Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of unsuccessful major-party United States presidential candidates' military service


 * 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. Jaranda wat's sup 18:44, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

List of unsuccessful major-party United States presidential candidates' military service

 * – (View AfD) (View log)

Delete - arbitrarily broken-out list of information that should be included in the articles for the candidates. Not every detail of this sort needs to be broken out into a list.Otto4711 14:19, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions.   -- SkierRMH 21:35, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete, whs. Recury 15:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, I have no problem merging this and other lists into larger articles as needed, but that is for someone who wants to take that action to implement. A lot of attention is paid to the biographical history of candidates in the US including unsuccessful ones. This list is well maintained and of specific scope and likely to be desired by those interested in Presidential candidates. So we should keep it and the other related lists. NoSeptember  16:10, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete While not a reason per se for deletion, I would be amazed if anyone ever typed this as a search term. This list is essentially trivia and is a rather indiscriminate collection of information with a bare-bones premise for having these facts gathered in one place. Agent 86 19:31, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep as per NoSeptember's comments, although I'd prefer to see it combined with successful candidates' military service. Although it's unlikely anyone would have this as a search term, adequate linking could bring plenty of readers to it. It's an interesting historical subject, possibly useful for some researchers, and it's very likely to have plenty of readers over the years. Noroton 19:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete Not only indiscriminate lists about American Presidents, but now about failed American Polititians!? No ta. Jcuk 22:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Just because they failed to become U.S. President doesn't make them failed politicians. A failure wouldn't be nomintated. Jjmillerhistorian 12:12, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep,per NoSeptember. Mathmo Talk 00:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep per NoSeptember. Consider somehow merging to the list for successful candidates--however, this is a topic for the talk page not AfD.  -- Black Falcon 01:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * What th...Delete this entirely trivial, indiscriminate list. If the info isn't already in the candidate's article, that's a huge oversight as it is.  --UsaSatsui 19:26, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Would the vote be this close if the article was List of unsuccessful major-party Tajikistan presidential candidates' military service? I'm just saying. Recury 19:31, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've seen the word "indiscriminate" used here and elsewhere as a reason to delete a list. I thought "indiscriminate" meant the list could go on and on and on without a reasonable end because the criteria for being on it was too broad. By this definition, this list can't be indiscriminate. There are a limited number of major-party presidential candidates. Maybe I'm wrong; if so, someone please point me to the Wikipedia guideline on indiscriminate lists. Noroton 19:43, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh, and just to clarify: This is a list of major-party nominees not just any candidate. That narrows the list considerably. We've had less than 100 major-party nominees in all of U.S. history and fewer than 60 who lost (some later won) and the list will only grow by a maximum of one every four years.Noroton 19:46, 14 February 2007 (UTC) (edited to correct a couple of errors)
 * I believe you are right as to what "indiscriminate" refers to in WP:NOT (which I'm guessing is why the nom didn't use that word). Certainly the list has an end and is maintainable. I just think that the criteria are kind of arbitrary and that the info here is better left in the articles about the candidates. If you have this, why not have List of successful major-party United States presidential candidates' military service? And it's only a short notability jump to List of unsuccessful third-party United States presidential candidates' military service or my Tajikistan example above. This information belongs in Wikipedia, but if you start including it in every format imaginable, it starts to become a database and not an encyclopedia. Recury 20:09, 14 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. I think we can use our judgment as to what topics are serious and important enough -- no rules will ever be enough to cover all contingencies anyway. I'd give a lot of leeway to lists of presidents or major-party candidates because scholars and voters have a serious interest in past precedents and behavior. I think it's a very big jump to third-party candidates because it's easier to be a third-party candidate and so we have so many more of them, and their impact on politics is so much less, so I don't see a slippery slope there. I'm not bothered by lists of presidents from other countries because this isn't your father's paper encyclopedia. If there's no TajikiWiki to handle the Tajiki list, then I'd accept one on the English Wikipedia. Incidentally, you say the information should be included on individual pages, but anyone interested in the topic is going to have a much easier time with it on one page with links to those pages for details. I think that's the only practical way to cover the subject for scholars and voters interested in it, and it's a serious subject.
 * Let me take about three steps back: We all know this electronic encyclopedia can cover far more topics than paper ever could. When we're thinking about how far that should go, it seems to me serious topics such as U.S. presidents need to be a priority, where we should be especially inclusive. In a big, powerful democracy like the U.S. or U.K., information on candidates and political history has enormous value to enormous numbers of people (inside and outside those nations) and anything that can (reasonably) help voters should be included. So topics that commonly come up in campaigns are valubable. For the same reason, I'd be inclusive about similar topics in other nations -- because it's important in those nations and, especially if they're poorer, Wikipedia can be an important resource to them. Perhaps, the standard should be a little harder (but not much) to meet for smaller nations and harder still for non-English-speaking nations with Wikipedias that serve them in their own languages. But a Wikipedia that limits itself this much on such a serious topic while a tsunami of trivial books, movies, television characters and video games flood the place becomes just the trivial hodgepodge you're arguing against. Noroton 21:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Comment. The criteria seem arbitrary. It only looks at the U.S. presidential election, only major-party nominees, and only those nominees who were never (before or after) president. That seems like an odd restriction. It would be less arbitrary to list all the major-party nominees, and I might not have thought twice about it. But then, why look at military service in particular? Why not their former political service? Or their non-political career? Or any other facet that can be listed? This led me to wonder: Has any external reliable source produced a similar list specifically about the former military service of presidential nominees? If not, then there would need to be a good reason to compile such a list on WP first. Someone could make a list of the presidential nominees and the hair color of their spouses, but if nobody else has published such a list, then I would argue that shows such an intersection of information is not notable -- even if every individual entry could be cited to a reliable source. On the other hand, if a list of nominees and former military service has been published elsewhere, then it is probably a notable intersection of information worth a spot in an encyclopedia. Gimmetrow 21:01, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep or merge with List of United States Presidents by military rank. This is great for comparison.  Like comparing candidates by hieght, researchers can see how military affiliation may have affected election results.  The article appears to be limited, but deserves recognition.  Besides, the list is filled with notable people who did a notable thing.  Jjmillerhistorian 22:29, 15 February 2007 (UTC)
 * merge with successful--I do not see the point of such a specialized list or of dividingthem.DGG 04:41, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete per nom. Usedup 16:59, 18 February 2007 (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.