User:Enos733/Political candidates

On candidates for political office Unelected political candidates for political office are difficult for Wikipedia editors to judge their notability, for several reasons. First, users are interested in knowing more about the subject, and there is a general trust that Wikipedia articles contain accurate and unbiased information. Second, candidates running for federal office (including a national parliament or congress usually receive a certain amount of press coverage (especially from "local" media). Third, there are some candidates who are perennial candidates, running campaigns across multiple election cycles.

On the flip side, many unelected candidates, especially, but not limited to third-party candidates, are notable only in the context of their run for office and would otherwise be considered a low profile individual. Also, the articles about candidate (especially those involving challengers) are prone to WP:Bias, as the editors of the articles may frequently be campaign supporters and are working in good faith to promote their candidate.

The other wrinkle is that not all countries have candidate-centric elections - and in most countries candidates run on a list produced by the political parties. The individual candidates on the list are less important to the election than the party's candidate for prime minister.

The challenge on judging the notability of an unelected candidate is to articulate a standard, when there are Wikipedia policies pointing toward greater inclusion and exclusion. At the end of the day, I think the current standard is the best one - unelected candidates should be redirected to the article about the election or a list of candidates. While this means that there will be debates about notability at XfD, this is better than the alternatives.

I believe that unelected candidates become notable when they receive significant international coverage of their campaign, if their campaign tactics receive in-depth coverage, or if they are covered in a fashion that personifies similar candidates.

Issues around unelected candidates

Known for one event

In considering whether or not to create separate articles, the degree of significance of the event itself and of the individual's role within it should both be considered. The general rule is to cover the event, not the person. - WP:BIO1E

Broadly, there is established consensus that the election race is notable, and that the campaign itself constitutes one event. "An election campaign is an event, not a series of discrete events, for the purposes of establishing whether WP:BLP1E applies or not," Bearcat 2018. The logic is similar to that of WP:NSPORTSEVENT, where regular season games of a professional or collegiate league are not inherently notable, while the season may be.

There is broad consensus that articles can be created about the election race (such as United States Senate election in Nevada, 2010) or a list of party candidates (such as Ontario New Democratic Party candidates, 1995 Ontario provincial election or Democratic Socialists of America candidates, 2018 election). Current races are notable and should consist mainly of well-sourced prose, while there may be articles created about future significant races that are certain to take place (see WP:CRYSTAL).

The next question is whether the individual candidate's role in the event is a large one, or whether the individual's role in the event is less significant. The examples of WP:BIO1E point to the extreme. On one hand, pointing to a large roles in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, WP:BIO1E says we should keep an article about the assassin, Gavrilo Princip. On the other hand, the photographer of the Rodney King beating, George Holiday, redirects back to Rodney King.

Candidates for political office fit neither of these extremes. On one hand, elections for elective office depend on candidates, pointing to a large role in the event. At the same time, candidates for office are to a degree interchangeable. A candidate running for the House of Representatives in San Francisco against a Democratic incumbent generally will not play a significant role in the election, or be memorable beyond the scope of the election. However, because of the nature of elections, candidates for elective office, no matter how serious the candidate or without regard for the likelihood of success, there will likely be multiple, reliable source coverage of the candidates.

WP:BLP asserts a presumption of privacy toward living people and WP:BLP1E is placed under this section. Because of this, we must read into WP:BLP1E a presumption that articles should not be created about living persons and if so, "must be written conservatively and with regard for the subject's privacy."

If we look at origin of the third prong of WP:BLP1E, "If the event is not significant or the individual's role was either not substantial or not well documented," was first added in [2009]. In the notes, User:SDY said that the addition was to "including language from BIO1E which reflects recent AfD BLP decisions." This suggests, the language was an addition to harmonize WP:BLP1E and WP:BIO1E, not to have two separate policies. Over time, WP:BIO1E and WP:BLP1E have evolved differently, but we should not read WP:BLP1E as being more expansive than WP:BIO1E. 

Low profile individual

The second question, is are political candidates public figures or more like low-profile individuals. Wikipedia policies suggest neither statement is fits perfectly, but on balance, candidates for office should generally not be considered a public figure, just for being a candidate.

WP:BLP links to Public figure as for a definition. The current definition of a public figure is a person "who has a certain social position within a certain scope and a significant influence and so is often widely concerned by the public, can benefit enormously from society, and is closely related to public interests in society." The text of the article uses a US example specifically mentioning a "public figure" as a "public official" or "pervasively involved in public affairs." Candidates, by themselves, are not public officials and may not possess significant influence.

WP:BLP gives specific guidance for individuals who are not well known, and points to a supplemental essay, WP:LOWPROFILE. That essay states "A low-profile individual is someone who has been covered in reliable sources without seeking such attention, often as part of their connection with a single event. Persons who actively seek out media attention are not low-profile, regardless of whether or not they are notable."

The characteristics of most political candidates fit within the profile of low-profile individual, especially outside the context of a campaign. Much of a the media coverage of a candidate is within the context of their race (even as they occasionally seek media attention as part of their campaign). While a subject's name (and platform) may be in the public eye, many candidates maintain a great deal of privacy and anonymity.

Once the campaign is over, a losing candidate returns to being a low-profile individual (perhaps with a bigger profile, within their community or political party), but will fade toward obscurity unless some other event occurs. So, the only time a political candidate moves toward being a higher-profile individual is in the context of their political campaign, which points back to WP:BIO1E.

Uniqueness about political candidates

There remains questions whether being a candidate is sufficient to meet our community's notability standards and whether Wikipedia "better serves society and makes for a better informed public by having more content on political candidates."

While there are some editors that would answer the question in the affirmative, their arguments fall under one of two positions. For some editors, first is largely that unelected candidates, especially candidates for federal election, become notable through the course of the campaign. I disagree.

While the presumption is that most candidates actively seek political office, in some areas and for some races, an individual stands as a standard-bearer so the party can share its message, retain ballot-qualification, attempt to keep the incumbent from surplussing money to other candidates, or other reasons. In 2016, newscaster Tony Ventrella ran for the Democratic nomination in Washington's 8th Congressional District. He dropped out of the race prior to the primary and only belatedly ran after he finished second in Washington's top-two primary. The Seattle Times described his campaign as a zombie. While this is not a normal occurrence by any means, being on the ballot does not necessarily mean that there is an active campaign. (As another example, Representative Joe Crowley remained on the 2018 general election ballot despite losing in the Democratic primary, but did not actively continue his campaign.)

In these cases, we must recognize that Wikipedia is not news, and not everyone in the media, or even people with multiple mentions in the news may continue to be a low-profile individual.

The issue, again, is that notability is not temporary. Once a person crosses the threshold into notability, any verifiable information can be added to a subject's page, even if that information would not be notable in its own right. The subject's pre- and post- office career can be added (subject to WP:WEIGHT) as well as other personal information (such as family members) or other verifiable information.

From a practical point of view, there are fewer eyes on failed candidates for public office. While vandalism can occur on any article, when there are lots of eyes on a page, vandalism can be removed quickly. For pages that have fewer eyes, we know of pages where vandalism has stuck around for a long time, as well as information that is not verifiable.

In addition, one hope of editors supportive of candidate pages on Wikipedia is that "information is well sourced and neutrally presented." The problem here is that most editors of campaign pages are supporters (or opponents) of the candidate. We see this every cycle when a candidate begins a run for President of the United States. Within days (or hours) of an announcement, editors beef up the page. This is natural and good for the project, but with candidates running for lesser offices, there are fewer checks on what information is added. There are lots of pages like Marc Elrich, whose page largely consisted of greatest hits of his legislative record and endorsements of his 2018 run for county executive at the time of creation. As Nosebagbear commented, "some pruning has taken it from insanely to moderately (a full blown axe will be needed to get it down to even mildly) promotional." While not every candidate page has as many problems with WP:BIAS and WP:PROMOTION, many candidate pages have these problems.

Even assuming that candidates are actively campaigning, there is a normative question of whether Wikipedia should be a repository for information about candidates. The argument generally goes something like "people come to Wikipedia looking for information about candidates," or "Wikipedia should be a great source of information about all candidates."

I of the belief that Wikipedia should not be a repository for candidates. There is a strong likelihood that campaign biographies of unelected candidates will not contain unbiased information, and will be more more likely to be repositories of campaign brochures (including candidate issue statements and endorsements), as supporters include position statements in the article.

I do strongly believe that there should be more detail about the candidates and the races themselves, in pages about the campaign, such as Georgia's 6th congressional district special election, 2017 or California's 10th congressional district election, 2018. As long as information is verifiable, these campaign pages can contain certain biographical elements about the candidates, background, endorsements, polling, implications, and potentially other information.

Quick notes

Perennial candidates

I recognize that perennial candidates may be more likely to qualify for an article, largely because WP:BLP1E no longer applies and there not a perfect redirect target. This is especially true for candidates running for a federal (or national) office.

Candidates not quite notable for other coverage

I also recognize that campaign coverage may assist the notability of someone who, absent of a political campaign, does not meet WP:GNG. I do not take the position, as others do, that campaign coverage has limited application outside of the campaign. Campaign coverage, plus significant, verifiable coverage of the individual outside of the campaign, may be enough for a subject to meet WP:GNG.

In this sense, local elected officials are probably more likely to meet WP:GNG if they are on the general election ballot because they will likely have some significant coverage of their previous races and efforts in their office.

Major/Minor party status

As an encyclopedia, we should not make determinations of whether a candidate is notable because they are a member of a major political party, or even the nominee of a "major" political party. While we individually may believe that major party nominees are more likely to win an election, notability must not be dependent on party status.

Conclusions

In conclusion, I believe three things:

1) There should not be a presumption of notability for un-elected candidates for public office and that threshold is met when they receive significant international coverage or they are held up as a personification of larger themes across multiple campaigns.

2) Un-elected candidates on a general election ballot should be redirected into the page about the campaign and there should be more prose in those campaign pages.

3) We should presume that losing candidates will return to being a low-profile individual and will generally fade into obscurity after the campaign and should not have a stand-alone Wikipedia page.