Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Mitt Romney presidential campaign endorsements, 2012


 * 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 no consensus.  A  Train talk 07:05, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

List of Mitt Romney presidential campaign endorsements, 2012

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I know there are several of these, so maybe I should have nominated them all, but I only managed to get this one, the John McCain one, and the two Barack Obama ones. I think it is telling we lack similar lists for George W. Bush, John Kerry, Al Gore, or any previous president. Any of these "endorsements", which is at times more than what was really involved, that are actually acts of some significance in and of themselves, can be included in the relevant articles on the relevant presidential campaigns. These long lists as they currently exist are just not worth having. The act of saying you support a particular candidate is easily done, and it is not in general of major impact to the person who says it or to the campaign of the person endorsed. There are exceptions, and as mentioned these exceptions that really mattered to the campaign can be covered on the articles on the campaign itself. John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:23, 4 October 2017 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages because because they share the same massive collection of trivial data issues:


 * Delete any and all endorsement lists. This is overkill bordering on WP:CRUFT.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:34, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all. Key endorsements (if any) can be covered in their respective election articles. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:07, 4 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep all non-trivial well-sourced information. If it was a category, I'd say listify. It is right in the format that we need it. If accepted this would be a huge destruction of useful data further undermining WP. gidonb (talk) 17:53, 7 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep all as valid subpages of the campaign articles. Endorsements are important and are too long to comfortably fit onto the parent page. We also recently had two, much better trafficked AFDs on the analogous pages for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, and the result in both strongly favoured keeping this type of content. Patar knight - chat/contributions 00:53, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all -- an indiscriminate collection of information, failing WP:NOT. The list is essentially original research and an assembly of primary sources: the actual endorsements. Fails WP:LISTN. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:22, 8 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment - I think there are good and valid arguments made on both sides here. I can see the rationale for delete, but do wonder if the articles have the potential to be useful. However I do think if keep is agreed upon it might be worth weeding out some of the more trivial endorsements (eg I am not sure that the 'adult entertainment' section in the McCain list is of any serious value). Also there is a problem in that these lists only exist for more recent elections. This in itself is not a strong reason for deletion, but it might be worth considering whether any earlier elections would benefit from similar lists. Dunarc (talk) 18:46, 8 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Are these adult entertainers actors that were singled out in the press? We should not mirror sensationalism! Great point also on recentism. If we agree that these lists are encyclopedic, it would be great if historic articles were to be created! gidonb (talk) 01:36, 9 October 2017 (UTC)

 Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   09:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
 * Merge - to Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012 as is norm. No need to have a separate article. Inter&#38;anthro (talk) 12:03, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete all I'm sure Wikipedia can be salvaged after the "huge destruction" removing a list of namedrops loosely conjoined by original research will cause.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 13:44, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  J 947 ( c ) (m)   19:02, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Articles for deletion/Log/2017 October 17.  —cyberbot I   Talk to my owner :Online 21:24, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Delete Agree with TonyTheTiger delete all endorsement lists - I agree, more detail than an encyclopedia needs, it should be mentioned elsewhere. Deathlibrarian (talk) 10:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep all This is nothing but a partisan attempt to erase a record of campaign endorsements. There's a very clear reason that these pages were nominated after the Donald Trump page was nominated, if you look at the original nominator's profile. This is a well-sourced list of information and is an entirely valid subpage of the campaign articles. Ideologically fueled AfDs are a scourge upon this website. KingForPA (talk) 12:17, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * How exactly is this a partisan attempt, when I have nominated all the articles of candidates from both parties for the elections leading up to 2016. The only reason I did not include the 2016 pages is because they have been debated more recently, and do to their recent nature cause people to lob attacks of partisanship against those involved. The fact that we have no such pages for before the 2008 election is very telling. THe fact that some of the 2016 pages have at times been very heavily sourced to twitter shows that much of this information is not all that significant. These are the most indiscriminate lists I have ever seen in Wikipedia, and that is saying a lot.John Pack Lambert (talk) 00:18, 21 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Keep but rename to List of notable endorsements for Mitt Romney - 2012 election, and drastically cull. This overly long list suggests we probably need a guideline as part of overall Wikipedia campaign reporting. It is much more interesting and relevant to list notable endorsements, but not notable people who endorsed a candidate. In other words, it's not newsworthy when a notable Republican endorses a mainstream Republican, nor when a notable Democrat endorses a Democrat, unless that endorsement is a momentum changer, such as swaying public opinion by giving legitimacy and/or seen as bringing a large block of voters into the fold.  A Jerry Falwell endorsement for Trump is newsworthy, since a student of politics could see that as an inconsistency in religious principles.  New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker endorsing Romney - not such a big deal.  Patriots fans aren't going to care.  Bernie Sanders endorsing Hillary Clinton - very newsworthy. So the discussion shifts to what makes an endorsement notable, and that's where the guidelines have to be flushed out. An easy start would be to require that the endorsement get more than a passing mention - perhaps if the endorsement merits more than a line in the giver's personal life section, then it goes on the list? TimTempleton (talk)  (cont)  17:28, 24 October 2017 (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.