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. As a note to Diligent Terrier and to those who took up his arguments, an article cannot be deleted and merged due to licencing issues. Therefore, AfDs should not be opened to propose mergers. Merging an article does not need an AfD (but it does need consensus). Sandstein (talk) 06:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Legislation sponsored by Ron Paul (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

An entire article on a U.S. Congressman's legislation sponsorships does not seem like it belongs in Wikipedia. I think we should merge the worthwhile info into Ron Paul's article, but delete this article and the parts that talk about every single piece of legislation the he sponsored - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 17:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete and merge the good info into Political positions of Ron Paul and Ron Paul. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 17:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Per Diligent Terrier, merge the good info into the article about himself and the one that simply lists his positions. Articles in the style of "Legislation sponsored by" sound like they have the potential to hint at non-neutrality through an implicit guilt by assosciation fallacy, which would be a POV grey area. WilliamH (talk) 17:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Nuke from orbit per nom and previous votes. Ziggy Sawdust 18:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep per long-established consensus against merging, demonstrated at this article, Ron Paul, and the prior AFD. Arguments presented by nom are WP:IDONTLIKEIT, WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC, and WP:NOGOOD. The other argument is WP:CRYSTAL: a comment in this style sounds like it has the potential to hint at an argument through an implicit fallacy which would be a grey area (it speaks for itself). What qualifies as ungood and why? WP:SOFIXIT. Further, nom has not attempted any of the deletion alternatives recommended prior to AFD: editing, discussing, or proposing merge (which is not done by AFD); nom has only added tags and failed to respond to an offer to discuss: see talk. FYI, similar articles exist for Clinton, Romney, Giuliani, and Kerry. JJB 18:09, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: I have notified the other editors of this article at this point. JJB 18:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep. I see nothing wrong with this article. It's large and well-referenced, so a merge would be unsuitable. As for deletion, I also disagree, as it's fully-verifiable with reliable sources and a good supplement to the main article about Paul. SchuminWeb (Talk) 18:31, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment: Prior AFD !votes were 3 delete (1 nom, 2 per nom), 2 merge, 7 keep (1 strong, 2 speedy). Should never have been renominated. JJB 18:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Comment: One of the bills mentioned in this article just survived its own AFD as debatably notable in itself. Several other bills have their own articles or sections of other articles. JJB 18:34, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep, of course. Re-noms when the original AfD produced such an overwhelming consensus to keep just scream bad faith, sour grapes, and forum shopping. Kurt Weber (Go Colts!) 18:40, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep although I'd like to see a merge some day. I still think this was rather a bad idea and largely, perhaps entirely, redundant, but I can't muster the enthusiasm to propose a merge at this time. Deletion is not an option in this sort of case unless it's done right away. Many thanks to JJB for letting me know about this AfD. I nominated it for deletion first time round. Angus McLellan (Talk) 18:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep: Honestly, I don't really like this article, but I can't find a good reason to support its deletion. Most (if not all) of the bills Ron Paul has proposed are non-notable as they are the Congressional equivalent of WP:SPIDER and WP:POINT. However, his legislative antics have caught the attention of reliable sources, Congressional Quarterly gave him a nod in their list of 50 ways to be a congressman for his Don Quixoteish behavior. Maybe a move to a more suitable title, like Congressional career of Ron Paul, chopping out the list cruft, and focusing the article more on the the collateral effects of and (significant) reactions to his antics is in order. If the AFD does close in Delete, I would recommend userfying the article to John or myself. Burzmali (talk) 18:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you very much for changing your vote from last AFD's "merge"! But I suppose the presence of V costumes at the White House this last April 15 probably does tempt WP:SPIDER. Please inform ArbCom. JJB 20:38, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
• Keep - I was not crazy about this article either, and on first face it seems like notability would be a concern. But the lead paragraph does a great job establishing that notability, and the article is extremely well referenced. I also took quick issue with the fact that the whole article is a list of bullets: in the end it's obvious that bulleted lists are the best way to organize the information, and the formatting is impeccable. I find no good reason to delete this article. -FrankTobia (talk) 18:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete as undesirably selective or nuke and recreate as an article more in line with the aforementioned Senate career of Hillary Rodham Clinton, or merge, as there already is a Political positions of Ron Paul article. According to the Library of Congress, Ron Paul has sponsored or co-sponsored 422 pieces of legislation, and yet a little more than ten percent are represented here. Why? Why those? I think a better way to go would be to create an article about his career out of whole cloth (and, of course, reliable sources), rather than make an incomplete list of his favorite legislations. Because clearly there is an editorial process here selecting what editors feel are the "important" legislations he's supported (e.g. the article omits such goverment-standard wankery as H.CON.RES.125 "Recognizing the health benefits of eating seafood as part of a balanced diet, and supporting the goals and ideals of National Seafood Month.") And while the legislations here are sourced, the editorial process to choose which ones get included isn't, which I don't think is a good thing. Ford MF (talk) 19:13, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would you mind explaining how to obtain your list of 422 bills from LOC? The editorial process is the same as throughout WP: those bills which are deemed notable enough to merit listing in subsections of an article (whether or not they are notable enough for separate articles). Just like we have a list of commemorative days that includes everything not notable enough for its own article (such as National Seafood Month). (Of course since Paul represents many shrimp farmers, this sponsorship is not mere wonkery.) The fact that Wikipedians deem about 10% of the bills notable enough is not a deletion argument. I'll add that HCR right now. Note that is only the fourth bill which was cosponsored rather than originally sponsored, which should suggest the primary editorial process involved here. JJB 20:32, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Re: tallying his bills: LoC search, filtering by Ron Paul as sponsor or co-sponsor yields 422 hits. Ford MF (talk) 23:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Keep There's no good reason to delete it. It doesn't diminish other more notable articles (Wikipedia is not Britannica). SteveSims (talk) 20:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep too big to merge into any other article; information is relevant. Monobi (talk) 20:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. Much of the legislation proposed by the subject has been the subject of controversy, and as such, is more notable than the regular day to day proposals in Congress. Also, it's too big to merge somewhere else. Celarnor ^{Talk to me} 21:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy Keep Per all the previous keep arguments of the past AfD's. The article was good enough to keep before and I see no major decline in quality since the last AfD. Buspar (talk) 22:24, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep no valid argument in the nomination for deletion of this article. Jerry talk ¤ count/logs 04:46, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. It passed with a pretty convincing keep decision only about 4 months ago. If content has been added since which jeopardizes its viability, then revert back to the version kept in January, if necessary. 23skidoo (talk) 17:18, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Speedy keep. I disagree with everything proposed by the nominator, and cannot see how it correlates to Wikipedia policy. Coccyx Bloccyx (talk) 18:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Per Diligent Terrier --Lemmey talk 06:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep seems to be notable. Yahel Guhan 23:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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.