Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Earliest living former members of the Australian House of Representatives


 * 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 delete. RL0919 (talk) 16:55, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Earliest living former members of the Australian House of Representatives

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The basis of this list appears to be original to Wikipedia, and it appears that no one has made such a list before. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:09, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. Happy Festivities! //  J  947  (c) 01:25, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Australia-related deletion discussions. Happy Festivities! //  J  947  (c) 01:25, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

(eg if there were two former MPs living in Australia, one MP [A] elected in 1950, and another [B] elected in 1960, A would be listed in the pages, because she was elected earlier than any other living former MP. I did find it difficult to find the right wording for these pages)
 * Keep or Merge. The basic structure of this article was partly modeled on similar articles like Earliest serving United States senator. These articles contain very similar information and have not been nominated for deletion. Again, with the respect, as I said in deletion discussion of the inverse of this page, obviously not enough research was done to establish the sources of information I used to create this page; of course it didn't fully originate on wikipedia. Using the automatically generated find sources template that searches for the title of the page is obviously not going to find anything useful; this information is rare, and if it did exist in this form, it is highly likely that the title would not be the exact same. I'm sure you used other sources, but simply searching from the title is not enough to assert that it fully originated on wikipedia. I used hansard lists, the individual pages of MPs listed, the trove archive, and 'https://australianpolitics.com/parliament/house/surviving-members'. I agree, this information is hard to find elsewhere. I was honoured to be thanked by Ivar the Boneful (talk) after creating this page. This user has been contributing countless useful contributions to Australian politics articles for several years, and has become a well-established authority on Australian politics pages. Although I don't want to speak on his behalf, I believe his thank was a sign of approval from another Australian politics editor. I put lots of work into this article and its twin Senators article; I humbly ask that if deletion does take place, the information is moved elsewhere, I do believe that some researchers or people who need to find related information can quickly use this reliable source.  SpaceFox99 (talk) 01:47, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. I honestly can't make head or tail of how to interpret what's in this article, and the explanation by the creator above isn't very helpful. Nick-D (talk) 02:56, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Nick-D (talk), I see this may be another issue with the article. The articles nominated for deletion list surviving MPs with the earliest date of election

The second table is much simpler and lists living former MPs by date of election.

The third table is also simple and lists the last members of government ministries who were alive.

This article is useful for determining the oldest living former MPs and is hard to find anywhere else.SpaceFox99 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 03:27, 26 December 2019 (UTC) •tenure records for politicians, •historical information on Australian politics, •the oldest living Australian politicians (eg in one source rather than individually checking each page of elected MPs. •who is living from particular governments •who is living from particular ministries •who is living from particular elections •former MPs who are living
 * Question SpaceFox99.  Before I !vote, what is this information ever actually used for and who uses it?  I find the first "definition" out right confusing, and in any case most of these people are not living, they are dead.  Aoziwe (talk) 06:43, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Aoziwe. I tried to simplify this page in my earlier comment. If you wish, I can try again. The page's concept is nearly identical to this one Earliest serving United States senator. SpaceFox99 (talk) 08:39, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I just do not get it at all. What are the pages trying to achieve apart from convolution? Who will read and use the content and for what purpose? Aoziwe (talk) 11:33, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi Aoziwe. The page is obviously not trying to “achieve convolution”. The page lists the living MP with the earliest date of election.This enables people who are trying to find:

This data can be used by researchers, casual readers, political researchers, publishers (in conjunction with other sources). It could be repurposed for key information (eg XX was the last surviving member of the XX parliament) or transformed into another data source (eg similar table) The second and third tables are very simple to understand and far from convolute. I can see the difficulty behind the first table; however, other pages have this list for their respective countries. I believe the first table has justification for deletion, however I believe the last two tables (especially the second one) should be moved if this occurs. SpaceFox99 (talk) 12:30, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks, but sorry again, but what do they do with knowing who is the last surviving member of a ministry? Why is the last surviving member any more important or interesting than any other member of a given ministry?  This still looks like random statistical trivia to me?  Also, what is so special about the "40" in 'who were elected over 40 years ago'?  Why not 30 or 50?  Also, what is so special about "50" in 'ministries up to 50 years ago'?  Why not 40 or 60?  This all seems rather arbitrary?  Aoziwe (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Aoziwe, they are all fair points. Im sorry to keep relying on the American article, but is that article justified if this one isn’t? It seems that the US and UK have vast arrays of political and tenure data that are considered ‘trivial’ by Australian editors; there is a much lower (I won’t use the word lack) amount of data about MPs, classifications and tenures in Australian pages. If you are the last living member of something (especially political), you are notable (Wikipedia has a whole page dedicated to the last living members of events). Also, if the individual pages of these MPs state they were the last living member of X, why are those statements not trivial and deleted? The reason for the particular number of people listed is not very strong; it’s simply because the closer you get to the current date, the more MPs there are to list. This being a new article, I expected some time in the future that some user would help me expand on it and possibly bring the list closer to a closer date if not the present; this article isn’t even a week old. The amount of MPs elected at the 1969 election is far less than those who were elected in 1980, for example. SpaceFox99 (talk) 13:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks again. Sorry but I have gone for delete below.  Aoziwe (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete. If making the list requires you to set up and code a spreadsheet on your own, because the list hasn't already been compiled by outside sources, then by definition you're doing original research — and the US list should most likely be deleted as well on the same grounds, but per WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS the fact that it hasn't already been deleted does not justify this list in and of itself. The reason such information tends to be hard to find is because it has no inherent value in the first place — identifying who was the first holder of any given political role to still be alive today is not a thing people need at all, because "earliest living" confers no special status on former politicians over and above other former politicians. If the information had any value at all, then the list would have already existed somewhere, and could have just been copied wholesale without having to fire up Excel to figure it out yourself — the fact that such outside sources don't exist is because people don't need the information at all. Speaking as a Canadian, we've ended up with a lot of pointless content that had to be deleted, solely because somebody decided that Canada has to comprehensively replicate every "List of X" that the United States has, even if the topic has no actual meaning or relevance or applicability in Canada at all. Bearcat (talk) 14:38, 26 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi User:Bearcat, the data exists, already compiled, here: ‘ https://australianpolitics.com/parliament/house/surviving-members’. Being the most senior or oldest does matter; nearly all major Prime Minister/leader pages list ‘former XXs’. I believe the data does have relevance , as I was thanked by another Australian user, but that seems to be one part of the crux of the issue of deletion of this article. SpaceFox99 (talk) 23:49, 26 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Delete - as per wp:indiscriminate.  Onel 5969  TT me 01:08, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:40, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Delete, does not meet WP:LISTN and because WP:NOR. Coolabahapple (talk) 13:49, 27 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Delete As much as there has been some effort put into this article, I just do not see how it is not essentially arbitrary statistical synthesis.  So fails LIST, borders on OR, and OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is just an argument for deleting that too.  Aoziwe (talk) 04:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge, I think the title and the presentation of the article could use some work, but the content is relevant and notable. Wikipedia has long kept records for the length of political careers and length of political retirements, both for heads of government and elected parliamentarians. I thank SpaceFox99 for their work on this article, and I hope that much of this can be preserved. Onetwothreeip (talk) 03:43, 30 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Keep per Onetwothreeip and WP:SOFIXIT. Merge can be done if it's pruned enough to allow one. ミラP 01:54, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   21:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. There are many ways to tabulate representatives, but it is unclear what makes this one notable. The only way this could meet WP:LISTN is by demonstrating RSes that discuss this metric in particular. BenKuykendall (talk) 02:56, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. I highly doubt that LISTN is met here. (and no sources have been produced to that effect). More longevitycruft. buidhe 08:13, 3 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete. The sister page for this, Earliest living former members of the Australian Senate has been deleted. So think this should alos be removed.Hard to see the value in this type of data sorting. Teraplane (talk) 01:46, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete as cruft. If the closing admin can also find a way to remove the "honorary titles" that have been added to all the MPs' individual pages (linked to this one), that would be great too. Frickeg (talk) 04:24, 4 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete - a tabulation that goes far beyond what the sources would tell us, this is as clear synthesis as could be created in a list. Bearian (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2020 (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.