Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Michigan Five Fluke Freshmen


 * 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.  Arbitrarily0  ( talk ) 02:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Michigan Five Fluke Freshmen

 * – ( View AfD View log | edits since nomination)

Non-notable neologism. I see only trivial mentions of it in news sources. Newspapers.com has only one result for "Five Fluke Freshman". It could be worth mentioning on the five Rep's pages, if sources can be found for that. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:09, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:09, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Michigan-related deletion discussions.  Spiderone (Talk to Spider) 20:13, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep Decades later, two 21st century books about political science describe the Michigan Five Fluke Freshmen using that term. The first is The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society and the second is Nixon in New York: How Wall Street Helped Richard Nixon Win the White House. Accordingly, the topic is notable and the article should be kept. Cullen328 (talk) 20:57, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * As mentioned elsewhere, The Fierce Urgency of Now confirms that this nickname was used once upon a time, but does not give WP:SIGCOV to it. Nixon in New York likewise gives it one mention that I see, not significant coverage. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Actually, Nixon in New York devotes 13 sentences to the topic, and describes how Nixon personally recruited Donald Riegle to run and campaigned for all five GOP candidates. Cullen328 (talk) 23:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Merge The article discusses five one-term Democrat members of Congress from Michigan who were first elected in the 1964 Democratic landslide but all lost re-election in 1966. The article claims this is the last time such an event has occurred in a single state. Whether or not this remains true, I suggest merging this information into either the 1964 or 1966 elections pages. It seems 1964 would be the more appropriate page. The term “Five Fluke Freshman” is not part of the American political lexicon or commonly known election history; thus, I recommend merging it as noted above. It is worth mentioning in a larger article but does not merit its own article. Go4thProsper (talk) 21:49, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Please note that two academics wrote about the topic half a century later. Cullen328 (talk) 23:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment I have expanded the article and added two references. Worth noting is that 11 other Wikipedia articles link to this article. Cullen328 (talk) 00:00, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The article has been expanded considerably. It now has five references, all written in the 21st century. Four of them use the "Five Fluke Freshmen" terminology. Cullen328 (talk) 19:50, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Relisting. So far, we have opinions to Delete, Keep, Merge and Redirect so relisting to see if a consensus can emerge. Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz Read! Talk! 21:51, 2 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Redirect to 1966_United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections (for now) and add a sentence or two of explanatory context there. Should future articles on the history of Michigan elections be created, then a different redirect target might be warranted. There is no doubt these 5 men exist, are notable, were elected, were subsequently defeated, and were given this collective nickname in defeat in an election, but the sources Cullen328 has provided are trivial mentions, not significant coverage and do not demonstrate notability. It doesn't matter if 100 reliable sources mention this nickname decades later, just as it doesn't matter if 1,000 sources clearly state the name of a Nobel Prize winner's mother, father, and pet cat: if sources say little more than "it exists", then the subject does not warrant a stand-alone encyclopedia article (but of course may be mentioned in other articles as warranted).  This article exists seemingly only to tickle the trivial fancy of politically-infatuated Wikipedians, and redundantly regurgitate election results. The added content about Nixon is largely tangential; this shouldn't become a WP:COATRACK of miscellaneous 1960s political trivia. --Animalparty! (talk) 05:46, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks,  Sandstein   08:37, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Comment The article is far more developed and far better referenced than it was when it was nominated for deletion. The comment that the coverage in reliable sources are all trivial mentions is incorrect. As I pointed out above, Nixon in New York devotes 13 sentences to the topic, and the other discussion of the topic is substantive even if briefer. Several of these are written by academics writing about the topic decades later. The Nixon content is not tangential because he personally recruited the then-unknown Donald Riegle to run, supported him in a pre-primary fundraiser, and strongly backed the other four GOP candidates as well. Riegle is a major figure in Michigan political history with 28 years of service in the U.S. House and Senate. So, that content is useful to understanding how and why the 1964 Democratic landslide was reversed by the 1966 Republican landslide. The comment about  is an unwarranted ad hominem personal attack on my motivations. I do not specialize in political articles as I am a generalist editor with wide ranging interests. I did grow up in Michigan in the 1950s and 1960s, and so I know a little bit about those days, and have a justified interest. Redirecting is not a good option because neither the 1964 nor the 1966  articles mention this topic, and neither has much prose about the implications or historical significance of these elections. Merging content into the 1964 article would be inappropriate because nobody talked about these five as a group until 1966. Merging content into the 1966 article would create a problem of undue weight since that article surveys nearly 470 races, and this article is about five of them. This article is useful for more deeply understanding the careers of ten notable American politicians and provides a bit of insight into the political skills of an American president, and that is why I support keeping it. Cullen328 (talk) 02:17, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * If a large number of reliable sources mention the name of a Nobel Prize winner's mother and father, then of course, their parent's names will be included in that biography. As for the cat, it is munching on a red herring. Cullen328 (talk) 02:23, 5 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't really care about the neologism, Cullen's sources show that the group (or phenomenon, as you choose to view it) was notable, and received attention from historical sources. I cannot imagine that news sources of the time didn't cover it, either. If there existed a page about the 1964 elections in Michigan, I would likely support that; but the page about the national election cannot cover reasonably cover the material here. Vanamonde (Talk) 06:42, 10 September 2022 (UTC)
 *  Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.


 * 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.