Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bob Conley


 * 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. I'm not entirely sure if precedent has been to include articles on losing candidates, even from major parties, but since the subject has been covered in several sources covering the election, I see no way to delete an article if there is no consensus to do so, and in this case, the consensus seems to be for inclusion. Sjakkalle (Check!)  11:12, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Bob Conley

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Unsuccessful candidate in an election, no other claim to notability. Blueboy96 19:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep Endorsed by major party for Senate seat. Sources satisfy notability per WP:NOTE. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 19:46, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep or Merge: Multiple mentions in reliable sources satisfy WP:Notability. WP:BIO says "[j]ust being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Judgment call, and it looks like the coverage rises to the level of notability required. Jo7hs2 (talk) 20:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I also think it might not be a bad idea to merge the article with the 2008 South Carolina Senate race. Seems like better practice than every candidate having a page persisting after elections would be to move that material into the election artice. Jo7hs2 (talk) 21:24, 1 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep or Merge. As always, I'll claim these articles should never be deleted. They may be merged and redirected, or kept as is. I have merged the material into United States Senate election in South Carolina, 2008 for now, and would be content to see this turned into a Redirect. Flatterworld (talk) 20:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note If some responsible adult wants to lead a discussion for everyone listed in Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox_Congressional_Candidate and there's some consenus (as in a resulting list), I would be willing to volunteer to do the actual merges. (The remaining people should have their Infobox changed to reflect their current notability.) That might be better than having a separate discussion for each one. Flatterworld (talk) 01:14, 3 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Why does this not merit its own article? Does this mean that we should merge all articles about people who have lost senate races into the article about the race, regardless of coverage from sources? ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 16:48, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge Changing vote to redirect; to the article about the 2008 South Carolina Senate race. As the article notes, he was the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat in South Carolina.  Wikipedia tends to tolerate articles about candidates prior to election, out of a sense that it would be "unfair" to have an article about an incumbent United States Senator without one for the other side, but he's a footnote in the march of time.  There is nothing historically notable about him that would justify his own article, any more so than the man whom he defeated in the primary; nor is there a policy that provides for articles about politicians who tried, but failed. Mandsford (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete or Merge-- A little-known and underfunded challenger. --Jmundo (talk) 23:02, 1 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Living people-related deletion discussions.   -- Raven1977 (talk) 00:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions.   -- Raven1977 (talk) 00:01, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect Flatterworld has already merged the information into the election article. Reywas92 Talk  01:59, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep major party candidates for national office in a two party system should be considered notable. This does not extend to candidates for state legislatures, or multiparty systems, or candidates merely for a party nomination. The reason is that there always do turn out to be sufficient sources if investigated properly in local print sources, and it isn't worth the work weeding out the possibly non-notable 5%; the effort spent here would be better spent on improving more of the articles. DGG (talk) 06:21, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Redirect based on Flatterworld's merging of information. Most losing candidates are not notable outside of the election, which is given its own article.  Bob Conley's name will, if redirected, link to the article that provides the information about him.  All persons who have ever served in their nation's legislature, whether it's the U.S. Congress or the Andorra board of supervisors, are considered inherently notable under Wikipedia rules; and elections for national office (which include mention of all candidates) are inherently notable.  However, inherent notability should not be extended to persons merely because they ran for office.  Mandsford (talk) 13:58, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Why not? Doesn't coverage from independant sources assert notability? ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 16:50, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Good Point: As I noted above, WP:BIO says "[j]ust being an elected local official, or an unelected candidate for political office, does not guarantee notability, although such people can still be notable if they meet the primary notability criterion of "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject." Therefore, we can assume that an individual who is an "unelected candidate for political office" for whom significant coverage does exist does meet the notability requirements. Perhaps in this case we should err on the side of keeping the article, rather than a delete or a merge, and take this issue up for consensus at a higher level, as suggested by Flatterworld. Jo7hs2 (talk) 17:40, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Wow, that's a lot of colons... It would be nice to have some sort of official policy on this, rather than having to try and interpret the current one. I'm going to make a proposal on the WP:BIO talk page. ErikTheBikeMan (talk) 17:44, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Even more colons, we making big sausages? I'll check it out when you do, because I tend to agree that this needs to be "officially" sorted out. Jo7hs2 (talk) 00:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The confusion seems to be between "coverage from independent sources" and "coverage from independent sources other than about the event". iow, one can have hundreds of articles about Bob Conley, but if they're all in connection with this campaign he's not Wikipedia-notable outside that one event. Flatterworld (talk) 00:41, 6 January 2009 (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.