Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of pejorative political puns


 * 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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. &mdash; J I P  | Talk 06:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

List of pejorative political puns
Most of these, rather than being any sort of pun, are simply lame attacks on people. There are no references, no cites, and no reason to believe that this page will be anything but a dropping ground for whatever dumb nickname people come up with for the famous people they dislike. —Cleared as filed. 01:14, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Rename and ruthlessly purge and source. The POV explanations have to go, too. Matthew Brown 02:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete- nothing but personal attacks. Reyk 01:46, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, but only to the extent that refs can be sourced (by something other than a blog, please). Move to a better name, too. Yes, this is "nothing but personal attacks", but not the author's own inventions - rather, a sort of anthropological record of personal attacks (and some complimentary alliterations) historically made by others. BD2412  T 02:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * 'Valid and potentially interesting topic, crap content, which is a keep, I guess. I tried doing the cleanup, a while ago; reverted shortly thereafter. Didn't have the heart to fight it, but sourcing isn't the least of our problems - most of that page isn't actually any form of pun, and many of the ones that are puns are so contrived I have a hard time classing them as that. Ho hum. Shimgray | talk | 02:27, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I removed a set of not-puns, going for a nice scattershot effect across the political spectrum. But this is riddled with them, and some are actually pretty interesting - there's some historically notable nicknames there - in the UK, Howard's "Dracula", Chamberlain's "Great Appeaser", or the wonderful "Chat-show Charlie"; in the US, "Tailgunner Joe" which it would be nice to have collected. A lot of the puns that aren't just examples of "made up 'cause I think it sounds funny" (cf/ Ulysses S. Graft) are/were actually in use as nicknames - "Dumbya" or "Bliar" are pretty common, I remember "Clintonista" cropping up a good bit (though not as a personal nickname), and a collation of these is encyclopedic - especially when we start going back to the c19th, politics used to run on this stuff. So, I've rolled back, and suggest...
 * Rename to List of perjorative political nicknames, keep all the stuff that's actually a) verifiable and b) ever got used in any significant amount, and see what it looks like then. (Alternately, rename to simply List of political nicknames, and bring in the positive ones, too... which I suppose is probably a better idea. We already have List of U.S. Presidential nicknames, and the wonderful Politician and personality nicknaming in Quebec, could bring in stuff from List of nicknames of historical personages... it has potential. Shimgray | talk | 02:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep as per the brilliant BDA. Notable. CanadianCaesar 03:06, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Delete: "Good topic/bad content" is, for me, a clear delete, but I think it's a bad topic, too. While we wait for the ideal authors to emerge and correct the mess, we have persistent "crap," and there's simply no need for that.  The ideal author will create a new page as certainly as remedy this morass.  However, a "pun" is in the ear of the beholder, and "pejorative" is in the ear of the beholder, and the list of such doubly subjective things would serve no actual purpose in that it would not be exportable, nor would it illuminate any other subject.  Thus, it is inherenly POV and does not serve the function of a list. Geogre 03:19, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a tough call. Delete, due to insensitivity. How would you like to be made fun of? It's more of a discussion topic amongst friends, or a joke in some casual form, but not in an encyclopedia. - splot 04:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep per BD2412. &mdash;  F REAK OF N URxTURE  ( TALK ) 
 * Delete this silly, recentist listcruft. Marskell 10:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per above. Dottore So 11:32, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete per SpLoT and Geogre. Anville 11:54, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, many of these pejorative nicknames are valid and notable. All we need to check out for POV violations - items that claim a particular politician is something, other than he/she is called something. &mdash; J I P  | Talk 17:38, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep, though major refactoring is in order (it can be dealt with once the AFD is dispensed with). Agree with others that all entries must be sourced; and that POV material should be removed.  (Note--explainations of an insult are OK as long as they are couched with appropriate disclaimer--Wikipedia must not take the position that a given politician, right or left, is bad).  Note:  Were a suitable refactoring to be proposed which included deletion of this page, I might vote to delete--but absent a concrete proposal for a better home for the content here, my vote is to keep.  --EngineerScotty 19:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep for delightful alliteration (though, sadly, moving it to List of pejorative political nicknames may be necessary). Add clean-up and cite-sources tags instead of VfD ones, fellas! Think of stuff like this from a long-term rather than a short-term perspective, as Wikipedia's not on a deadline: it's easier to have a mediocre article and slowly improve it over the years than to repeatedly delete and undelete it again and again until finally everyone's satisfied. If the subject matter's good and the article sucks, improve the article! -Silence 22:01, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, the point I was making in the nomination was that the subject matter sucks too. Obviously not everyone agrees. —Cleared as filed. 22:04, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Then perhaps the dispute is semantic. There's not a lot of difference between whether we delete this article and make a new one for a general "list of pejorative nicknames" of sorts, or whether we move it to a new title and completely restructure and rewrite it, citing sources. It's just slightly easier to do the latter, since we have actual material to work with. -Silence 22:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)


 * keep please bd2412 is right we should write about the sourced puns Yuckfoo 23:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. Sources would be nice - looks like someone has started to do so under the George Bush entry. Maybe make at least one external inline ref a pre-requisite for new additions. Unsourced ones could be maintained on the talk page or a sublist thereof until ready to move over. Turnstep 00:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as inherently POV listcruft. MCB 07:14, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete list of puns? Half of these are not really puns, but rather random name-calling.  Grue   18:11, 18 November 2005 (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.