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Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Magnus Thompson

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Magnus Thompson

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This article is associated with an unsuccessful candidate whose attempt is documented in the associated election results article. The article seems to be non-notable and was flagged for cleanup.

  • Keep. This article is part of a series on the official candidates in Canada's 2004 federal election. Every other candidate from Winnipeg has a bio entry, and it would make little sense to delete this one. Thompson has run for federal office in Canada on two separate occasions; this fact alone would qualify him for inclusion on Wikipedia. Regarding the cleanup notice ... a while ago, someone posted a series of poorly-written articles on candidates of the Canadian Action Party. I cleaned up this particular piece, although by the looks of things I forgot to remove its entry on the cleanup page. In any case, the notice no longer applies to the current article. As to the article being non-notable ... it's true that there isn't much to say about this particular candidate, but this is grounds for a stub notice, not a deletion. CJCurrie 23:41, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Any one who make the ballot in a federal election in Canada (or any other country) probally deserves an article. Dsmdgold 01:38, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • This is trivially easy to achieve in Canada, the UK and a number of other countries. Average Earthman 10:20, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. If there isn't room in Wikipedia to record the folly of these modern day Quixotes, where can there be room? I've tried researching also-rans from elections past, and come up with nothing, so they disappear in the sands of time. Surely Wiki can be the repository for this kind of trivia. Kevintoronto 03:31, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I would be in favour of recording election results, with a brief description perhaps of the candidates, but not as a separate article for each one. Average Earthman 10:20, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I presume if this person had run for office on a Star Trek episode it would be fine to keep them. The Recycling Troll 04:47, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. I found the webpage on Canadian elections elections.ca, and it appears the rule on appearing on the ballot is not massively restrictive - if you're a citizen, and over 18, and not barred by specified regulations, you can stand and will appear on the ballot. The number of votes this individual received is not in the slightest bit notable, all he did is waste a bit of his time and money. Average Earthman 10:17, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Agree with Average Earthman. --Improv 12:34, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep it - this person was on the ballot in a real election. That's notable enough. Intrigue 19:45, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • Some further comments: I've made a few changes to the Thompson article, hopefully increasingly its relevance in so doing. As a more general response to Average Earthman: it's true that getting on the ballot in Canada isn't very difficult, but (i) there still aren't very many independent candidates in this country (compared to, say, India or Britain), and (ii) notwithstanding which, the very act of running for public office is enough to make someone a public figure, and hence qualify that person for inclusion on this project. Like Kevin, I've also tried to search out information on also-ran candidates from previous elections, and I know how frustrating the process can be. If Wikipedia can provide this service to interested parties, why not make use of it? CJCurrie 20:06, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, candidate in recent federal election and, given the minority government there could well be another election in a year or so meaning this person may well run again so it is worthwhile keeping this in the database. AndyL 22:42, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete for reasons given for deleting other non notable losers of Canadian elections. Also a comment that a lot of the 'keeps' for these non-entities come from CJCurrie and people he's paged to get to support him. Jongarrettuk 23:13, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. If someone wants to ceate a project somewhere to record information on defeated candidates, just go and do it. Then link to the project from an appropriate article in Wikipedia. But as a Canadian, I know very well that being a fringe candidate in Canada is not enough to make anyone a public figure in any but a legal sense (otherwise the information on such candidates wouldn't be hard to find). Just being a "public figure" doesn't mean you are notable. Some fringe candidates are already reasonably well-known public figures. Some are simply nutters. Some are members of the Rhinocerus Pary of Canada which only gets three hits on Google but which does deserve an article! Some are from small fringe parties. Some represent only themselves. Meanwhile, I'd see nothing wrong with moving such information into articles on fringe parties. Jallan 01:27, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. Mikkalai 04:56, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: wrong side of the line. Just running for office doesn't establish notability. Wile E. Heresiarch 06:56, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete: Strewth, how many of these are there??? GWO 18:26, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
    • I don't know. Apparently the 2000 Canadian election had 1808 candidates. Take that figure, subtract the few that would have been notable. Multiply by number of elections in Canada. Then add in all the elections in the UK, Australia, NZ, France, Germany, etc etc etc!!! Jongarrettuk 22:41, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • I notice a certain trend around VfD: unelected political candidates for minor parties are notable for their candidacy alone, if they're American. Ten minutes of searching gave me Beau Gunderson, Jerry Kohn, Tim Smith, Tom Bailey, Andrés Soto, Gayle McLaughlin, Nicole Sarmiento and Rick Griffin, and I'm sure countless others would show up if I kept looking. But if they're Canadian, watch the deletes come out of the woodwork. Keep as equally notable to anyone on that list, or VfD that list too. Bearcat 00:11, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Then nominate them. Here on VfD, we consider each nomination on a case by case basis. The argument that "other articles are worse" is meaningless when those articles have not yet been subjected to the same scrutiny. The standard that I consider relevant is the recommendation at Wikipedia:Criteria for inclusion of biographies which recommends articles on the holders of national or statewide office. It allows for exceptions but there is no evidence presented that this makes the cut. Rossami 21:43, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
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