Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hamilton Electors

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 redirect to Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016. And merge from history such content as editors may deem appropriate to include.  Sandstein  10:53, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Hamilton Electors

Hamilton Electors (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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Appears to be largely a duplicate of Faithless elector revolt in the United States presidential election, 2016. Perhaps could become a redirect. So many other potential issue but I'll stick with that for now. TheCrazedBeast (talk) 02:27, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 04:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Redirect Hang googles (talk) 05:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Redirect, the page should be changed to a redirect to the faithless elector 2016 page. --Frmorrison (talk) 15:04, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Redirect (with a note that the "revolt" page has now been renamed Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 16:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)
• Redirect ʬʬ (talk) 17:39, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

OK so I'm not clear on protocol with this. Should I remove the AfD and ask you all to go add your commentary to the redirect suggestion I put on Talk:Hamilton_Electors? — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheCrazedBeast (talk • contribs) 20:56, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

No, you should encourage the dissenter there to move here. Broadly speaking, an AFD discussion carries more weight than a talk page discussion. --Nat Gertler (talk) 21:57, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks Nat Gertler! I added an entry there to suggest contributing here.TheCrazedBeast (talk) 22:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

• Redirect, then merge: It would seem that "Hamilton Electors" should be a section of its own, within the Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016; whereas by the time that the Electoral vote occurs, perhaps not all revolting Electors will be under the banner of the Hamilton group. ^Knowledge_Battle ^(Talk) | ^Godless_Infidel ︻╦╤── 07:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)
• Keep. I do think this article (Hamilton Electors) should be kept, simply because the name Hamilton Electors has become popular and someone trying to find a citation on that term would not necessarily know to look under the term "electoral revolt" or "faithless elector". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.249.144.58 (talk) 23:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

That's what a "redirect" does - when people look up Hamilton Electors, it will send them to the right article. That way, we don't have to have two different articles for the same thing with two names. --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:21, 15 December 2016 (UTC)

• Redirect. Unnecessary duplicate of the other page. It's already discussed there. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 07:01, 16 December 2016 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Honestly, this probably should not even be discussed. Obviously the organization is notable to the point of distinction from the movement they are a part of. Sad how biased Wikipedia has become.--Frogsareamphibianstoo (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2016 (UTC)

— Frogsareamphibianstoo (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Comment: You may have misconstrued the AfD. I did not assert that faithless elector action in this election isn't notable. I simply stated that this article may be a duplicate. It does not appear to be written about an organization (although it mentions one) but rather about the action or movement around faithless electors in this election. TheCrazedBeast (talk) 19:42, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

• Keep. The page is about a notable group, distinct from the general topic of faithless Electors. They have achieved notoriety (see citation stories) for leading a particular dissent movement in a particular election. The faithless elector article, covers many such dissents as a category. I think merge would be categorically analogous to merging a page about the DNC or Tea Party to one instead about Political parties. If there is not sufficient distinction in the article currently then that should be fixed. --Pablo Mayrgundter (talk) 22:11, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Note there is no argument here that the 2016 events are not notable and deserve their own article separate from Faithless elector. Rather, that there are two articles on the same subject. Hamilton Electors and Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016. TheCrazedBeast (talk) 15:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

• Obvious keep Obviously, this organisation is related, but not identical to the elector revolt. Relevance and other criteria are clearly met. --Mathmensch (talk) 23:35, 17 December 2016 (UTC)
• Keep — Alexander Hamilton is an ambiguous enough historical figure that the name is basically neutral, and a good shorthand for the principle being invoked. Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016 violates WP:POVTITLE because "faithless" is obviously a pejorative that serves one point of view and uses name-calling against the opposite POV. The other one should merge to Hamilton Electors. In general, any article about a group uses the title the group uses for themselves, even if it has a positive connotation for the group, and not what their enemies call them, especially when their enemies' term is pejorative. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Except the "Hamilton Electors" are a subset of the faithless electors in this Electoral College. and faithless electors is the WP:COMMON name for such folks. (And the idea that Hamilton, a "Founding Father" who gets placed on currency and has a hit Broadway show about him at the moment, is a neutral term does not seem likely.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:03, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

He was also instrumental in the compromise that made slaves 3/5 of a person in order to increase the power of slave states, as part of an electoral college system that is seen as a scourge by many, and the whole reason for the need for Hamilton Electors. He is kind of to blame for this whole mess. As with any US Founding Father, he's complicated, and he doesn't fit neatly into modern political pigeon holes. In the naive sense that any Founding Father is a Good Thing like mom and apple pie, there's nothing wrong with that. Lots of articles have titles for groups that use pleasant words chosen by those groups to describe themselves. Making an exception on those grounds for this group is a double standard.

I don't know the point in your argument by contradiction. I'll contradict you right back: faithless elector is the general term for any elector who didn't vote as expected. Hamilton Elector is the specific, common term for any elector in the 2016 election who intends to vote other than as expected, or who encourages other to do so, or who has resigned in protest, or who has taken some other, related course. The entire group rallies under the banner of 'Hamilton Elector', and the citations in Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016 back that up. You know you've got a weird article title when you're citing sources that call your subject something other than what you're calling it. Some still use 'faithless', but the wider term is Hamilton Elector. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:17, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

The fact that you can find things to criticize about Hamilton hardly means it's a neutral term (and the term your complaining about as being non-neutral, "faithless", is commonly used to describe atheists and agnostics, and there is much good that can be said about them.) As for whether "Hamilton Elector" is the common reference for all the faithless electors in this go-round, rather than a subset involved in a specific campaign, I suggest you look at the recent Google news results for Chris Suprun; I see lots of headlines there describing him as a faithless elector, and not a one describing him as a Hamilton Elector. --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:29, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

I just said "Some still use 'faithless'" you reply, "Oh yeah? Well here's proof that SOME still use faithless!" So let's not keep running up the word count here reiterating that we both agree that the term is used by some. What is really notable about your google news link is that you've presented us with a horde of non-news opinion articles attacking Chris Suprun, so naturally they choose the pejorative term to go with their jeremiads. Like I said, POV title, which is against policy. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:40, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Comment: Faithless elector has had an article since 2005 (and was used long before it became its own article). The merits of the term can be argued on that article's talk page or if someone wants to assert that Hamilton Elector is now the common name for a Faithless Elector. For now the term is what it is and this AfD discussion isn't about the name of the article. This discussion is simply that there are 2 pages that, as currently written, are about the same redundant subject. As an example that readers and editors are treating them as redundant articles, take a look at the About hatnote on Faithless elector where both pages are linked in the same sentence. If Hamilton Electors is a different topic, then it should be rewritten to be about the organization rather than a largely redundant article as it currently is. TheCrazedBeast (talk) 15:34, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Nobody has asserted that Hamilton Elector is now the common term for faithless elector, and nobody has had any thought of moving or changing the article Faithless elector. As far as rewriting, once Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016 is merged into Hamilton Electors, the redundancies and scope issues can be cleanly resolved.

Keep in mind, no faithless electors in the United States presidential election of 2016 exist. An elector who has not yet voted is not "faithless". Even an elector who says they intend to change their vote has not yet committed this faithlessness. This article Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016 is about a topic that does not exist, and is not scheduled, or prd-determeined event or actions people will take. It is a violation of WP:CRYSTAL to presume any faithless electors will exist in the 2016 cycle, based only on speculation.

On the other hand, the Hamilton Elector movement does exist. It has adherents, spokespeople, supporters and critics. Even if all electors vote in the conventional and none are 'faithless', the Hamilton Elector movement will still have existed. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:19, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

• Strong Merge there seems to be consensus that Hamilton Electors and Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016 need to be merged. Maybe do that speedily with a redirect from here to the Faithless 2016 article? Then effectively the title for the merged article is being discussed here: Talk:Faithless_electors_in_the_United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Requested_move_13_December_2016 Tom B (talk) 15:06, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
• Merge with faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016. This Hamilton Electors article is a POV fork of the faithless electors article. —Lowellian (reply) 23:37, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
• Merge with Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016. Now that the electoral college has voted, it is no longer a violation of WP:CRYSTAL to presume that faithless electors will exist in the 2016 cycle. However, the Hamilton Electors' goal failed to materialize at any level, as there was no alternative candidate to receive votes from both Democratic and Republican electors. As such, Hamilton Electors is only notable enough to warrant a mention in the article Faithless electors in the United States presidential election, 2016.--Tdl1060 (talk) 00:08, 20 December 2016 (UTC)
• Merge/redirect. If there's any content at this article that is not already included at the main article (excluding excessive amounts of detail) then that should be merged; if not, then a redirect will suffice. IgnorantArmies (talk) 07:15, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

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.