Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Democratic Party celebrities

This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record.
The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. dbenbenn | talk 16:28, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

List of Democratic Party celebrities

OK, this page has been tagged for both cleanup and attention, and has had its problems addressed on its talk page for some time now, and no one is doing anything about it, so I'm thinking it should just be deleted. The similar List of Republican celebrities was on VfD some time ago for all the same reasons. For a detailed discussion on this see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/List of Republican celebrities and just read "Democrat" wherever it says "Republican". It's the same thing. Being "liberal" does not make you a Democrat. Voting for a Democrat does not. Joining the Democratic Party does. Those who can be verified as being registered Democrats can stay but all the others need to go, or the whole page should be flushed. If this can be made more like the more accurate and cited List of celebrities with links to the US Republican Party (which still has major issues) maybe it could remain, but as it is now it's unverified, and we'd be better off without an article on this than with an inaccurate one. It's only marginally useful even if it were factual. It's a shame I have to hold a gun to the head of this article to get it fixed, but that's what it's come to. -R. fiend 22:52, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Delete, what constitutes a democrat and what constitutes a celebrity? Criteria seems to be loose and POV subjective. Megan1967 02:57, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Absolutely delete. This smacks of tit for tat article creation, and the same lack of logic is at work here as there. Further, while all lists are of dubious motivation, this one really seems pointless. Finally, as with the other, it is entirely unverifiable (and then we ask whether they were once Democrats and switched or once Republicans and switched). Geogre 02:59, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, a similar list of republican celebrities has already been deleted this year--nixie 03:36, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Um, no, it hasn't. Keep until List of celebrities with links to the US Republican Party is also deleted. RickK 06:29, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

• Keep and cleanup. This list has all the same problems List of celebrities with links to the US Republican Party had back when that article was on VfD: it's unsourced, arbitrary and full of speculation and possible original research. But like its nearly VfD'd cousin, this article can be saved. The first thing we need to do is change the definition of "Democrat". The way it is now the article defines the term "Democrat" as "not a Republican" or "not a conservative". We can't always assume "Democrat" and "liberal" mean the same thing, just as not all American conservatives are Republicans. The reason I voted keep despite this article's grave problems and pitfalls is that I consider this an encyclopedic topic. For better or worse, people are interested in the political views of celebrities, and a good, encyclopedic article on the subject does have some value. Not that this will ever be a featured article or anything, but still, there's a place for information like this. /sɪzlæk˺/ 06:54, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC) (P.S.: I also voted Keep for the Republican list.)
• Delete (also delete the Republican version). Many of these figures are just listed based on supposition, and in any case there is really no justification for this category. "Notable Democrats" could be included in an article on the Democratic Party. BTfromLA 09:33, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. Not encyclopedic, and generally unverified. What is the definition of "celebrity"? What does it mean to be a "Democratic Party" celebrity? Registered to vote as a Democrat? A contributor to a Democratic candidate for office? All of these have problems. If someone is notable as a supporter of Democratic party candidates (etc), it can be mentioned in the article about them. If someone isn't notable as a Democratic activist, then putting him or her on this list is about as encyclopedic as List of celebrities who use Crest brand toothpaste --BM 15:09, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, unless it is replaced with a version that is more like the Republicans list. - SimonP 18:12, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep — These polemic lists are actually meaningful to some people, although a category would probably serve as well. — RJH 00:29, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. I'm not crazy about the republican list either. The problem with lists like this is that the decision of who makes the list is both POV and binary, making it nigh impossible to keep neutral. DaveTheRed 03:18, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Concur with BM, and delete. Radiant! 10:50, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)
• Keep I believe it is appropriate to have a list of celebrities who politically identify with the Democratic Party. I also agree with those here who have said being a "liberal" isn't the same thing as being a "Democrat", and I do think only the people on the list should be those who have identified with the Democratic Party, and only identifying as "liberal" by itself (without identifying as a "Democrat") doesn't qualify for the list. In addition, I also don't think voting for a Democratic candidate qualifies for the list. There may be factual accuracies on the list (such as people on the list who identify as "liberal" but possibly not "Democrat") but that would mean putting a factual accuracy dispute warning on the page would be the most appropriate thing to do, not to delete the page entirely. Q0 05:21, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Delete both this and the Republican version, for reasons given. Lacrimosus 06:38, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep like List of celebrities with links to the U.S. Republican Party and base on some verifiable criteria. Kappa 21:47, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: "Keeping" this page and making it like the List of celebrities with links to the U.S. Republican Party is changing both title and content. Does that really constitute a keep? I would hope that if this page is deleted and recreated along those lines later on it will not be considered a CSD as recreated material. I assume I am not alone in this. -R. fiend 05:24, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Keep It is notable but the title needs improvement (as does the Republican version). Definitely in need of clean up and additional sources. Why is this article still listed here on VfD? zen master T 07:35, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.