Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of LGBT elected British 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. With an existing category, and based on the arguments presented, this discussion favours DELETE D  P  18:59, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

List of LGBT elected and appointed British politicians

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Random association "List of X that are Y. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:10, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree, delete. There is no factor that these people have in common except their (alleged, and not in all cases cited or substantiated) sexuality, and no sense or suggestion that this influences (or influenced) their actions in politics. Make no more sense than 'list of brown-haired politicians' or 'list of cycling politicians'.--Smerus (talk) 07:49, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:04, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:06, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Delete per Smerus. Northern Antarctica (₵) 18:25, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think a case can be made that this is not an example of List of X that are Y, but rather is a matter of some scholarly study and is therefore encyclopedic. I have enormous problems with the fact that not every individual on the list has their sexual orientation sourced out. Is that a minor editing problem or a fundamental problem with this sort of list? That I can't say. It's a close call. Carrite (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
 * comment I believe the sourcing is a fundamental problem, but I didn't comment on that since I believe it would be wrong to say that providing sources would make it a viable article. That's aside from the minefield of WP:BLP. --Smerus (talk) 20:45, 3 April 2014 (UTC)


 * We already have a category for — and per WP:CLN, not every category needs a matching list. Furthermore, we already have List of the first LGBT holders of political offices in the United Kingdom, a topic more genuinely deserving of a standalone article — but we don't need a list that would effectively just be inclusive of everybody who's already sitting in the corresponding category. This is not to minimize or discount the encyclopedic value of Wikipedia having the information — it's that we already have it in other places. Delete. Bearcat (talk) 00:56, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 14:14, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep I am the creator of this article and I cannot understand why people want to delete it, we have articles about ethnic minority members of parliament, and female members of parliament, so why can I not create an article for LGBT members of parliament? I have put alot of time and effort into creating this article so please let me keep it as it being here doesn't affect anyone and if people wanted to see how many LGBT politicians had served then they could just look at this article! Please don't delete Brooklands263 (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. People can already see about LGBT politicians, as pointed out by Bearcat, at . Please see also Ownership of articles. It's a help, for your future reference, when creating articles, to check that they don't duplicate material elsewhere, and that they conform to WP standards as regards references and citations (which standards the present article does not begin to approach).--Smerus (talk) 18:02, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment I just fail to see why there can't be an article about it as I fail to see what the issue is here? I have referenced and used citations! Brooklands263 (talk) 18:50, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment. I don't want to be boring about this, but I suggest in your own interest that if you wish to continue creating and editing WP articles you carefully study WP:CITE. If you fail to see the issue, you must try a bit harder. Just writing 'known to be gay' against people, or citing in a footnote, without reference, those who are said to be their lovers, is insufficient. Moreover, making such unsupported statements about living persons, e.g. Mark Menzies, as you have done in this article, trangresses WP:BLP and risks getting Wikipedia and yourself into trouble. If deletion were not being debated, a great part of the article would be subject to excision under the standards of WP:CITE and WP:BLP. As I trust the article will be deleted, it is too much trouble to make the very numerous individual edits which would make the article acceptable (assuming that it was agreed that it was appropriate to keep it at all). --Smerus (talk) 21:26, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment While Smerus and I disagree about whether a list article like this should exist, we appears to have no disagreement that a lot of the information here needs to be examined with respect to our BLP policies, starting with, but not limited to, WP:BLPCAT. --j⚛e deckertalk 16:21, 11 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Request for procedural information. I note that after this article was suggested for deletion, the article's creator moved it to a new title, List of LGBT elected and appointed British politicians. Does that mean this new title has to be added to the deletion review?--Smerus (talk) 06:30, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Bearcat (talk) 16:48, 5 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Keep. I do actually think this is a legitimate list. The sexuality of politicians is still highlighted in the media and if we have a category then there's no problem also having a list (categories and lists are not mutually exclusive, despite the efforts of some editors to claim they are). -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Delete - while not a random sorting as implied by the nom, this categorization of politicians would be better served by a category than a list. See Category:LGBT politicians from the United Kingdom. Then there's the sorting problem of politicians who are verifiably LGBT, as in by their own statements; politicians who have been labeled gay as an accusatory attack, which is a common practice in political propaganda; completely uncited claims (Oliver Baldwin is listed as "privately gay", what does that mean and why?); current and ongoing scandals where such a list could present a BLP problem; and, finally, the very creation of such sorting brings into question the bias of the article's creator and the potential political intent of contributors maintaining this list. ˉˉanetode╦╩ 07:03, 11 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Keep It's not a trivial intersection, to pick a single example, this book: is "analysis of the changing representation of gay politicians in UK newspapers.", while that author is the only full work I can find dedciated to the subject, there is other signficant coverage of the gay/politican/UK intersection that appears to rise to notability via WP:LISTN. The table appears to include some information which would not be available in a category, so I don't believe there's a redundancy argument, and as far as sourcing issues are involved, I believe those can and should be solved via normal editing, and quickly for BLPs.  Inclusion on this list must be limited by our policies regarding sexual orientation, and this list must not include "alleged to be"s. --j⚛e deckertalk 16:09, 11 April 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.