Wikiquote:Votes for deletion/Steve Kagen

—LrdChaos (talk) 13:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Note from closing sysop: Were it not for the fact that this nomination had already been extended, I would have extended it again, given what appears to be some uncertainty about this article's fate. However, the extended period seems to have changed little about this vote's outcome, and when all the explicit votes are tallied, the result is 6–2 in favor of keeping the article. I think that Jeff Q's concerns about sources are valid, and should definitely be hashed out via the article's talk page. —LrdChaos (talk) 13:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Steve Kagen
This is a new member of the U.S. House of Representatives, so he is notable even if not prominent. The problem I have with it is that the page has been written largely as a promotion, as can be seen by highlighting Kagen's decision not to participate in the Congressional Health Care plan. The quotes are mostly unmemorable political slogans; no doubt some people may think they are apposite and intelligent but they just struck me as trite and obvious. I doubt that any of them are actually quoted by people. All the links go either to the congressman's campaign site or to his House of Representatives home page. — Fys. &#147;Ta fys aym&#148;. 18:19, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Vote closes : 19:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Vote extended to 19:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 *  Comment Keep Certainly looks like a vanity page but he's notable and there are now legitimate quotes. The links are I suppose reliable sources but they confirm the vanity angle. If even notable people are not allowed such pages, I agree to deletion. --Cato 21:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: Try to rewrite first. Otherwise, I do not oppose deletion.--Jusjih 16:53, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I rewrote it...the only reason I put in the health care plan was for some context, but it really wasn't important. I really just like the Congressman and think he says some really insightful things. I was hoping to add quite a few more pages to the site (as I am quite fond of good quotes, as my proclivity to browse wikiquote goes to show). And I am quite moderate politically, as a matter of fact... I just decided to do Kagen first b/c I saw some of his comments in the news recently. I have been meaning to contribute to pages that already exist and to additionally find good quotes for a variety of people (like politicians) considering that, in order for wikiquote to continue to grow and continue to prosper, its contributors must aim to provide this sort of unbiased, SOURCED material for a whole spectrum of public figures. Do I get a vote for this one anyways? No hard feelings either way :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Greenguy96 (talk • contribs) 09:49, 17 Jul 2007  (UTC)
 * Comment: Look guys, I have an advanced degree in political economics and will be starting law school in the fall... I thought it would be fun to put in some time, learn a bit, and become a decent Wikiquote contributor... I've edited and created a few wikipedia and wikiquote articles, and I really look forward to being able to contribute more... I am all about the dissemination of nonpartisan, factual information so that people can use these quotes in order to learn a little more about their elected officials, individuals who are undoubtedly notable due to their influence and visibility. I think that if this were monitored closely (by you wonderful admins, of course) Wikiquote could benefit in scope. That said, I hope you will overlook my rookie mistake of giving too much information, and will instead allow me to continue to add articles for current Congresspeople, in addition to carefully researching for additional, RELEVANT quotes. Thanks for computer-listening (reading, I guess).--GreenGuy96 5:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment Let's not bite newbies. It must be possible to make this article keepable.--Poetlister 11:45, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Much better now.--Poetlister 16:04, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep, albeit with some cleanup to the formatting of the page. ~ UDScott 14:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
 * My concern is that this could lead to every member of Congress suddenly having their own Wikiquote page full of similarly profound gems around election time. Not necessarily a bad thing (especially if we can harness the contributors to do some work in other areas), but something to think about. No vote on this one. Cheers! BD2412 T 04:20, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment: I've extended the discussion on this article because (A) we have plenty of comments, but few solid choices thus far; and (B) drawing the line between quoting pithy political statements and just promoting candidates can be challenging, as we've seen before (most memorably with wonkish Mitt Romney quotes that sprinkled throughout theme articles last October). Meanwhile, I've restructured and reformatted the article to meet Wikiquote style guidelines, especially by making the bare-link sources explicit for better evaluation. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 11:30, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep Members of U.S. Congress (like most national politicians) are notable and frequently make notable comments. Sure, it is a big job keeping these pages sorted out and in good shape. This is a reason to get more people involved monitoring the pages, not a reason for deletion, I think. FloNight 19:12, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep. I don't see any problem with the quotes we have now. The Mitt Romney page, as Jeff stated, had been a lot worse than this; but it ended up as salvageable. As much as we might be concerned with any question of self-promotion, I think we can only consider results and not motives. Just about every interview with a politician (or, for that matter, every film director, actor or musician) is a form of self-promotion, whatever else it might be.  So long as the resulting quotes are not merely trivial, repetitious or pointless without context, I think we might have to suffer the occasional triteness. Platitudes are the dullest of quotations; but sometimes they also tell us, perhaps usefully, a thing or two about the person who is willing to utter them. I would rather not have subsections by theme for the arrangement of the quotes; better to let the reader decide what a quotation is about.  But this is not a matter affecting the question at hand.  - InvisibleSun 23:47, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Keep.--McNoddy 12:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Comment - I am really with BD2412 here. But taking it a stage further (and because Wikiquote is not USA centric) that potentially means all politicians standing for office anywhere in the world who someone considered has said something worthy of being called a "quote" - that I find concerns me. Maybe a new wiki which was devoted to politicians quotes (I'd be unable to come up with a name of the wiki for public consumption)?  I'll stop there before I say anything that folk take exception to -- Herby  talk thyme 11:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I share your concern, Herby. We need clear inclusion criteria. --Aphaia 11:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow, I hadn't even thought about other countries (USA centric as I am). BD2412 T 19:53, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete on reviewing this both in my own mind and per Jeff's comments. However this VfD and others have made my think a little about what I feel should be on Wikiquote so maybe there will be a posting soon on the Village Pump when I've reflected.  -- Herby  talk thyme 12:22, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Delete as too promotional, given the problems of political promotion that Herby suggests above. We already have at least an informal notability threshold for such matters — the need to source quotes reliably. Currently, the article has quotes from only three sources: Daily Kos, Kagen's own Congressional website, and Project Vote Smart.
 * Daily Kos is a blog, and blogs are not reliable sources because there is no editorial oversight that ensures the claims of who the authors are. I think this general problem will be fixed in the foreseeable future as the blogging industry "grows up". But we're not there yet, and setting a precedent on the naturally self-promotional efforts of politicians trying to sell themselves to voters and the media is a very bad idea. Even if we could show that Kagen is the author, the informality of a blog makes it far too easy to use for self-promotion, unlike more professional publications. In fact, based on what I've read in the past few years, we could probably start an article on Blogs that provide well-sourced quotes about how politicians are doing this very thing to bypass the criticial eye of the press (which Wikimedia relies on to filter for notability and reliability).
 * U.S. Congressional websites can be considered reliable sources for quotes, but they offer nothing toward suggest why a particular Congressman should have a quote article, because all 436 current and many past members can have them. Taken in a world context, if we used the mere fact of a government-sponsored website as a means to justify notability for quoting, we could have the problem that millions of politicians with government-sponsored self-publishing outlets arguing for the same.
 * That leaves us with a single quote that provides independent evidence that any reliable media find Kagen quoteworthy. His quote is "Disease does not recognize congressional districts or party affiliation." This is merely a variation on "disease knows no boundaries", which I'm sure is a very old quote. It is typical for politicians to be quoted saying things that many have said before, because the media's goal is not so much to cite pithy quotes as it is to document the politician's opinions.
 * To summarize my own opinion, we need to be ruthless about politician's articles because they can use Wikimedia (and famously have!) for self-promotion (or even just promotion by followers). Their quotes should be scrupulously sourced from professional publications with impeccable credentials. If we can't find quotes and sources that meet these expectations, we should choose to delete the article and wait for an editor who will make the effort to find and cite such quotes. The absence of such an effort or its results itself would suggest (for now) that the subject falls below a reasonable threshold of notability for the purpose of quoting. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 16:13, 27 July 2007 (UTC)