Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian Party (UK) (5th nomination)

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 keep. L Faraone 22:33, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Libertarian Party (UK)

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This party are not notable or important enough. They have not stood in any of the 22 by-elections in the 2010-2015 Parliament, they have no proof of credible third party coverage, they do not have any evidence of notable campaigning in recent months, or indeed recent years. They have "0"s down the entire list of elected positions on the right hand side. With no evidence of recent activity, with no notable personalities involved, with no by-election candidates, with no elected officials, they are nowhere near important or credible enough for a Wikipedia article. doktorb _words^deeds 16:49, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Everymorning talk to me 17:15, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is the fifth time this has been nominated (and at least the third time by the present nominator!). Sure, the infobox looks silly with the 0s and that's easily solved by deleting the infobox which, on most articles about political parties, serves no useful purpose anyway. And if lack of recent activity is a basis, let's delete Whigs. Emeraude (talk) 18:36, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A rather silly post User:Emeraude. The Whigs are self evidently notable. Can you say the same about LUK? doktorb _words^deeds 19:16, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you would prefer to discuss the Wessex Regionalist Party, The Common Good (political party), or the Popular Alliance (UK)? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:12, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I will User:Jonathan A Jones, I want to try and clear up such articles as best as I can. doktorb _words^deeds 09:15, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I ask only because we discussed this very point at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian Party (UK) (2nd nomination) back in February 2012, and nothing seems to have been done. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:11, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 18:59, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 19:00, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. The refs aren't up to much and the party is irrelevant, it has such a small amount of coverage more or less anyone could get a party to this level of notability. I can't understand why this has survived 4 AFDs - but I'm sure it will keep coming up for deletion until it does get deleted. Szzuk (talk) 21:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Add. Now it makes sense, this has already been deleted twice - it had a slightly different name. Szzuk (talk) 19:47, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Bit of a mess this one, finding old AfDs all over the place. As well as the ones linked above, there's Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian Party UK and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Libertarian Party (United Kingdom), which both resulted in delete. Dylanfromthenorth (talk) 02:44, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

- It's really quite simple. This is a minor, even a very minor party and it has no chance of attaining power at this stage. (Rather like UKIP at one time!) But that's not the point. It is a registered party and has contested both local and national elections. One of its candidates was elected to a parish council for a while. It does have news coverage, as do all parties that contest elections. But, and here's the key issue, when it's deleted and some person in the future comes across Libertarian Party in print (or even in a Wikipedia article on a constituency's election - see, for example, Devizes) there is no way that Wikipedia will allow that person to know anything about the party. Wikipedia will ensure they remain in ignorance! This is a digital encyclopaedia - there is no shortage of paper, there is plenty of room. The great thing about Wikipedia is that it can cover things that don't get any detail anywhere else without the constraints of space. Emeraude (talk) 10:33, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - But there is so little third party coverage of them, Wiki could become the main point of reference point, and that's against policy. Wiki has limits on content and with good reason. It is not an indiscriminate collection of content doktorb _words^deeds 11:38, 24 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I previously nominated this myself but then found a solitary wp:rs which gave it notability: a Daily Telegraph article explaining why the group wasn't notable & shouldn't have been set up in the 1st place. By a magnificent piece of philosophic irony (see talk page) the article survived & the reference was deleted. I subsequently found the same organization had been previously deleted but reappeared with the same details but 'UK' added. It's time for it to go -and stay gone! Whoops ..should have signed my message! JRPG (talk) 21:21, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Add If the article is kept, it should be significantly shortened and its solitary wp:rs -the Telegraph comments on its irrelevance included. JRPG (talk) 11:48, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep They are a registered and still-active UK political party, so there should be no question of deletion. And that really should be the end of the discussion. Anything more suggests censorship and bias. I think there is something seriously amiss when an article goes to AfD five times. Are there some people who just won't accept keep as the answer (doktorb certainly doesn't), or is there a sustained bias at work against having articles about minor political parties? I note a number of other ongoing AfD articles proposing deleting articles on other political parties. We are going down a dangerous route if for political parties we require notability through sustained positive reporting in established press. Control of media is essential for any political party in power or cartel of parties that monopolize power by exchanging it every few years. This results in the activities of minor parties being not reported in the media, and if they are mentioned at all there will be consistent bias against them and belittling (and often outright hatred) of their aims and supporters (the cited Telegraph example is such an article). That is why their mere existence as political parties should be enough to ensure they can have a Wikipedia entry. This should be especially true if the political philosophy of the party is far more significant than the number of their supporters or voters would suggest. The question of what is or is not libertarianism is a very active topic in Britain. And Britain's "first past the post" system ensures minor parties almost never gain seats anywhere, so attempting to gain seats is not seen as a priority or even a necessary function of a minor political party. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:38, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your response User:Tiptoethrutheminefield, although you have been rather scatter gun in your content. I am not biased against this particular party, and I don't consider it relevant that the topic of libertarianism is an active dinner party topic or not. This party barely made any impact, at all, whatsoever, in the political culture of England, let alone the UK, in the brief time of its existence. It had one Westminster by-election failure, to my knowledge, and existed largely as an on-line fad. There is nothing to indicate any importance or credibility whatsoever, and by most marks, it fails Wikipedia policy on notability. That is at the centre of my argument - does it meet Wikipedia standards? Answer: No. Your final few sentences about media control and voting systems are utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand. doktorb _words^deeds 18:33, 26 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Notability states, "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to be suitable for a stand-alone article or list." The article amply demonstrates that it passes this test. Emeraude (talk) 11:03, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Wikipedia does not keep an article on the basis of the subject impact alone but on the basis of notability. The fact that the subject of the article is a minor party, may not provide valid criteria for an AfD nomination. However, reliable sourcing is the most important factor for AfD nomination. Wikicology (talk) 12:10, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To User talk:Emeraude and User:Wikicology - can you point to which notable achievements this party has had in its existence? The fact they exist is not enough for Wikipedia, they have had to *achieve* something. Wikipedia is not a repository of each and every organisation ever to have been created. doktorb _words^deeds 21:44, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, they don't have to achieve *anything* other than significant coverage in reliable sources. Which this party has just about managed: it's marginal, perhaps, but it's not trivial and certainly not non-existent. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:01, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: It's not the most notable party in the history of the UK, but it's just about over the threshold. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 22:03, 27 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It's a registered party that has fielded candidates in elections and has been covered. Contrast to Transhumanist Party (at AFD also still i believe), which has not. I have seen too many AFDs about political parties. We need an RFC and/or other approach to setting a clear notability standard for political parties. My view is that this Libertarian Party UK article meets the standard. --do ncr am 05:12, 28 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Weak keep - marginal, as said above, but gets over notability line. Metamagician3000 (talk) 13:42, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (duplicate posting to 15 AFDs). There are about 15 simultaneous AFDs about UK political parties going on, including about 11 alphabetically, started a little while ago:

For this one note the deletion nominator has further disputed the list-item notability of the Patriotic Socialist Party, deleting its entry in the List of UK political parties by this edit.

And four more recent additions (the asserted new "tranche" of AFDs?):

I rather object to all of these going on separately, as this is expensive of community attention. In fact I suggest it is inappropriate to open multiple related AFDs separately rather than as part of one multiple article AFD (see WP:MULTIAFD). But after asking the deletion nominator of most of these to withdraw some, and finding no agreement on their part (rather than withdraw any AFDs, the deletion nominator has stated that they plan to open a new tranche of AFDs), and from past experience about AFDs, I expect there's no way to stop the separate AFDs going on. Some of them are headed for KEEP already, IMO.

Not a single one of these articles should be deleted, IMO. At worst, an article can be MERGED and REDIRECTED to List of political parties in the United Kingdom, keeping the edit history available to properly credit contributions and to facilitate re-creation. And, IMO, they should all probably be KEPT, as there is documentation of party registration for every one I believe, and there is coverage.

Note: in response to one or two previous deletion campaigns that I have noticed (not involving the current deletion nominator), i have posted notice of the multiple AFDs going on at some of the AFDs, and given links to other AFDs. This is NOT wp:canvassing; it is appropriate to point out the commonalities; this posting is transparent, not biased/selective in where it is posted, is not posted to user talk pages. My message does indeed have a point, that at worst any article should be merged and redirected, not deleted, which I think is reasonable to share and post at every one of these. I further suggest that others having any view post at every one of the AFDs (no matter what is your view). --do ncr am 19:44, 29 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. This is beginning to get silly. (After all, how many AfDs have there been on this article?) There's also a few reliable sources listed in the references. --Biblioworm 04:37, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment To Biblioworm Whilst I haven't contributed to discussions of other parties, I do have an objection to this one -as it simply changed the article name following deletion -whilst not adding anything significant. JRPG (talk) 12:48, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per GNG. -- GreenC 19:59, 30 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Randykitty (talk) 16:40, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note about relist I was ready to close this as "keep", but then checked the article and some of the arguments put forward in this discussion. First, there are zero independent sources in the article discussing the subject in-depth (the electoral commission is independent, but only establishes that the party exists, nothing more). Second, whether this has been nominated before, or whether other articles are simultaneously being nominated is irrelevant. An AfD discussion should be about whether the subject meets our criteria for verifiability and notability. Nothing more, nothing less. Hence, I find that most "keep" !votes here are irrelevant and despite the seemingly numerical majority, there is as yet no consensus to keep. Because of all this, I have decided to relist this debate and invite the participants to formulate their arguments based on policy and, if available, add any good references to the article. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 16:46, 1 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There was an overwhelming opinion in favor of keep. Most were not just "votes" - they were accompanied by reasoned opinions, with many editors expressing worry about the existence of this AfD - and its context, sitting as it does within a raft of similar AfDs (all by the same editor). The fact of the repeated nominations by the same editor IS significant. How many times do the same arguments need to be rehashed? I think that establishing that a political party exists should be the defining criteria for keep. That HAS been established, as you admit. I think we should treat a political party rather like a place name - if there is evidence that the place or the party exists, that is enough justification for an article's existence, even if it is only a stub. To require anything more invites bias against political parties that exist within societies whose media is heavily under the control of established parties or regimes. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:34, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I am not going to participate in this debate. when presenting arguments, please cite the guideline or policy on which it is based. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 15:45, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you are not participating in the debate, would you withdraw and cross out your "note about relist"? The relist template is all that was required. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:07, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tiptoethrutheminefield, I think User:Randykitty is perfectly in the right to point out what they have on this matter. doktorb _words^deeds 19:21, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Going far beyond merely pasting in a relist tag and giving a brief reasoning, Randykitty expressed opinions about this particular AfD, then stated that he/she does not want to be involved in the discussion. If the opinions remain, then they are part of the debate regardless of what Randykitty wants. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 20:19, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I guess that Tiptoethrutheminefield's insistence means that I am not an uninvolved admin any more, whatever my original intention or whatever I do. So I'll refrain from closing this and will, instead, cast a !vote. As said in my relist note, I originally thought to close this as "keep", based on the large number of !votes in that direction. However, after reading the article and reading the keep arguments, I did not feel that I could close it as "keep" in good conscience and decided to relist so that those arguing to keep this article could come up with valid arguments and sources (and provided some indications where there arguments were deficient). I just went through this whole debate again. The article does not contain a single independent source about this party (election results really don't establish notability). In the above debate, only one single source seems to have come up: an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph. This in itself is not enough to establish notability either. Many keep !votes are based on ILIKEIT ("it's a political party and all such should be kept") or IDONTLIKEIT (there are other AfDs going on/this has already been at AfD 5 times). None of this is based in policy. What other AfDs are currently open is immaterial, as are previous AfDs (2 of which ended in deletion anyway, completely undercutting this rationale). There is no guideline stating that any political party is notable (nor should there be, I think). There are a few !votes stating that "it's just above the threshold", but these don't explain why that is the case. In the absence of sources, I'm afraid that there is only one policy-based option left: Delete. --Randykitty (talk) 00:38, 4 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The party is small, insignificant, relatively new, and has no real coverage in sources. Of the sources in the article, all but one are WP:ROUTINE establsihing only that the party has stood candidates. The bar for being allowed to stand in British elections is set very low (£500 + 10 signatures) so there is no way that having candidates can be considered notable in itself. The remaining source is an interview with Ian Parker-Joseph, the party leader, in Politics.co.uk. Interviews are generally considered to be WP:PRIMARY and, by themselves, cannot establish notability. The Telegraph piece mentioned above is an editorial rant advising voters not to support small parties. It says nothing encyclopaedically useful about the party itself and it is telling that the piece has not been used as a source for any fact in our article. SpinningSpark 15:13, 5 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Agreed, I added the Telegraph article -which neatly sums up both the party and this article -it should never have been created -(and re-created) in the first place. JRPG (talk) 11:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I'd close this, but I think I'd save any potential upset by instead adding to consensus. Read through all the arguments here, and RK's summary is on point. The main defense of this article topic is that (1) it is a registered political party, which is not a content-specific guideline, and (2) it has continually returned to AfD. These policy-less arguments do little for consensus, which as RK said, is about general notability arguments in the absence of a content-specific guideline. There were a few vague waves to the GNG/significant coverage, but no discussion about how it actually fulfilled this or what those sources were. And the only two sources that anyone considers substantial in this discussion were previously discussed as such in past AfDs and subsequently (and I'd say accurately) analyzed by Spinningspark. So what can I add? I did a mega-search of 55 ProQuest databases and found nada for sigcov. (Though I did get a laugh out of the LPUK search, where "Lucid Optical Services and Laser Physics UK" and "Little People UK" were far more popular than the Lib Party.) AfD's motto is "show me the sources". The pile-on keeps for similar articles at AfD (mentioned above) do us a disservice, as I have already said. So, all in all, another reminder that WP consensus is judged by the strength of policy-backed rationales and not head count. czar ⨹ 02:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep this and all similar political party articles on the basis of WP:IAR (Use Common Sense to Improve the Encyclopedia). This is the sort of material that SHOULD be in a comprehensive encyclopedia. Carrite (talk) 03:56, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - This article has previously been closed at AFD as a KEEP. Notability is not temporary. Carrite (talk) 03:57, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment Not true User:Carrite doktorb _words^deeds 08:37, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - On the contrary: true, true and true. And seeing as you made at least two previous nominations before this that resulted in keep, you ought to know that and tell the truth about them! Emeraude (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - Comment User:Emeraude, do you think that the deletion decision should be respected? doktorb _words^deeds 20:58, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    - Comment Carrite is 100% correct. Notability is not temporary: this is a core concept on Wikipedia. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 15:26, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
      - Actually, Tiptoethrutheminefield, it's a bit less than 100%. Notability is indeed not temporary. This means that if, at some point during its history a subject met our notability guidelines, it is also notable nowadays. The crux is in met our notability guidelines which, over the years, have become a bit more stringent. Also, in past AfDs, editors often were less concerned with sourcing than we are now. As a result, it is quite well possible that something kept at AfD years ago will now be deleted for lack of notability. --Randykitty (talk) 16:00, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
        I was thinking more of the AfD proposer's "no evidence of recent activity", no by-election candidates, with no elected officials" justification for deletion when I stressed that notability is not temporary. None of that AfD justification is to do with notability because if the party was notable when in was more active then it is still notable regardless of its current activity level. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 17:58, 8 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - an active, formal political party in the UK. I think that should be enough. Metamagician3000 (talk) 10:43, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Notability is not temporary so whether its active or not doesn't matter. This party never has met the notability criteria & I don't understand why there is any issue. If it ever meets it, it can have an article. JRPG (talk) 11:14, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- And you made a previous nomination that also resulted in keep..... Emeraude (talk) 20:53, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  - Not quite -I withdrew the nomination having found and added the much discussed Telegraph article -promptly deleted by Libertarian supporters! It now fails WP:N JRPG (talk) 22:29, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE Let me repeat this: Some of the previous AfDs resulted in a "keep" decision. Others resulted in a "delete" decision. In all, that history is decidedly undecided. So none of this is relevant if notability cannot be established in this debate. Please forget that history and concentrate on the issue at hand: is there any notability here or not. Thanks. --Randykitty (talk) 21:51, 7 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Close with No Consensus Fact is, this party has a negligible membership, laughable budget, and ZERO success at the polls. It exists, but none of its supporters on Wikipedia have been able to source it persuasively, presumably because no editor wastes reporting time by assigning articles about a party that has zero... well, you get the point. But the thing is, Libertarians are, er, doggedly enthusiastic about their cause. Delete it, they will re-create it (not absurd since, after all, the party does exist), somebody will take it to AFD, and this argument will go on forever. So just Close with No Consensus this time every time it comes up for AdD and move on.ShulMaven (talk) 00:06, 9 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep enough external, reliable sources to prove notability. Sadfatandalone (talk) 02:01, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Care to back up that claim by naming two of them? SpinningSpark 11:36, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - Minor political party with minor coverage, but still likely plenty left unresearched. Seems GNG has been met and aside from the unsourced "political views", is a stub-like article. As a political party, I am sure the political views and campaigns could be established with some research, especially with non-digital documents. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 12:51, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment A wp:rs almost as exciting as my Telegraph post, their leader reported someone for not filling in a form. Read all about it! FYI, there are several blogs which suggest its splitting. JRPG (talk) 15:13, 10 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Still waiting for an answer from User:Emeraude doktorb _words^deeds 14:03, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Waiting? I've been away from Wikipedia for three or four days. But I do not answer questions which are not relevant to the present discussion. Emeraude (talk) 18:11, 13 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, User:Emeraude, waiting. I asked you a direct question linked to this debate, and would like a response. doktorb _words^deeds 19:04, 13 December 2014 (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.