Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of California politicians


 * 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. j⚛e deckertalk 06:28, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

List of California politicians

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Wikipedia is not a directory. this is mostly external links to govt websites, which presumably will list the most current political officeholders. the list as presented here is out of date. I think the overall list is unworkeable and unfixable, and i dont see the encyclopedic use of such a list, which would need near constant monitoring to be accurate to any degree. title also doesnt reflect content really, as it doesnt include state level politicians. the small cities councilmembers dont need listing here, and many are not even linked to the articles on them. simply too many issues to bring it up to any coherence. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 06:48, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of California-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 16:05, 4 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete Agree the concept is unworkable; it would have to include tens of thousands of names to be accurate and could never be kept current. This is what categories are for. A more targeted list such as "list of local politicians in California", restricted to current officeholders, might be a little more workable, but even so I would question its encyclopedic value. --MelanieN (talk) 16:17, 4 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. I'm surprised this has survived eight years in more or less this form. And no, MelanieN, this is absolutely not what categories are for. postdlf (talk) 14:44, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * comment We do have Category:California politicians, but its really more of a container category, as everyone in this category is likely to fit into a more specific one. I see your point about its not what cats are for, if you mean we shouldnt have flat categories when we really need nested categories. A list is complementary to nested categories when you, the reader, need to see every article/item together, as long as the list itself is supportable (which, of course, i think is not in this case).Mercurywoodrose (talk) 16:51, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * I meant the purpose this list is presently serving is not what categories are for; MelanieN's comment about categories immediately followed her observation that the list of all present local officeholders would need to have "tens of thousands of names" and be "kept current", as if we would somehow want a category to try that even though most don't have articles. I don't know what else she intended by that comment, and generally if it makes for a bad list it makes for an even worse category. Incidentally, I created Category:California politicians (good god, was it really ten years ago?). We should at some point have a master list of lists created to index our articles on California politicians in parallel to the category structure and to organize on one page the contents of Category:Lists of California politicians. postdlf (talk) 18:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Got it. agreed. on the first part. not sure about the indexing, let me parse it first. probably a good idea once i understand it:)Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:22, 7 June 2014 (UTC)
 * This is indeed pretty unworkable and outdated. I note, for example, that one city's listed incumbent mayor was postscripted with a link to a PDF indicating that he died in 2011 (and yet he's still listed three years later as still being the incumbent mayor, instead of somebody, oh, correcting the list to name the actual new mayor?) — and Antonio Villaraigosa, as well, is still listed as the incumbent mayor of LA (I'm Canadian and I knew right away that he isn't the mayor anymore, without even having to check.) Furthermore, in many cases this was serving as a web directory of links to the councilmembers' profiles on the counties' or cities' own websites — which, per WP:ELNO, we're not allowed to do. There's simply not much value in this list; as currently constituted, it's just a WP:NOTDIR violation with no redeeming qualities. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 00:14, 10 June 2014 (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.