Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Legislative candidates

This is a discussion about under what circumstances candidates for public office should get their own Wikipedia articles.

Background

A few weeks ago, I suggested adding the following to the list of people who may be included under Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies (WP:BIO):

1. ...members of a national, state or provincial legislature.

2. Candidates for one of the positions above.

The only comment received was to limit "candidates" to "credible" ones.

Around the same time (but before I realized it), articles on several legislative candidates appeared on Wikipedia:Articles for deletion (WP:AFD). Articles put up for deletion include U.S. House of Representatives candidates David Ashe and Paul Babbitt as well as U.S. Senate candidate Paul Hackett and Canadian parliamentary candidate Niki Ashton.

In the WP:AFD discussions, I mentioned that the candidates qualified for automatic inclusion under the changes to WP:BIO. Another user, however, pointed out that there was little discussion of the changes I had made. We agreed to suspend the changes and solicit comments through this discussion.

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