Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American state and local politicians convicted of crimes

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. It is broadly agreed that privacy concerns do not trump accurate reporting of reliably sourced criminal convictions by public figures. bd2412 T 04:40, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

List of American state and local politicians convicted of crimes

List of American state and local politicians convicted of crimes (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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I propose to delete this list because of privacy concerns; specifically, the increasingly recognized "right to be forgotten". While I agree that this information should be retained in the respective individual articles if the persons are notable and the convictions received media coverage, for those persons who are not notable this list is a "online pillory" of sorts, publicly stigmatizing them as criminals only because they happened to be politicians at one time, even if their conviction has nothing to do with their public office. We do not similarly stigmatize other people just because of their job (e.g., there's no "list of American gardeners convicted of crime"), and we should not do so here. Otherwise we leave the door open to making similar lists that attempt to make a political point by implicitly portraying a whole group of people as criminals, e.g. "List of African Americans convicted of crime", "List of journalists ...", "List of conservative politicians ...".

There are also other concerns with this list. It's obviously very incomplete, and can't ever be reasonably complete given the probably tens of thousands of names that would need to be added, down to every proverbial village dogcatcher convicted of, say, cruelty to animals. This means that inclusion is essentially random, and the list provides a misleading and very incomplete picture of criminality by US politicians. Of course many of our lists are incomplete, but given the particular WP:BLP concerns with this list, we should not tolerate this in the same way we can live with the incompleteness of say, anime episode lists.

Moreover, the list is out of our scope (WP:NOT). It essentially attempts to replicate a subset of official criminal record databases. Such databases are normally well regulated by law, including as regards the extent to which information in them may be made public, and are maintained by professionals and overseen by specialized authorities. That's not the case for Wikipedia. We should not attempt to accomplish a task for which we are entirely unsuited.

Finally, the list topic is not notable per WP:LISTN. While of course crimes by individual politicians do get media coverage, the criminality of US local politicians as a group is not covered in any detail in any reliable sources that I am aware of or that are cited in the article. But such coverage of the topic as a whole would be required to make the list topic notable. Sandstein 12:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment For ease of discussion I have added numbers to Sandstein's arguements.Orliepie (talk) 21:56, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I undid this. Do not edit the comments of others. Sandstein 23:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Happy New Year!!! Babymissfortune 13:11, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Happy New Year!!! Babymissfortune 13:11, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Happy New Year!!! Babymissfortune 13:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. Happy New Year!!! Babymissfortune 13:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Happy New Year!!! Babymissfortune 13:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Per WP:NOTCENSORED and lack of EU (or Argentine) jurisdiction over Wikipedia. The list's inclusion criteria at present states Not everyone who works in government is a politician save those who meet the requirements of Notability in the English Wikipedia. Private citizens, businessmen and family should not be included, unless they relate to the crime as co-defendants. so all those mentioned are in any event eligible notability wise, WP:NPOL, for a Wikipedia article. A list of American NPOL eligible politicians intersected by crime conviction is not unmanageable in size. Nom's comment of "down to every proverbial village dogcatcher convicted" is addressed by the list inclusion criteria of meeting NPOL which at present does not include dogcatchers.Icewhiz (talk) 13:22, 3 January 2018 (UTC) Futhermore, the subject of convicted politicians has been addressed as a group, for instance: A Brief History of Members of Congress Breaking the Law, The Atlantic, 20 notable politicians convicted of crimes since 2000, Deseret News, Politicians who have been indicted, Politico, Lock Him Up: Impeachments in the United States, Don Riley.Icewhiz (talk) 13:30, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I don't see how the particular grouping of "convicted state and local politicians" is notable by itself, Your 1st source deals with convicted federal politicians (and even links to the associated Wikipedia article) and isn't relevant to this discussion, the 2nd and 3rd sources groups convicted federal and state politicians in to a single group called "convicted politicians", and the 4th has Donald Trump (a federal politician) on the front cover. I may consider supporting a merge of the 2 articles (if someone's up to the task) as there's no question of the combined group being notable, but I can't see the notability of this particular grouping. Iffy★Chat -- 15:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • I admittedly ignored the distinction here between state&local and federal (as opposed to American politicians, in general, convicted of crimes). However this seems to be more of a matter of article organization and readability than a notability issue - I think a merge would result in a less readable article.Icewhiz (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • I do not think that NOTCENSORED applies here. That policy means that we don't exclude content just because somebody objects to it, e.g. on moral grounds. But we do routinely exclude content to which people object on policy grounds. And concern for the privacy of the people we cover is very much part of our policies, see e.g WP:BLP: "Biographies of living persons ("BLPs") must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy. (...) The possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment." That's the kind of judgment we exercise in omitting content such as that discussed here. Sandstein 23:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
          • I cited NOTCENSORED due to your nomination motivation of because of privacy concerns; specifically, the increasingly recognized "right to be forgotten" - which is not Wikipedia policy, is something many (me included) object to being referred to as a right, and is being used to censor on-line outlets (e.g. Google, maybe Wikipedia next?) in the EU. Policy wise, many on this list are dead (e.g. 19th century) and BLPCRIME doesn't apply. Anyone who is not dead meets WP:PUBLICFIGURE - so it is irrelevant anyway, and in any case WP:BLPCRIME states "For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material—in any article—that suggests the person has committed, or is accused of having committed, a crime, unless a conviction has been secured. This list would be appropriate even if these were little known people (if the list were, in and of itself notable, e.g. "list of Jihadist terrorists" or "list of janitors convicted of obstruction" (jokingly - if this were treated as a set) - as a conviction has been secured.Icewhiz (talk) 21:58, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Per WP:NOTCENSORED and the amount of work that so many editors have made. JimmyJoe87 (talk) 15:24, 3 January 2018 (UTC) Furthermore, there are other articles also dedicated to the conviction of politicians e.g List of American federal politicians convicted of crimes JimmyJoe87 (talk) 15:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • delete per pretty much everything Sandstein says. WP:NOTCENSORED is not a primary principle, and has a lesser rank than WP:BLP, and once again I return to the ARBCOM ruling of yore that "Implicit in the policy on biographies of living people is the understanding that Wikipedia articles should respect the basic human dignity of their subjects." Really, most appeals to WP:NOTCENSORED ought to be a signal to those making the appeal to get a conscience/morals tune-up. And the fact that people have spent a lot of time on this says only that (a) too many people should have known better, and that (b) this should have been deleted sooner. Mangoe (talk) 20:14, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I would even like to see this list expanded to something similar to List of federal political scandals in the United States which was also nominated for deletion in 2010 and again in 2017. The result was Keep, twice. Conviction is a more restrictive label than scandal and as a result this list should remain.
1. I would argue politicians give up the right to normal privacy when they run for public office and are paid by public funds.
2. Of course it's incomplete, encyclopedias, wikipedia and democracy itself is an always moving always changing topic. Remember, you can help to make the list less incomplete by adding more entries.
3. Out of our scope? Nothing is outside wikipedia's scope. Hence the name, wikipedia.
4. In paragraph 3 you state,"databases are normally well regulated by law" then you state "criminality of US local politicians as a group is not covered". Please make up your mind. Besides, what others cover is irrelevant. This is wikpedia. Political criminals as a group, any group are very notable.Orliepie (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2018 (UTC) — Orliepie (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. [reply]
Per your point 1, you don't get to overrule BLP policy that way. And per your point 3, much of WP:NOT is devoted to excluding various things from WP's scope. Mangoe (talk) 22:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Political scandals are something entirely different. Not every conviction of a politician constitutes a scandal, and vice versa. Sandstein 23:35, 3 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Orliepie, I do not know a lot of things, but I do know that your completely and utterly wrong on point 1-3 (no comment on point 4, it's whatever for me, but fair I suppose). 1, 2, and 3; I have to repeat are just so wrong. I a Middlesex Community College student, obviously I deserve a normal amount of privacy, but I also got elected to public office. I am not going out of my way to mention the details of my life to other people, and I expect others to respect that it doesn't affect anything involving my professional life. Unless I am guilty of misusing public funds, corruption, or abuse of power; unless the media fairly reports on it, then it shouldn't be on Wikipedia.
I also don't get paid any money. Local politics is mostly a volunteering gig, so we shouldn't be operating under the assumption that Wikipedia is the watchdog of criminal behavior for some baker who got elected to the Board of Education (and was arrested for smoking pot 20 years ago). It's none of our business, I don't see a real policy argument behind it, and the fact it will "always be changing" means we shouldn't include it for the sole reason that it will waste our editors time trying to do simple maintenance on it. At the very least, it could be a category of already notable local politicians like Joe Ganim. I can't even respond to 3. I will just say you really should rethink that.―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 04:05, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This article is 8 years old. You're the first to complain.Newlenp (talk) 20:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"This has been around a long time" is never going to fly as a reason. We don't grandfather bad material. Mangoe (talk) 23:21, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Right to be forgotten is a European law that is not applicable here. I have no problem with the list and, as the previous editor says, there has not been one for eight years.104.163.153.162 (talk) 22:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Seems a lot of time and effort has gone into the making of this article since it was first created. Clearly many people find the article interesting as there are 8 years worth of edits. 82.132.214.246 (talk) 00:07, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. All these individual are notable, and everything here can be documented. We have almost always held that for the career of an elected politician, convictions of crimes are relevant content and BLP does not justify their exclusion even when it would for a non public figure, or even a public figure in other walks of life where some crimes might be regarded as irrelevant to their profession, because the overall moral fitness of a politician is relevant to the nature of -their profession. I think we would even include crimes less then felonies ,because the public does use them in its judgements. There is only one real problem in the article--it only covers the last few years and needs extend backwards. In the US the right to be forgotten does not apply,so we do not have to take it into account. When dealing with countries where it does apply, it is in direct opposition to our basic principle of not censored, and I would argue for ignoring it at enWP except for instances WP:LEGAL insisted we remove it. But for US figures that's not relevant. DGG ( talk ) 09:25, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. All of them, local, state and federal as per US legal Code, there is no 'right to be forgotten' especially for public officials. C. W. Gilmore (talk) 09:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom, and all such list articles ought to be banned Darkness Shines (talk) 15:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete My biggest concern with this list is that most local politicians are not notable. So creating a list of those who are convicted of crimes seems to give undue weight.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:27, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I do not accept the argument that any "right to be forgotten" applies here, or to Wikipedia in general for clearly notable people. As for the dogcatcher concern, this list should be restricted to clearly notable politicians who either have biographies already, or are obviously notable such as state legislators. All others should be removed. Because of the issue of public trust, politicians are (or should be) held to a much higher standard than gardeners and most other occupations. Another concern is that these should be criminal convictions. Kris Kobach, for example, got fined by a judge for misrepresenting some documents. He should be removed from the list. These are maintenance issues, not arguments to delete. Sources linked to above make it clear that there is widespread coverage of the intersection between politicians and convicted criminals. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 18:56, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Changing the scale does not negate the concept. If a federal politician affects the entire United States and is notable, is not a state politician affecting his state just as notable? Who are we to judge who or what is more important to South Dakotians? Sheriff Joe Arpaio affected Arizona on a daily basis in ways federal politicians arguably did not. Politicians of all stripes, areas and sizes are equally important if they are affecting YOU.Valleyjc (talk) 19:50, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Would I get a Wikipedia page because I matter to anyone petitioning the Cromwell Board of Assessment Appeals? ―Matthew J. Long -Talk-☖ 04:19, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep politicians have no special right to hide their wrongdoings--if anything, it is just the opposite for public figures. If these politicians and their supporters object to being included in a list of criminals, they should have thought of that before they did the crime. BLP is of no consequence when actions are fully documented with sources--as these entries are. Hmains (talk) 23:48, 5 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep -- politicians, especially state-level, are by their nature not "low profile individuals" and the right to be forgotten does not apply to them. Most are blue-linked entries and the list appears to be well sourced. I think the case for removing nn local-level politicians (i.e. a county comissioner without an article) could be made on the talk page. I would support removal of those who meet the two criteria: a. they do not have articles, and b. do not meet WP:NPOL. If such discussion commenses post closure (if this article is kept), I would be happy to be pinged about it. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:29, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - American politicians who commit crimes have no "right to be forgotten". Quite the contrary. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:30, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Snow keep. Clearly meets LISTN, the topic of local public corruption is well-covered in news and academia. The BLP concerns raised do not apply to those who have willingly placed themselves in the public sphere in order to obtain political power. Frankly, any XFD nomination citing a so-called "right" to be "forgotten" should be laughed out of the venue. James (talk/contribs) 19:28, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - The flip side of elected politicians getting autopasses for WP biographies is that they are all basically notable in WP terms when the shit hits the fan. As long as this is adequately footnoted it is neither defamatory nor coatracking. WP is not paper and this strikes me as a valid navigational device. Carrite (talk) 04:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The list, as drafted, doesn't pass WP:LISTN. The criteria seem too vague and so the crimes include things like reckless driving and trespass. Myself, I once created a list of honest politicians. It didn't have these problems as it was carefully constructed using sources which discussed the matter in a general way and which cited paragons such as Cincinnatus. Nevertheless that list was deleted. To have one list without the other is not neutral. To have it just for some recentist list of US politicians makes look like Wikipedia is being used for blatant character assassination contrary to WP:BLP and WP:NOTSCANDAL. Andrew D. (talk) 07:42, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Your article was deleted, so this is payback time?Johnsagent (talk) 06:17, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Snow keep meets WP:LISTN and as usual add only those people who are convicted. Orientls (talk) 11:12, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This list is a maintenance nightmare and includes many non-notable individuals. A category would be a much more appropriate way of conveying this information, and would save editors the trouble of having to weed out non-notable individuals, since categories can only be applied to articles. I also agree with much of the arguments put forth by User:Sandstein and User:Andrew Davidson. 28bytes (talk) 19:44, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak delete given that the current version does not provide a definition of "crime". The list does specific that it should include only individuals who committed crimes while in office, and I myself would favor changing the article title to reflect that. But there is no indication regarding when the convictions take place, and they could be several years after the pol leaves office. A list of politicians removed from office for criminal activity would be more useful and have fewer problems, as would a list of politicians who resigned from office for criminal activity. But particularly with the freaking huge number of politicians who might do something to be included, and the lack of definition of one of the primary qualifiers for the list, "crime," and the likelihood that real world opponents of the individuals are likely to try to push the standards of notability for the purposes of smearing them, this individual list as it is currently constructed looks to me like maybe creating more problems than it might solve. John Carter (talk) 20:08, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete The list appears to be an indiscriminate collection of various American politicians accused of all kinds of things. It includes too many non-notable politicians, and easily acts as some sort of dart board. If a politician has committed some sort of crime reported in reliable sources, it should go on the article itself. Possibly worth an attempt to clean up, but WP:TNT it first if you shall. !dave 20:11, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as convictions are clearly sourced and dates are added, in brackets, as to when they were convicted. 82.132.187.183 (talk) 21:22, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep I quote from WP:LISTN - The entirety of the list does not need to be documented in sources for notability, only that the grouping or set in general has been. Because the group or set is notable, Johnsagent (talk) 06:11, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per BLP (and TNT). Absent that, pair it down to only those cases which received national or international attention (so local sources, however reliable, are not enough this being BLP and all).Volunteer Marek (talk) 08:42, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per our BLP policy for public figures. Keeping information in pages for individual politicians, but not in the list does not really makes sense. Note that being convicted of a crime is a matter of fact, rather than a matter of judgement, so including someone in the list should not be a matter of dispute if reliably sourced. "List of African Americans convicted of crime" or "List of conservative politicians ..." would be more disputable as possibly "inherently POV" lists. But "List of journalists..." would arguably be OK. My very best wishes (talk) 16:33, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • KeepThe case for deletion is very weak, though the article might be tweaked, I am unconvinced it should be deleted. Caltropdefense (talk) 19:28, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep no convincing argument has been presented for deletion. Lepricavark (talk) 21:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete  Just seems to have the effect of disparaging people, and there is not a single link in the lede.  So the group is itself someone's WP:OR, while WP:Verifiability#Exceptional claims require exceptional sources says that "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources."  So fails WP:LISTN exceptionally.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:49, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
There is noting exceptional for an US politician to be convicted of crime, as this list shows. The convictions are usually reliably reported and can be easily verified. My very best wishes (talk) 03:17, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • DeleteKeep and expand into spinout articles- but I completely disagree with the reasoning in the nomination. Politicians (federal, state, local, or otherwise) should not be given a "right to be forgotten". If you decide to put yourself out there in public and run for office, you should have to deal with the consequences of your behavior. In the position of power they are in, they need to be held to a higher standard than everyone else. If for no other reason, they should not be forgotten in the event they ever even think of running for office again. That said, the reason I support deletion is because the list is not complete, nor can it possibly be without taking up a ridiculous amount of space. There are hundreds (actually more likely thousands) of other politicians who would qualify for inclusion in this list. Keeping an incomplete list gives WP:UNDUE weight to the people who were selected for inclusion.--Rusf10 (talk) 03:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The article can be spunout eithier by state or time period as per USER:Icewhiz below. That will address the issue of length and we can include all of the persons with articles who meet the criteria for inclusion which will avoid giving WP:UNDUE towards only the selected politicians (as is the problem now)--Rusf10 (talk) 17:31, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

There is no requirement for lists to be complete according to our guidelines - see here. Also, why do you think many more items should be included? "Likely thousands"? Any sources to justify such numbers? My very best wishes (talk) 05:16, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The list potentially could be completed, but its length would be too great. The sources are in the articles that already exist. I can think of several politicians that have been convicted of crimes but do not appear on the list (and that's just the ones I know of).--Rusf10 (talk) 05:44, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
But perhaps the list is already nearly complete, or it can be easily completed. Why do you think this is not a case. Is any database of crimes by US politicians? If so, that could help to clarify the question. My very best wishes (talk) 05:51, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
For example [1], that's just one state over a 13 year period and it only includes members of the state legislature. Now throw in some mayors, county executives, members of the cabinet, etc. (assuming they meet notability guidelines), multiply it out by 50 states and nearly 250 years, and you can easily end up with thousands.--Rusf10 (talk) 06:11, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
One needs a notability cutoff for including people in the list, for example we should have page about the included politicians. My very best wishes (talk) 16:54, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete. Honestly, I can't stress this enough. The page has 297,860 bytes in total of content. Who is going to manage that? Why should we continue spending editor time and effort to upkeep this potentially dangerous page. If you think it is important to keep track of notable politicians' crimes, then I encourage you to add to Category:American politicians convicted of crimes. Expanding that more streamlines maintenance tasks to individual BLP pages making reporting attacks easier. It currently is just really easy to edit in an unsubstantiated claim if done during the right time of day. Separately, it also is becomes hard to detect a user with bad intentions who includes an article citation that makes a politician look bad for a relatively minor crime (regardless of circumstance) by disguising it as during their time in office.
Further, Comment there are several entries in this list that use WP:BLPPRIMARY even as this is against wikipedia policy. I also encourage the reading of WP:PUBLICFIGURE.
Finally, I agree with nominator Sandstein 's reasonings and intentions behind citing the "right to be forgotten". It is a legal precedent that is very important to look at. As I have mentioned before, I am a local politician. Though I have not committed any crimes (that I am aware of 0.0), I do think I am deserving of the same respect, dignity, and privacy as any other person commenting. People talk a lot about holding elected officials accountable, but I do not think people understand what that should look like for Wikipedia. Well, the answer is simple. Politicians are accountable to whomever elected them. That means if you are from Cromwell, Connecticut, I have to serve you, but I am not under any obligation to any other individual for my time as a member of a local board in town. Local politicians are really not very special. They are actually low-profile (even state ones), and they don't need some (frankly shakily curated) centralized list of our their crimes out there when no WP:RS does the same. They deserve to have it included in their own article, along with whatever else they did for better or worse, to be judged by the reader and not us as editors. They don't deserve to have a single moment in their life define them for anybody. Politicians just want to serve the public/their community; that goes from Jack Abramoff to Jimmy Carter. Some make the wrong decisions, some are awesome and just so amaz-- woops got off track. Anyways, I mentioned before about the "right to be forgotten", well it might not exist now, but that doesn't mean we don't have anything close to it. The Wikimedia Terms of Service are pretty clear, "Certain activities, whether legal or illegal, may be harmful to other users and violate our rules, and some activities may also subject you to liability. Therefore, for your own protection and for that of other users, you may not engage in such activities on our sites. These activities include:
Violating the Privacy of Others
  • Infringing the privacy rights of others under the laws of the United States of America or other applicable laws (which may include the laws where you live or where you view or edit content);"
If you are curious about the subject, look into Privacy laws of the United States#Modern tort law because right there is, "Public disclosure of private facts: the dissemination of truthful private information which a reasonable person would find objectionable" Even if it inclusion on this list does not meet that standard, portraying them in violation of previously mentioned wikipedia policies that give list-included individuals WP:UNDUE weight against them is something that might be violating Wikimedia's ToS.
That, this, is not Wikipedia's purpose. We shouldn't centralize this type of list. It removes all context and makes every politician into a single event they must be noted by. It is a slippery slope that can just lead to a lot of trouble. That's how I see it, at least.
I am sorry, but "right to be forgotten" goes directly against the purpose of online encyclopedia. Saying that certain things need to be forgotten because they are "bad" or about influential people is WP:SOAP. My very best wishes (talk) 05:56, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Publicly elected officials are not private citizens and therefore, do not have the same level of privacy rights in the laws and norms of the United States. Sorry, but your private life is not private when you step into the public arena and you know this before you place yourself up for election. C. W. Gilmore (talk) 08:01, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The claim that the article is too long is an interesting one. However this may be easily remedied by splitting this article to a state by state basis if required (e.g. List of Nebraskan politicians convicted of crimes) or possibly by time period (as the article is presently organized). A category is unable to convey the same information conveyed in a list.Icewhiz (talk) 09:21, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, we could do it that way. I'm changing my vote.--Rusf10 (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I'd agree with a seperate page for each state.Johnsagent (talk) 22:55, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Another possibility is to classify them based on the type of crime. See Category:American politicians convicted of corruption and other categories. Compare also with List of people accused of bribery in Russia (cases of two people on the top were actually fabricated)... My very best wishes (talk) 04:30, 11 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment So far it is 22 in favour of keeping the article and 11 in favour of removing the article. Since the overwhelming majority support keeping this article can we not end this debate already? JimmyJoe87 (talk) 18:35, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't how things work, and really, it seems to me that a lot of "keep" responses do not address many of Sandstein's objections. Mangoe (talk) 19:10, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep for all the reasons above, and I think that Sandstein's objections have been covered quite well. We don't seem to like the idea of a 'right to privacy' in regards to crooked public politicians. And no, I don't think this article is too long, but I would support increasing this into 50 separate articles as mentioned and adding resignations to convictions as well.Wilmadon (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Wikipedia offers no "right to be forgotten". All of the state and local politicians listed here are included because they have been convicted of crimes, accompanied by the reliable and verifiable sources to back up the claims. Barring the ability to wipe these sources off the face of the Earth, the ability to support these claims will exist as infinitum.
    From a matter of public policy, people hold elected officials up to a higher standard than they do gardeners or even journalists. No one claims that all politicians are crooks, but some are. The effort to liken this to "List of African Americans convicted of crime" is patently absurd.
    The list *is* incomplete. Wikipedia is fine with that. California has 40 million residents and Los Angeles about 4 million; New York has about 20 million and New York City about 8.5 million. List of people from California and List of people from Los Angeles are both incomplete, falling far short of the list under consideration; same with List of people from New York (state) and List of people from New York City (though I will note that in both cases, the city articles counter-intuitively and against all logic have more entries than the state lists). There are far fewer politicians in the United States since its formation than the number of people in either city or state; the number of convicted state and local politicians is orders of magnitude smaller than the pool of people in any of these places and is unlikely to become unmanageable in the years ahead. Should this list get too large, creating sub-lists by state would be the method to follow, emulating the rather logical approach to explain why there is no List of people from the United States.
    Per WP:LISTN, this is exactly the kind of topic that is appropriate for a standalone list and this search shows more than a handful of books devoted to the topic; similar searches of newspaper articles and scholarly works also turn up sources by the thousands.
    Appeals to WP:NOT and WP:UNDUE are similarly specious. This is an article that needs to be retained and -- sadly -- expanded. Alansohn (talk) 20:59, 10 January 2018 (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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