they can be a guide but obviously with caution. There may well be an "Encyclopaedia of extreme left Political Parties" that highlights all manner of otherwise obscure fractions with more words in their name than members (think of the Judean People's Front) for whatever reason, perhaps to show why the extreme left never gets anywhere but I would take such a focused work as generally indicative.

Registration & "ballot access". It's also a problem that the purpose of registration varies widely from country to country. In the UK it's little more than a way to copyright & use political party names and to provide a formal structure for scrutiny of party funding. In other countries it's a prerequisite for far more, for instance the ability to nominate candidates without each one having to run round the constituency with a form, and the US seems to have almost nationalised parties through public primaries. And of course registration varies widely, even within the US as well as beyond, so in some places it may just be regularly providing a list 500 members (the requirement in at least some Australian states) in others it can involve huge petitions to get registered and a minimum number/percentage of votes to stay registered. I'm beginning to wonder if any registration requirements really can be used as a rule of thumb at all - high thresholds would probably only catch parties that are notable anyway for their levels of active membership/degree of organisation or public profile or single person vehicles that are really just independent. Timrollpickering (talk) 23:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

It seems like National Democratic Tyler Party should be a redirect and have it mentioned in an article. Шизомби (talk) 13:22, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the proposed policy would suggest, and that makes sense to me. Warofdreams talk 15:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Need?

Has this policy actually come from any realization of a need for it? Like has there been a dispute over whether some small party is notable enough and therefore the discussion lead to this page? If not, it might be that this is predicting a dispute when there might never be one. Maybe we should wait for a "test case"? Deamon138 (talk) 23:50, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the drafting of this guideline stems primarily from recent AfDs about political parties. Here is an incomplete list of recent political party discussions:

• English Independence Party; discussion; Outcome: Delete, 9 November 2006
• Church of the Militant Elvis Party; discussion; Outcome: Keep, 13 October 2007
• Church of the Militant Elvis Party; deletion review; Outcome: Delete, 22 October 2007
• SOS! Voters Against Overdevelopment of Northampton; discussion; Outcome: Delete, 15 January 2008
• British Public Party; discussion; Outcome: Delete, 16 January 2008
• Libertarian Party (United Kingdom); discussion; Outcome: Delete, 31 March 2008
• Money Reform Party; discussion; Outcome: Keep and Merge, 31 May 2008
• Libertarian Party (UK); discussion; Outcome: Keep, 8 June 2008
• Forward to Mars Party; discussion; Outcome: discussion still open

From the number of times this issue crops up at AfD I would say that some guidance would be useful, though whether the final version of the guideline encourages users to keep more or delete more depends on the eventual consensus of this discussion. Road Wizard (talk) 05:34, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Since May, we've also had "Proletarian Union" Committee of the Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Communist Organization (in reorganization) (delete), Spectre (political party) (merge), Pride in Paisley Party (delete) and Raving Loony Green Giant Party (keep) and probably some I've missed. We have a lot of brief articles on political parties, and it's not always clear which are notable under current guidelines. Similar articles taken to AfD have seen differing outcomes, and this was a spur for the proposal of a notability guideline. Warofdreams talk 11:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks you two for providing those. So among all those, would you say if there are any contradictions? Deamon138 (talk) 15:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The two Libertarian discussions are a bit of a contradiction. The first discussion settles on delete with a reference to WP:N then 3 months later a new version gains a consensus to merge with another article. However, as a more direct example, the Money Reform Party contests a single by-election and has its sourced material merged with its associated by-election article while 1 day later the Pride in Paisley Party which also contested a single election settles on delete instead of a suggested merge/redirect proposal. Road Wizard (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

This discussion seems to describe a breakdown in the AfD process rather than a need for more WP:CREEP. WP:N, well and consistently applied, by well trained AfD evaluators should do the trick, especially the Notability is not temporary section. There is no need for a knee-jerk reaction which will saddle us with yet another prescriptive rule-set. --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:35, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Contributors to political parties articles have been discussing the desirability of some guidance on the notability of political parties for at least a year now. If there is one thing this isn't, it's kneejerk! Warofdreams talk 15:46, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Excessive focus on the electoral side

Some "parties" may not be important as electoral parties, but may still be quite notable. For example, there are entities that call themselves "parties" but have no actual interest in electoral politics. A good present-day example of this in the U.S. would be Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. That particular example might pass the Person Clause because of Bob Avakian; I'm not sure because I cannot decipher "which is launched or helped launch by a person", which appears to be bad grammar. But it seems to me they'd be notable without Avakian: they operate numerous bookstores, run a lot of lecture series, etc.

Another interesting example would be the Labor Party (United States) which seems to me clearly notable, but seems like it might fail the criteria given here.

We need a criterion that allows for notability through the creation of actual material institutions (a staffed party headquarters, bookstores, a newspaper). We probably also need a criterion that allows for notability simply because of significant media coverage (much as we have for bands). I suspect that there are other criteria we could establish, though they don't leap to mind. - Jmabel | Talk 20:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Again, I'd like to thank people for bringing a US-perspective to this, it's very interesting to see that these proposals, when put up against the US system, require alteration. There /is/ a bias towards the electoral processes, but you are right to point out some "parties" are nothing of the sort. I'd say that they may fall under "pressure groups" or "lobby groups", and therefore could probably fall under other notability policies as well as/instead of this one. But you do make interesting points, I'll go away and think about this one doktorb _words^deeds 21:52, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, if "pressure groups" and "lobby groups" don't have their own notability requirements, maybe we could add them to this one, and rename it Wikipedia:Notability (political groups)? Deamon138 (talk) 23:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree with doktorb, that I envisaged the campaign clause covering groups such as the RCP or the Labor Party. Perhaps the clause needs a little clarification? I'll make a proposal below. I also like Deamon138's suggestion of including all political groups, but this would require some more consideration - what factors will need to be taken into account for political pressure groups, or for sections of a political party? Warofdreams talk 23:49, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Grounding

I suggest that all notability guidelines need to be grounded in the clear consensus which underlines WP:N - i.e. something is notable if it receives significant coverage in independent reliabe sources. These proposals here need to be linked back to these principles. AndrewRT(Talk) 21:06, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. Even if a party fails all criteria within this guideline it will still be notable if it has a strong weight of reliable sources behind it. Road Wizard (talk) 21:15, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

More agreement from this direction! Deamon138 (talk) 21:26, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. In light of this comment and the queries about the focus on electoral activities, I'd like to suggest rephrasing the campaign clause along the lines of "Parties with no electoral success can still be regarded as notable if they have 2 [perhaps 3?] years of proven campaigning experience, attested to by independent references. This also includes notable pressure or para-military groups which describe themselves as political parties, but may not be electorally active. A party that has an indisputable, clear, and certain importance in a state's political, cultural or social history, is regarded as notable. This notability must be based upon external, verifiable, published, reliable sources which demonstrate the party's importance." What do other editors think? Perhaps the second sentence should be a separate clause? Warofdreams talk 23:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It's good, and yes the second sentence would need to be gone into more detail in light of the ideas about lobby and pressure groups in the section above. Deamon138 (talk) 00:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I am happy with that, if you want to make the change on the proposal page go ahead,that seems fine to me doktorb _words^deeds 05:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Way too complicated

This proposal should be captured somewhere as a classic example of instruction creep. I'm sure that it is very well-intentioned and someone clearly put a lot of thought into it. But there is no way that our readers will take the time to read or understand it. If we need a rule at all (a question which I think remains open), then we need a rule that is far simpler than this. Rossami (talk) 03:27, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The policy currently consists of four short paragraphs, so it shouldn't be too complicated for anyone. But, fortunately, our readers do not have to read or understand this policy. Only editors considering creating a new article on a minor party or nominating an article on a political party for deletion would be well advised to look at it. This is in line with other notability guidelines (in fact, it is probably more concise than most), and should save lots of time currently spent on AfDs which are unlikely to succeed or working on articles which are subsequently deleted. Warofdreams talk 09:33, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, it should not be passed. Also, political parties are inherently notable since articles about them are all useful to political scientists and commentators. As long as there're verifiable sources related to a party, it deserves an article. --RekishiEJ (talk) 09:52, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Why do you believe it should not be passed? The outcome of AfDs and discussion have shown that political parties are not always considered inherently notable. Thinking about it, this shouldn't be a controversial point. If an individual nominally sets up a political party which attracts no attention and achieves nothing, there's no way in which it is notable. That's an extreme example, and I'd contend that most political parties are notable. The guideline is intended to give examples of criteria which, if fulfilled, will demonstrate notability. Warofdreams talk 15:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

• Waro, consider the Tragedy of the commons in terms of minor benefit to solve this situation adding to the confusion of potentially conflicting rule-sets. The goal here is to thin-out the trivial articles, but the result is further trivial rule-sets. The cure is worse than the disease. Why don't we all join the discussion at WP:N toward a better universal solution to the problems? Thanks! --Kevin Murray (talk) 14:42, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

The goal is not to thin out the trivial articles; it is to save everyone time by avoiding unneccesarily long and sometimes inconsistent discussions over at AfD as to whether various articles should be kept. Thinning out trivial articles may be a positive spin-off. The discussion process has brought editors closer together on how notability standards should be a applied to articles on political parties, and to my mind have really highlighted the need for this guidance. If you contend that the accretion of "minor" benefits are causing increasing problems, the answer is not to oppose each benefit in turn, but to work on developing a solution. I'll happily participated in the on-going RfC, but that in no way negates the value of building a solution here and now. Warofdreams talk 15:29, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm excited to see a bureaucrat giving notability some attention. While we disagree in the immediate approach, I welcome your wisdom and experience. Please look at the history of failure of most subject specific proposals, especially when it comes to controversial topics. The issues really boil down to: (1) should we allow articles which meet WP:V and not WP:N (e.g., primary source material)? (2) When is the source or medium "significant" (e.g., local-media, temporary-news, editorial oversight, POV)? And (3) should we disallow topics which meet WP:N based on a concept of inherent non-suitability for encyclopedic inclusion (i.e., noticed but unimportant)? --Kevin Murray (talk) 16:10, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Kevin, your input is really appreciated. I would hope that these clauses are not "trivial", because they have been framed as a consequence of the complexity of political parties and groups. The AfDs looked at above show that there is no consistent policy on this topic. These suggests attempt to put some guidance together in a field where, well, we haven't had any before. I think the questions you set are really important - we should allow articles where the notability can be proven against our usual checklists, although with the "liquid" state of political parties, we need some extra tick-boxes. doktorb _words^deeds 19:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Dok, with the best of intentions, and a dose of naiveté people are writing rule-sets all over WP. We are choking on rules which are inconsistent from subject-area to subject-area. Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the commons, where what is best for each individual is devastating when practiced collectively? If we fine tune WP:N and teach our admins/closers at AfD to apply it properly we will have no problems, here, at fiction, at films, at law enforcement, at religion, etc. Think this through! --Kevin Murray (talk) 23:49, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Kevin, I am thinking it through, indeed if you check my user page and the various project pages, plus the AFDs above, you'll see that for at least 12 (maybe 18!) months, this topic has been discussed. Whilst WP:N works (ish) for actors, musicians, writers, etc., there has never been an agreed policy for political parties. This aims to sort out this hole. Were we to scrap this suggestion, or just allow "convention" at AfDs etc., I fear that a lot of groups which would be non-notable outside of politics will be allowed to stay. If we are to teach our AfD admins what to do, we at least need teaching notes! doktorb _words^deeds 17:31, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

I concur with Doktorbuk, the inconsistency shown in those AfDs above shows there's a need for this. This is not instruction creep, there has been shown to be a definite need for this policy. Deamon138 (talk) 18:03, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Much too high a bar

1. Any political party that has gotten a candidate elected to any significant local office at the level of town mayor or city council (or higher) is in my view unquestionably notable. That's their purpose, and if they reach that stage, there will be material to write articles.
2. Any political party with a real existence, candidates actually nominated officially for office, or a regular publication, is probably notable. (for me, unquestionably, but I word it this way to indicate that some may disagree). That's sufficient to rule out the equivalents of the unrecorded garage bands. anything else is unfairly restrive for revolutionary movements and small groups that may become prominent. This is an area in which the potential for cultural bias is so great that an encyclopedia should be as inclusive as possible.
3. I totally disagree with Kevin Murray about the use of general criteria. I'd rather see the wrong special criteria, as long as they are distinct and give a guideline that can be followed objectively. The reliance on what happens to have easily findable sources of specific types is a recipe for chaos, and the cause of the present disastrous variability. We need a proliferation of objective rules for the notability of every class of article. Without them, it is always possible to find a plausible argument to delete anything (or for that matter to keep it), and the results will vary with the people who happen to be present at the time. DGG (talk) 04:50, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

• David, if we have this proliferation of objective rules, how do we keep that infrastructure from evolving toward chaos? --Kevin Murray (talk) 05:13, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

David, thanks for this. If I may go through your points.

1. The whole point of the Electoral Clause is to ensure that parties with representatives elected to a signficant office is notable enough for an article here. On the original discussion the question centred more on what was a notable office than whether the Electoral Clause had any flaws.
2. Further up this page the possibility of expanding this to include paramilitary groups and such is discussed. The clauses are wide enough, in my opinion, to allow some movement for "joke" parties but not too much to contradict the point of having a policy at all.
3. Some of the AfDs above are a good guide for what happens without rules. The bar is not set at all, remember, so people are asking to keep parties who stood in one election to win less than 5% of the vote and then never to return. The US models above are not quite in keeping with the UK system which helped create the initial rules, which is why I think we are at the stage of fine-tuning rather than lowering the bar to far down.

doktorb _words^deeds 06:43, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I think the results you mention shows what the community does in fact think--that any party running an actual candidate in a single real election is notable, regardless of the number of votes received. So far from fine tuning the result to see what higher standard is desirable, the bar should be firmly established where the general consensus says it is in practice, or the proposal will be rejected by the wider community. You seem to be attempting to force by local discussion here to induce the consensus to be other than it is. DGG (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Registration Clause

I offer this wording for the registration clause. "In the United Kingdom, an entry in the Register of Political Parties cannot be the sole citation of notability, and must be shown to satisfy other clauses. Outside the UK, an entry on a register of poltical parties may be acceptable if it can be shown that to have that entry, an electoral success had to be satisfied before hand" doktorb _words^deeds 01:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I continuet o think that a party which runs a candidate in an election is sufficiently notable, and a register hat shows this is sufficient evidence of it. I'd accept a wording that says as much.DGG (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

But that would mean a party who formed yesterday would be just as notable as one formed 100 years ago. This clause aims to ensure that the former would earn an article if they can satisfy other criteria, which I feel is reasonable. Our current ad hoc system requires many "liquid" conventions and attitudes which I feel should be now turned into firmer rules doktorb _words^deeds 02:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Your example illustrates the importance of the criterion that must be given more weight: coverage in (and hence availability of information from) independent sources. If all we can find about a party is its website, then the article probably doesn't belong. On the other hand, if the media have taken enough interest in the subject to do a little reporting, then we can infer that some of our readers will also be interested, and we can provide some information that's been vetted. In that case, we should keep the article. A party created only this week, not meeting any of your suggested criteria, would merit an article under those circumstances. JamesMLane t c 00:05, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank for this. I need now, therefore, to alter the clauses referring to coverage and proven campaigning evidence. I know this seems long winded but I am determined to get this sorted! doktorb _words^deeds 06:55, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

RFC on notability guidelines

Editors here may be interested in Wikipedia:Notability/RFC:compromise. Warofdreams talk 14:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The Electoral Clause

There is one loophole to be worked out with the current wording: let's take for example the case of Richard Holden (politician). After getting elected in his constituency, he jumped ship and joined a party which, though it was the official opposition at the time (and later formed a government), doesn't stand a chance of getting a significant showing in this particular constituency. As a matter of fact, his move caused such an outrage among his constituents that they even called for a psychiatric evaluation. Now what if this man had, instead, joined a party no one had ever heard of before, and was soundly defeated as an incumbent with his new party? -- Blanchardb -^{Me•MyEars•MyMouth}- timed 15:25, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

I am always fond of exceptions that prove the rule! That is a highly unusual case, I guess my gut instinct is to say he remained an elected official so the party does not matter. But if the party itself was a complete fringe case, I would lean towards putting their information into his article (a kind of pre-emptive merge, if you will), rather than a one-line stub. doktorb _words^deeds 16:36, 29 September 2008 (UTC)