Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2008


 * 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. John254 00:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Comparison of United States presidential candidates, 2008

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This article must violate some WP policy. Is there one that says, "WP is not a voters' guide"? Steve Dufour (talk) 20:36, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Okay, imagine such an article for say, the 1860 presidential election, or the 1960, or whichever one you happen to be familiar with, but is clearly in the past. Would an article like this one really be a meaningful way of organizing the information for future generations of readers? No, because it's a voter guide. Such articles are useful at the time of the election, as this one probably would have been, but rapidly dwindle in usefulness as history makes it more clear whether a candidate's election-time stance on tariff's or what have you was of any importance whatsoever. The much more encyclopedic way to organize information about past elections is prose encyclopedia articles on the elections, which we already do (e.g. United States presidential election, 1860). --Rividian (talk) 21:10, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep: See no violation of policy (if there is one, please state). While such an article could be used for a voter's guide for an upcoming election, students of history might find it interesting. &mdash; ERcheck (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Keep There's no denying that it's copiously sourced, and it has encyclopedic value as an article about the United States' 2008 presidential election. The difference in this is that it focuses upon the platforms and the candidates of the minor political parties.  Using the comparison of 1960, the main focus would be on Kennedy and Nixon, but it's also of historical interest to know where other parties stood on the issues of the day.  In that particular election, the other parties were Socialist Labor, Prohibition, National State's Rights, Socialist Workers, Constitution, Tax Cut, and Independent Afro-American.  Studies of the issues of a now passed election year can hardly be called voters' guides, any more than a list of television programs from 1960 would be called a TV guide.  Mandsford (talk) 01:56, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * But this isn't a study of anything, it's just a listing of stances. An actual study of stances in context and with future importance is an encyclopedic pursuit, but that's what is done in the main election articles. There's no real way to update this article to include anything after the election... all it can do is list pre-election stances, not study them in any meaningful historical way. People seem to imply the listing can be a historical document, but encyclopedia articles shouldn't be designed to be primary sources (historical documents). An encyclopedia article should be a tertiary source that's read because it's a useful to general readers, not because historians can draw interesting conclusions from it. --Rividian (talk) 03:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Comment Sorry that I didn't explain more in the nomination. This article seems to violate the policies about collections of information. All the candidates have at least one page where this information is already given, there is no need to collect it all in one place. It also seems to violate the policy against how-to guides. The main purpose seems to have been to help people decide how to vote November 4. Note that important candidate Hillary Clinton is not in the article since she didn't make it to the final ballot, yet she is much more important than the minor candidates who did and are included. (Please also check out the article's talk page. Everything there is about the election, not about historical information.)Steve Dufour (talk) 02:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * keep Quite a good summary article. We need such. That it does not cover the losing primary candidates is a question of scope, & I think the right decision. We might do additional articles about them. DGG (talk) 04:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are already lots of additional articles about every candidate and about the campaign as a whole. Steve Dufour (talk) 07:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * that why I said "summary" . We don't need to collect it in one place, but we ought to. There are rather few articles we really need. DGG (talk) 15:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Another problem with the article is that it is not comparing peers. Serious candidates who were really trying to become President, Obama and McCain (Clinton, Romney and others are left out), are "compared" with people like Paul, Nader, Keyes, and others who were running to "make a point" (as we would say on WP). Steve Dufour (talk) 18:31, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Who says they aren't serious? Although none of the candidates besides Obama and McCain expected to win, one has to be a "serious" candidate in order to meet the legal requirements to appear on an election ballot.  Here in America, it's not simply a matter of saying "I'm running for President."  In many states, the number of qualified persons who must sign the petition must be at least one percent of the number of votes cast in the previous presidential election.  Mandsford (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I am sure they are serious people. However their candidacies were not serious attempts to become President of the United States.  One thing is that a serious candidate must take moderate positions that will get him or her elected.  A non-serious candidate is free to advocate all kinds of interesting positions such as legalizing marijuana, getting rid of the income tax, closing all of our overseas military bases, etc.  It is not fair to compare them side by side, as this article does, when they are not the same thing. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:13, 4 January 2009 (UTC)
 * p.s. I think that Ralph Nader, a non-serious candidate, is much more important in American history than many serious candidates. Steve Dufour (talk) 21:20, 4 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep. If you wanted a quick way to determine the similarities and differences in opinion of presidential candidates - whether from 1860, 1960, or 2008 - what would you look for?  I'd look for something that looked exactly like this page.
 * Calling it a "voter guide" is simply a loaded way to disparage the page. Call it what it is: a comparison page, similar in form to the many other comparison pages on WP.  Search Google for e.g. "site:wikipedia.org inurl:comparison".  True, they're not prose.  But I fail to see how a) comparisons in this form are somehow "unencyclopedic", and how b) rewriting this article as prose would make it a more effective tool for its goal: comparing opinions. 75.45.110.58 (talk) 05:41, 5 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Keep - If there are problems then improve - deleting is no solution. This is a neccessary page. Chendy (talk) 20:35, 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.