Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2006 Nebraska's 3rd congressional district election


 * 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 merge to 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska. These are always hard to judge because there is always coverage of the election as a whole, and coverage of each district, so mere articles on the 3rd district would not seem to be enough to warrant a stand alone article unless there is some event, something special, that is covered by RS that is utterly unique to the election or the main article. That is more or less the vibe I'm getting from the consensus here. Dennis Brown - 2&cent; 22:11, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

2006 Nebraska's 3rd congressional district election

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The article fails WP:GNG and WP:RECENT. It talks more about campaign funding and Kleeb than it does about the results, and even then those results are nothing special and were typical for the average Nebraska's 3rd district election. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 16:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Nebraska-related deletion discussions. Shellwood (talk) 16:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Comment. If a standalone article doesn't work, a selective merge would improve the very stubby 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska article. Congressional elections by state are of general historic interest.  The candidates, controversies and the national attention in this particular race contribute to that history. • Gene93k (talk) 18:02, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd be fine with that tbh. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 15:35, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska is allowed to have prose, these don't have to have separate articles whenever it goes beyond results templates. Can be as selective as desired. Reywas92Talk 19:14, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep. An "average" election for an idividual seat in a national legislature is definitely notable and is deserving of a standalone WP article. There are sufficient sources in the article already to pass WP:GNG. The issues that the nom complains about require article expansion and improvement, not deletion. Nsk92 (talk) 12:26, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. It was not a special election, but a regular election that would've occurred in early November every two years regardless of who held that seat. That's why it's better suited to be merged into the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Arizona list-article thingy and nothing else.
 * That's precisely my point. Every regular election for an individual seat in a national legislature is automatically presumtively notable, as far as I am concerned, and deserves a standalone WP article if it can be properly and substantively sourced. That's definitely the case here. Nsk92 (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * But there are literally hundreds of regular national elections being held every two years. You're saying we should create an article for EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM? Love of Corey (talk) 01:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * This is dead wrong, with no consensus for that at all among the elections Wikiproject, nor precedent in e.g. Canadian Parliament or UK House of Commons elections for individual seat notability. There are 440 Congressional elections every biennium, and they are divided by state rather than individually because they are not individually automatically notable. Just because something can be substantively sourced does not mandate a separate article, and this can be well covered in the main Nebraska page. Reywas92Talk 01:55, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The elections Wikiproject doesn't get to write policy, and there is no specific policy regarding notability of election articles. The closest one is WP:EVENT. There is a specific provision there that is directly on point, WP:LASTING, which reads: "Events are often considered to be notable if they act as a precedent or catalyst for something else. This may include effects on the views and behaviors of society and legislation." A national legislative election certainly does that. If someone has the time to create 435 individual congressional elections articles every two years, I see abslutely no problems with that. These events gets significant coverage and significant effect too. Nsk92 (talk) 07:41, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Every single election for every single state and/or federal seat for every democracy in the world will receive some sort of coverage, but we've consistently held they're not all eligible for articles, though some can be. This particular election really didn't have a lasting impact and has relatively routine sources. SportingFlyer  T · C  15:01, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Not really a notability argument, but the general convention is to merge biannual US house elections into one article per state. Elliot321 (talk &#124; contribs) 17:44, 11 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge to 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska per . Love of Corey (talk) 01:33, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep per varied sources in the article satisfying the GNG. Merging everything along with others just as expanded in the general Nebraska article would just make that article unwieldy. Morbidthoughts (talk) 08:08, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Actually, merging it into the general Nebraska article would be pretty easy. A paragraph is just enough, not an entire separate article. So again, it fails WP:SPLIT. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 22:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You're making a WP:ITSCRUFT argument after the GNG being met was pointed out. SPLIT, which is neither guideline nor policy, does not apply when this election itself meets the GNG and has that much content. Morbidthoughts (talk) 23:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment - In furtherance of my merge!vote, allow me to point out WP:ROUTINE. These elections are held every two years, as required by law. And as ROUTINE says, "Run-of-the-mill events—common, everyday, ordinary items that do not stand out—are probably not notable." Of course, these elections do not happen every day, but the fact that they are held every two years without fail also points to a common, ordinary occurrence. It's why we automatically have articles on special elections, because they do NOT fall into a ROUTINE sort of standard when it comes to the regular election cycle. Love of Corey (talk) 04:00, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, please. "Common, everyday" in WP:ROUTINE refers to things like Friday night high school football games and regular meetings of a local school board, not to elections to the national parliament. National parliamentary elections and their winners affect legislation, government policy, national public debate, oversight of government agencies, foreign relations and so on. That's why we see members of Congress on TV every day. The same WP:ROUTINE section, looking at its actual context, gives ample examples of events that it actually means as applicable: wedding announcements, sports scores, crime logs, sports matches, film premieres, press conferences, etc. Not even close to national parlimentary elections. Nsk92 (talk) 15:21, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Like I said before, "Of course, these elections do not happen every day, but the fact that they are held every two years without fail also points to a common, ordinary occurrence." And we're not talking about a national parliamentary election, we're talking about a national congressional election. Two different things. Love of Corey (talk) 01:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * The point is, if one looks at the actual full text of ROUTINE (which also goes under a more descriptive name WP:DOGBITESMAN) and the examples given there, it is completely obvious that the provision refers to routine everyday types of events, not elections to U.S. Congress (or to any other national legislature). Nsk92 (talk) 01:48, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Merge I don't believe single seat races held as part of a general election are article-worthy. Number   5  7  17:42, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Extremely Strong Keep Every other election has an article here, it would be weird to be missing a few. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 21:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Not "every other election" has an article. There are only a handful of articles on individual, general elections. Love of Corey (talk) 01:33, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh. I have seen loads of elections with articles. Also, there seems to be a gray area as to whether one single election counts as notable or not. Blubabluba9990 (talk) 16:18, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Which is why I strongly believe this is something that Wikipedia needs to discuss in terms of policy. Love of Corey (talk) 21:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:08, 11 February 2021 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge per Reywas92 — Alalch Emis (talk) 09:12, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge generally these are merged to one article per state per year. This isn't too exceptional of a race to need its own article. Elliot321 (talk &#124; contribs) 17:47, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   13:22, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep - there is zero explanation in the nom for how this fails GNG; there is plainly significant coverage in the article itself that requires no OR to extract the content from the sources. There is also opportunity for expansion, as the race had a lasting impact (see, e.g., this for a description of its impact on Keystone XL activism and this commentary on the legal ramifications of the robocalls -- although these don't establish notability IMO, they do indicate a need for a separate article). The delete and merge arguments are unconvincing; that the parent article is "allowed" to have prose isn't a reason to delete this one, a misreading of WP:ROUTINE is not a reason to delete (a misreading because passing GNG obviously means that it is not trivial, "run-of-the-mill", "exempt[] from newsworthiness"—much less entirely based around "planned coverage", since the robocalls etc were not planned coverage...), and that there could be more articles is obviously not a reason to delete this one. And even if the fact that the results were "typical for the average Nebraska's 3rd district election" is a reason to delete (it's not), they were not typical. And that the article could use work is not a reason to delete. Urve (talk) 09:28, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
 * What? Even with all that information, it can still be merged into a paragraph on the 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska article. This is just ridiculous. KingSkyLord (talk &#124; contribs) 17:04, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I fail to see the instrumental value of merging into "a paragraph" on another page, when there's more than a paragraph of content that the article can support. An anomalous race with a high-visibility visitation by Bush, attention from Republican and Democratic funding organs, a lasting controversy about robocalls and their legal significance, and being the springboard for Kleeb's Senate campaign—with significant coverage for each of these—sounds like a fine idea for an article. I'm sorry you find my opinion "ridiculous". Urve (talk) 17:30, 26 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge per Reywas92 - some elections can have standalone articles, but as an article about a safe seat that was a "little closer" than usual, this doesn't appear to be one of them. All of the important information in the article can easily be merged into the state's list of elections page, and all of the sources are "routine" election reporting. SportingFlyer  T · C  14:58, 2 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep: This type of article when well done is where wikipedia can shine. Over time, the issues of a particular election (what influenced the outcome, what the district looked like) get lost in reported sources about a politician, but these articles provide a focus on just the notable election.--Milowent • hasspoken  20:13, 4 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Merge 2006 United States House of Representatives elections in Nebraska per those above. There is nothing about this specific House election that stands out from other contested House elections to the extent that it should be treated differently. BD2412  T 18:47, 5 March 2021 (UTC)


 * 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.