Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of political leaders renowned for their integrity


 * 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. While I am as skeptical as anyone about whether there can be a non-blank "list of honest politicians" (or of honest people tout court), the "keep" opinions make the valid point that whether a political leader is indeed "renowned for their integrity", as the list is now entitled, is a matter of collecting reliable sources to that effect, and not of editorial opinion (read: original research). There is therefore no compelling reason to delete this article in the absence of a clear consensus for deletion.  Sandstein  08:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

List of political leaders renowned for their integrity née List of honest politicians

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

Attempting to compile a list of "honest" politicians implicitly requires Wikipedia editors to make a value judgment about each politician, which unavoidably violates WP:OR, WP:NOT, and WP:NPOV. Sure, we can find sources that say "Abraham Lincoln was an honest politician" (after all, his nickname was Honest Abe), but we can undoubtedly find sources that say he was also dishonest (just google "Abraham Lincoln dishonest" for plenty of examples). How do we reconcile these conflicting sources to determine if he was sufficiently honest to appear in this list?

This is true of any politician, or any person, for that matter. No one is 100% honest for every moment of their life. How honest must someone be to appear on this list? 90% honest? 75% honest? Are white lies ok? How do we quantitatively measure their honesty level without original research?

This list is fundamentally flawed and not feasibly maintainable, because its inclusion criteria requires us to inject our own opinions. ‑Scottywong | gab _ 23:46, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Strong delete Complete POV on how politicians get on to such a list. what next List of honest mayors, List of honest tennis players? LibStar (talk) 00:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Delete Much better than I thought it would be from the title. (I thought it would be a joke article.) However it doesn't quite make it to the level of encyclopedia article.  OR pulls the people together, not discussion in reliable secondary sources. With a new concept and new title it now seems to present a notable topic. Kitfoxxe (talk) 00:25, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Besides we don't really know if it was Cincinnatus' honesty that made him resign emperorhood twice. Maybe he just preferred life on his farm. Kitfoxxe (talk) 00:29, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Please see Cincinnatus and the Disbanding of Washington's Army which explains that "At issue here is not what the absolute truth was, but what the tradition was, for it is the tradition, and not what modern scholars have reconstructed, that had effect upon later readers and thus upon later events." Warden (talk) 15:47, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete: For obvious reasons, the article can never satisfy WP:NPOV and it most likely would devolve into political partisanship and WP:COATRACK when contemporary politicians get added to the list. Not an encyclopedic topic. --Mike Agricola (talk) 00:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:42, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete- per nom. I also think it would inevitably become a target of edit warring, where supporters of one party list their guys and supporters of the other party remove them again and substitute their own. That kind of headache isn't worth it. Reyk  YO!  02:28, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. I thought that this was going to be a blank page :-) not a list of people called honest.  Either this is going to be a target of massive edit-warring, or it's going to be a thoroughly useless list.  Neither of them are good, and we're never going to have a useful list on this topic, so there's no good reason to have a page with this title.  Nyttend (talk) 03:56, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete - per nomination. Enos733 (talk) 06:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete. As an honest politician I object to my name being omitted. LOL. Therefore it must and does fail WP:BLP and WP:NPOV. BTW The creation of this article was pointy, see Article_Rescue_Squadron_-_Rescue_list - Not good practice. --Richhoncho (talk) 08:58, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * No, I was working on Cincinnatus three weeks ago well before I saw that AFD. I got on to the topic of Cincinnatus because of Carrite's RFA which seemed similarly admirable.  Cincinnatus was a major political exemplar and it seemed fitting to have a list of these.  The result of the later AFD made a nice counterpoint or contrast but there is otherwise no connection between them.  This is not the first time I have worked on a topic of this kind - see historical figure, for example - another page about the great men of history which went to AFD but developed well and subsequently adorned our mainpage. Warden (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep but blank and protect the page first, thus ensuring the list will be 100% accurate both now and in the future. pablo 09:42, 28 February 2013 (UTC) The new title is a vast improvement and neatly avoids the problems both of honest/dishonest being presented as a binary choice and the POV issues as renown can be measured by press and literature coverage. So we should end up with a list of candidates who fit the title. (or at least have managed to fool most of the people most of the time). pablo  09:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Possibly merge to Honesty, retitling as a section "Figures renowned for their honesty" or similar. The existing page "honesty" is not good, and it would be an improvement to list paragons of honesty. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:44, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep There are many topics about which people do not agree and politics and morality are high on the list. This does not mean that we do not or should not cover them; we are just required to cover them in a neutral way, giving due weight to the balance of respectable opinion.  Per WP:NPOV, "Remove material only where you have good reason to believe it misinforms or misleads readers in ways that cannot be addressed by rewriting the passage."  As an example of a source which provides case studies of exemplary politicians, see Understanding Politics.  The topic is a fresh one and the work of assembling such sources has just started.  The concerns listed above seem quite hypothetical as the content is neither blank nor yet subject to any edit wars or significant controversy.  The topic should therefore be allowed time to develop and mature, per our editing policy.  Warden (talk) 13:47, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, on a positive note it's not as if the list is ever going to grow more than a dozen..... I mean, how many politicians are really honest... About the same number of nuns who are sex addicts.. There of course dirty whore-like nuns who shame the church with their antics but there aint many of them... Roman Catholic clergy and small boys on the otherhand....♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  14:27, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete: per Richhondo's point about this being created because List of American public officials convicted of crimes was deleted. Also per nom's comment about it not being feasibly maintainable, and in general, violations of numerous provisos of WP:NOT  p  b  p  17:08, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I have explained the true origin of my interest in this topic above. The pointiness here is with those, like yourself, who seek any occasion to attack the ARS in general and myself in particular.  This AFD seems to be a roll-call of such types, starting with the nominator who has long pursued this vendetta.  You guys don't have any genuine interest in the topic, do you?  Tsk. Warden (talk) 19:46, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Genuine interest in the topic is not required for participation at AfD. And furthermore, I don't think I've had contact with the ARS for several years, nor did I find this article via the ARS rescue list (which I haven't checked for a very long time).  ‑Scottywong | gossip _  20:02, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Watch your tone, Warden. ScottyWong has already reminded you that interest in a topic is, and never will be, a prerequisite for voting in an AfD.  Your accusations border on a personal attack, to say nothing of being inaccurate and unfounded. If you have some problem, hash it out on some noticeboard, not here  p  b  p  20:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep Honest Abe and others were in fact known for their honesty. Reliable sources confirm this, you able to just look in a college level history  textbook, or a printed encyclopedia to confirm the information.  Showing a list of such people throughout history is quite encyclopedic.   D r e a m Focus  22:01, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Just because Lincoln's honesty can be sourced doesn't mean we have to build a whole article around people like him. Lincoln was 6'4"; that can be sourced.  A lot of other people with Wikipedia articles are 6'4".  Does that mean we have to create an article List of people who are 76 inches tall? Oh, and how the hell did you get here?  Have you been WikiHounding me?   p  b  p  23:35, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This was something they were famous for, not just some random arbitrary thing. Warden's talk page is on my watch list so I saw mention of this.  Anyone curious about his wikihounding comment, see here:   Don't want to leave people confused.   D r e a m Focus  23:43, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * This is an AfD to discuss the deletion of an article. Accusations and denials of wikihounding do NOT belong here, but elsewhere. Let's stick to the subject at hand, please. --Richhoncho (talk) 09:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment. I arrived at this AfD expecting an easy "delete" vote; now, I'm not so sure.  Having reviewed the list, I am uncertain what to do because I see potential merit if the list is developed and sourced properly.  I would feel far more comfortable granting the authors more time to develop the list if it were moved to a more NPOV title such as "List of politicians renowned for their honesty" or "List of politicians renowned for their integrity."  The current title strikes me as a subjective endorsement of the listed persons' honesty; a slight rephrasing of the title would allow us to properly put the burden on multiple, independent, reliable sources per WP:GNG, WP:NLIST, WP:V, WP:RS -- and WP:BLP, to the extent applicable.  I remain curious to hear the further informed comments of other editors.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:26, 28 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Keep, but rename - I agree with Dirtlawyer1: If one interprets this as List of politicians renowned for their integrity, it makes a lot more sense.     Some objections registered above state that editors are required to make subjective judgments ... I dont see that: it appears that a person can be in this list only if a reliable source says something like "This politician is famous for being trustworthy" or something similar.  Lists serve  a valuable indexing purpose.  I can imagine a researcher coming to WP who needs to find some example politicians who were renowned in their time for being super honest .. this list could come in handy.  --Noleander (talk) 11:56, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Noleander, having had another day to consider this article/list, I might go so far as to suggest that the article should be renamed "List of national leaders renowned for their integrity." If we are going to keep this list, I think it should be limited to meaningful entries such as Betancourt, Cincinnatus, Washington and other leaders of real significance.  By properly titling the article/list and limiting its scope in its introductory text as suggested, we can avoid most, if not all of the problems identified by several of the "delete" !voters above.  With those caveats and suggested changes, I see no reason why a restructured and better defined version of this list should devolve into partisan bickering over whether to include minor figures (e.g., a state senator from Butte, Montana who received commendation for his honesty in his hometown newspaper), or edit-warring over the subjective judgments of editors.  The burden for inclusion should rest on proper sourcing per WP:V and WP:RS.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:39, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It was never my intent to include minor cases and that's why the lead uses the word "renowned". If we can make this clearer without over-complicating it, that's fine. Warden (talk) 12:55, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * There certainly is a place for reliable information on people's honesty. It's in their articles, and nowhere else.  As I noted above, there are many sourceable common traits among people with Wikipedia articles that could be combined into list articles.  But, since many of those aren't that important, they needn't be.  This is one of those cases.  Honesty is a character trait; so is anger.  You won't see a list (and if you do, I can guarantee you I'll be on the front lines to delete it)  p  b  p  21:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Comment - Two "delete" editors above suggests that this could be deleted because List of American public officials convicted of crimes was deleted. But that list was deleted not because it was inappropriate or too subjective  - it was deleted only because it was a fork of other valid lists such as List of United States federal officials convicted of corruption offenses. --Noleander (talk) 12:02, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Response. Point taken, I have added additional text (in italics) to clarify my reason for delete. --Richhoncho (talk) 12:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep. I am switching my !vote to "keep" from my previous undecided position, subject to my comments above, and the principal author's concurrence that that this list be retitled and the criteria for inclusion be made clearer.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 13:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Delete - blatantly and unavoidably POV. 'Honest' is a value judgement, not an objective fact; and listing only these few implies that all other politicians are dishonest (which some might agree with, but is clearly contentious). List of politicians renowned for honesty would be better, but either way this list is likely to become a magnet for POV warriors if kept, due to the inherent subjectivity of the concept. Robofish (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment My gut reaction was to delete since an empty list is less than useful, but after reading the list, I think the material might be able to find a home under some other title, preferably something that will be less of a Coatrack. ~Adjwilley (talk) 17:34, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You're not the first discussion participant to have that reaction, Adjwilley (including the "empty list" humor). Obvious jokes aside, what would you suggest for an alternate, more appropriate title?  Several have already been suggested above . . . .  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * How about List of national politicians notable for their integrity? Notable seems more useful than renowned.  --Noleander (talk) 18:06, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, if they're politicians and they're honest, of course that makes them notable. LOL  Sorry.  I couldn't resist; I really was trying to maintain a straight face.  Kidding aside, neither word quite conveys the sense I'm looking for -- not persons who are honest, but significant persons who have a reputation for being honest or having integrity.  Thoughts?  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:28, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm, of the suggestions I've seen, I think List of national leaders renowned for their integrity is the best so far. If the article survives, it is bound to be a WP:Coatrack, but "national leaders renowned for their integrity" has a much smaller "hook" than the jarring oxymoron "honest politicians" :-) ~Adjwilley (talk) 15:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete - this is not a remotely appropriate list for a serious encyclopedia. Even if it were appropriate, the name is horribly inappropriate as it implies that exclusion from the list means you are dishonest.  There are plenty of politicians who are honest people, but whose honesty isn't the stuff of legend.  I am personally acquainted with, for example, a congressman in my area who is a Sunday School teacher, a deacon in his church, and a wonderful person.  But nobody is going to go out of their way to write an article about his honesty.  It defames him and all others like him to have an article like this. --B (talk) 18:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Keep and work on, is better than the title makes you think it would be (maybe re-title). From the name, I thought it was a joke (and had a ready reply about why not a list of dishonest ones...too many haha). But it really is kind of a decent article on politicians renowned for integrity (Cincinattus and all). I think it could be expanded to look at this meme more. For instance, I was going to add a little boxed quote from the famous story about the cherry tree (which is apocryphal, but the point is that it spells out a concept. See here.  (It's PD too...mwahaha.)  TCO (talk) 19:03, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * (Joke) But why is the current list so short!? ;-)  TCO (talk) 19:40, 2 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Taking your question seriously, one theory is that Gresham's Law applies. See Gresham's law in politics: Why are politicians not the most remarkable men for probity...?. Warden (talk) 20:15, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Good article actually. You could even put that into the Wiki article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TCO (talk • contribs) 20:21, 2 March 2013 (UTC)


 * How do you measure "integrity" though? It is subjective.♦ Dr. ☠ Blofeld  11:07, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Dr. B., like any other Wikipedia persons list, it's not the editors' job to measure the honesty, integrity, or any other personal attribute, of the listed persons. It is the editors' task to find reliable sources that show a listed person to have been renowned (i.e., widely known, famous, broadly remembered) by historians, journalists, political scientists, etc., for acting with integrity in the person's role as a political or military leader.  Those are two different tasks.  The list was started with exemplars such as Cincinnatus and Washington, national leaders who are widely remembered by historians and popular culture as leaders who could be relied upon to do the right thing when presented with a supreme test of character, and act in accordance with their own ideals and those of their society.  If limited to national leaders as described, I don't see this list ever having more 20 to 30 listed persons, and that's one of the things that makes it a potentially interesting list: the quality that we are attempting to capture is a fairly rare thing.


 * That having been said, I still believe that a title such as "List of national leaders renowned for their integrity" is a better formulation than the current title, because it properly places the emphasis on historically significant leaders, the reputation of the listed persons, and the need for reliable sources to demonstrate such "renown." I readily concede that other discussion participants may yet hit upon an even better title formulation.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 12:49, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep TLDR version, per WP:Hey.  IMO the nom and some of the delete voters had valid concerns about subjectivity and NPOV issues with the original title. But as per Dirtlawyer1 and others, this seems to been largely taken care of following the re-title by Dr Blofield.   For political topics, there is invariably an issue with conflicting sources, but we can reconcile this by representing views in proportion to the weighting they have in reliable sources. If in the future this does attract POV warriors, we can further limit the scope by restricting the list to politicians renowned for a lifetime of honesty, thus keeping out BLPs.  As for the view this article is not encyclopedic, it is true that until the last few years there was little in the way of top sources systematically covering  the topic as a group. But this has began to change in the past few years, for example, in this 2011 Oxford University Press book, good professor Mearsheimer has wrote that when he talks about honesty in politicians,  "Every audience and almost every person I have spoken to quickly becomes engaged and excited by the subject, and many want to talk at length about it."  It rarely serves the encyclopedia to try to delete articles created by the Colonel, very few  editors have his command of the scholarly sources, or his keen understanding about what interests our readers. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:53, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your kind words and your own erudition is much appreciated too. For example, I was not familiar with the concept of a valence issue which you introduced in the lead.  To educate myself, I have investigated and expanded that topic too in the course of learning more. Warden (talk) 20:50, 3 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You're most welcome. The apple pie pic was an unexpected treat! FeydHuxtable (talk) 21:10, 3 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Delete One man's terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter. Honesty, while it should be an absolute, absolutely isn't in the eyes of different people.  Per nom, this is a sink hole for NPOV and it is literally impossible to prove a negative (dishonesty) anyway.  Opining on a personal level, if it could be 100% accurate, it would be shorter than most disambig pages.... Dennis Brown - 2¢  © Join WER 17:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Obvious delete - this page can't be edited without violating NPOV. Any work on this page requires personal synthesis, particularly seeing as there's no defined standard of what makes someone honest. This is as ridiculous an idea as List of tall politicians or List of kind politicians. Basa lisk  inspect damage⁄berate 17:20, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * You started the article scanning speech. This states "There is no universal agreement about the exact definition of this term."  Does this mean we should delete it?  No, what WP:NPOV actually says is, "Achieving what the Wikipedia community understands as neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias."  Please explain why this is impossible for one case but not the other. Warden (talk) 17:56, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * It's one thing to have an article on a concept whose definition isn't universally agreed upon. It's quite another to have an article which purports to authoritatively list people who are described by a concept whose definition isn't universally agreed upon.  A proper comparison article would be List of people who have scanning speech.  Since the definition of scanning speech isn't universally agreed upon, we can't point at someone and definitively say they have it.  But we can certainly describe the properties of scanning speech without violating NPOV, and we can discuss how and why the definition of scanning speech isn't agreed upon.  Therefore, we can have an article on Honesty, but we can't go further and create a List of honest politicians.  ‑Scottywong | chat _  18:03, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Scotty, have you been following the discussion of titles and changes to the article? If not, you need an update.  What you described is not what we now have have.  This is not an article or list that requires editors to determine whether the listed persons are "honest," or as currently phrased, whether they have "integrity."   It requires editors to discern whether there are reliable sources that demonstrate whether such listed persons are widely known (i.e. renowned) for their integrity.  That is a very different question, and a very different standard for inclusion,  It should be a standard with which almost every experienced Wikipedia editor is familiar, as in "List of political leaders renowned for their integrity," the current title of this list following its renaming.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:11, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * On Wikipedia, editors routinely disagree about anything and everything so we would never get anything done if absolute standards of mathematical rigour were required. For example, see List of rivers by length which states, "... the length measurements of many rivers are only approximations. In particular, there has long been disagreement as to whether the Nile or the Amazon is the world's longest river. ..."  Many topics are like that because there is no final or absolute authority for anything.  What people are suggesting here is that there is a special problem with the topic.  But they talk in vague generalities without giving any specifics or evidence.  So far, there have been no edit wars nor any significant disputes about the entries.  Not one.  Warden (talk) 18:15, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * And the article has existed for a whopping 10 days so far, so I don't think the absence of edit wars is particularly comforting. Dirtlawyer1, while I appreciate the name change, I'm not convinced that it has actually changed anything except the name.  There is very little difference between a "list of honest politicians" and a "list of politicans renowned for their integrity".  So, this list will now include anyone who has reliable sources that demonstrate if they are widely known for their integrity.  What if that same person also has reliable sources that suggest they did not act with integrity and honesty?  Are they still considered renowned for their integrity?  Consider this book about Abraham Lincoln.  Should he still appear on this list given the content of this source?  This same argument will occur for virtually any person you ever put in this list.  Perhaps a more appropriate title would be List of politicians described as honest by at least one reliable source.  ‑Scottywong | babble _  19:38, 5 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Scotty, please see WP:WEIGHT. One revisionist biography does not refute the existence of a widely held reputation documented by multiple, independent, reliable sources.  Again, the issue is not the integrity of the persons listed, but the demonstrated reputation for integrity of the listed persons.  This is really no different than any other article or list where every statement should be verified and sourced per WP:V and WP:RS, with due weight given to any minority position that is credible.  Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 20:16, 5 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Keep, now it's been renamed and better focused. One thing's for certain: it'll never get too long to manage. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:09, 6 March 2013 (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.