Talk:Third-party members of state legislatures of the United States

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What's up with this list, anyway?[edit]

Much of the same as was previously mentioned in regard to Third party (United States). That article starts out by saying "Third party is a term used in the United States for American political parties other than the Republican and Democratic parties". This list appears to be unfocused for several reasons. First, there's no inclusion criteria found anywhere on the list itself or on this talk page. Second, it includes independents when the definition of an independent falls outside of the definition given above, which makes it appear as if Wikipedia(ns are) is attempting to define "Independent" as a political party when it's not. Third, looking at the portion of the list for the state I live in (Alaska), it indiscriminately combines independents with actual third-party officeholders, but comes up rather short in listing those elected to partisan office from outside of the two larger parties. If this is the case with just one low-population state, then I have to wonder how far behind the curve it is overall. Then there's the case mentioned in List of mayors of Cordova, Alaska, where a holder of that office received a heightened level of attention for being affiliated with the Green Party, even though he was elected to a nonpartisan office. It suggests that this list doesn't exist to cover a topic, but provide a venue for certain editors' POV or to serve as an indiscriminate collection of information. RadioKAOS / Talk to me, Billy / Transmissions 22:30, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RadioKAOS , I agree with much of what you said about this page back in December 2016. Independents and third-party officeholders are two different categories. Therefore, per WP:BOLD, I have removed all the independents from the list. If anyone objects, perhaps a separate page for independent state legislators could be created. SunCrow (talk) 19:20, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

RadioKAOS and SunCrow: I definitely understand your concerns with the article and agree with many of your points. I think part of the problem is the manpower to make these updates, and so I appreciate SunCrow being BOLD and making changes. (Unfortunately, I only saw this conversation again after my most recent edits) I would argue, however, that in a US political context, Independents do seem to fill the role of a third political force among the two-party duopoly and should be included. Bkissin (talk) 17:15, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Inclusion criteria[edit]

Here is my proposal for inclusion criteria:

Members of State Legislatures (no municipal politicians)
Independent and Third Party politicians
Distinction made between currently serving politicians and those who served historically

Thoughts on these draft criteria? Bearcat, Mpen320, your thoughts? (On top of those already pinged). Bkissin (talk) 17:15, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a Canadian, I can't say I have any useful input to contribute here; since we aren't a straight Duverger two-party system up here, we can't use the term "third party" in quite the same way you do in the US. I mean, we do use it, but because our legislatures nearly always have at least three parties represented in them, and sometimes even four or five, third-party status per se is neither rare nor unusual enough here that a list of everybody who's ever been elected as a third party member of a Canadian legislature would be a useful thing to have — so I can't comment on what should or shouldn't be the inclusion criteria in a country where third party status is much more of an exceptional rarity. I will say, however, that since the page's title is "members of state legislatures", I don't think it's necessary to specify that the inclusion criteria rule out municipal politicians — they're basically already kicked out by the inherent scope of the list. Bearcat (talk) 17:29, 9 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple issues[edit]

The article needs more sources and has been tagged accordingly. It needs to have dates of service added for some elected officials. It needs to be checked for accuracy and for faithfulness to cited sources. Most importantly, I highly doubt that it is complete. I just added one missing legislator from New York that I knew of, and I find it hard to believe that there was only one third-party state legislator in the whole country between 1856 (which I set as the start date to match other similar lists on Wikipedia) and 1978 (which is the second-earliest date in the article). Not sure how to find relevant information on this. Thoughts? SunCrow (talk) 22:27, 4 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]