Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stevenage Council election, 2003


 * 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   - Keep - Peripitus (Talk) 04:17, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Stevenage Council election, 2003

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A table of the results of a local election. Does not seem to pass WP:N or to merit a separate article in view of WP:NOT. No substantial secondary coverage of this election as such that I could find. Nsk92 (talk) 16:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions.   —Nsk92 (talk) 16:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep There is strong precedent for such election pages which have never been deleted at AFD such as at Articles for deletion/Windsor municipal election, 1991, Articles for deletion/Norfolk County municipal election, 2006, Articles for deletion/Philadelphia mayoral election, 2007, Articles for deletion/Kettering Council election, 2007 and Articles for deletion/Birmingham Council election, 2008. The article is fully referenced and verfiable to reliable sources including to a page on the BBC website which has always been accepted as sufficient for notability. There are at least 900 pages in the relevant subcategories of Category:Council elections in the United Kingdom which cover this sort of election and they have always been accepted as fine. They are contested by the national political parties and I completly disagree that the yearly election could ever fall under the 'routine news coverage' of WP:NOT. There is a newspaper which always give very full coverage of the Stevenage elections but unfortunatly it's web archives only go back to 2004 but it's 2008 coverage is very comprehensive as shown here including a full look at what each parties policies were, which shows what a look back at offline records has the potential to find. Davewild (talk) 17:49, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that there are some precedents here but they don't look entirely convincing to me. Both Birmingham and Philadelphia are major cities, with population over a million people each. By comparison, Stevenage has population of 80,000. This seems rather small to me to merit a separate encyclopedia article about the full results of municipal elections for a given year. Information like that seems to more properly belong in some reference book, not an encyclopedia. If the article gave some kind of substantive information about the election campaign and the issues involved, I would probably feel different. But simply to give a table with the numerical results? I am also not entirely convinced by the notability argument. Even if we assume that the election was extensively covered by the local newspaper, The Comet, would that be enough to establish notability. In my experience we usually require evidence of significant wider national coverage for various political events in order for articles about them to be included. Nsk92 (talk) 20:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly there are also the Norfolk County AFD which is for a smaller population (60,000 ish) and the Kettering one is for a very similar population. Also making a judgement based on population seems to go directly against WP:NOT - if we can write a reasonable article on it there is no reason why we should not. WP:NOT#STATS requires that statistics such as election results provide sufficient context for a general reader and I fails to see how this article does not do that. I would also note the BBC nationally provides a page for each council and it's overall results. Despite this I would also point out that nowhere does any policy or guideline require that coverage be national or international and I have pointed to a source which will have significant coverage of this election offline. Basically I fail to see why this article needs deleting as there is enough coverage in reliable sources to write an article in a neutral point of view way without any original research which is what I thought our content policies and guidelines were designed to achieve. Davewild (talk) 20:33, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. Does anybody really care? Dreamspy (talk) 18:34, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Comment It looks as though an AFD should be opened grouping all the Stevenage council election pages together, as there are quite a few of them, each with similar content. -Verdatum (talk) 20:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete It looks like a case of WP:NOT, it's just a bunch of result tables. If it actually described notable accounts of the election through reliable sources, then I'd be fine with it, but I don't think you'll find anything beyond local reports. -Verdatum (talk) 20:39, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - we have innumerable such pages of local election results and despite WP:Useful, WP:NOT, WP:NOT and all the rest it is useful and these tabulated results provide an encyclopaedic resource. The page is sourced and complies with WP:V which is the policy requirement. Further, there are now sources that meet WP:N. I see no convincing deletion argument. TerriersFan (talk) 22:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - Per TerriersFan. America69 (talk) 00:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete - WP:OTHERSTUFF is not a reason to keep. Failing WP:N is a good reason to delete.  It is not encyclopedic to keep a result of every town, county, prefecture, precinct, etc's voting results.  That is an almanac.  There are many things that I would find useful that do not meet encyclopedic muster, but that does not give me the right to start compiling endless pages of data.  This data may be WP:V, but I think violates WP:N by being singly sourced (perhaps by multiple coverages), and covered for a very short time.  I could see if there were a notable problem that came up (forgive me for using an American example, but for example Florida's narrow decision in 2000), the extended coverage would grant notability.  Aside from that, I see no notability. LonelyBeacon (talk) 00:38, 9 July 2008 (UTC) I am withdrawing my delete opinion, but will not add my voice to keep. LonelyBeacon (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * To quote from the very first line of Five pillars that defines wikipedia - "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia incorporating elements of general encyclopedias, specialized encyclopedias, and almanacs". Wikipedia is meant to cover things that appear in almanacs contrary to what you have said. WP:NOT is also very relevant and I fail to see any reason why this needs to be deleted. Davewild (talk) 07:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep No reason not to have this.  CJCurrie (talk) 16:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep - One of many invaluable articles on local elections, all of which are thoroughly encyclopedic and an excellent and important source for the more in-depth researcher. - Gallo glass  20:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of England-related deletion discussions.   --  Fabrictramp  |  talk to me  14:09, 10 July 2008 (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.