Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Laboratories of Democracy

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 no consensus. good arguments on both side so what we have here is a failure to reach agreement Spartaz ^Humbug! 19:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Laboratories of Democracy (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Prod declined. Article's title "concept" is an a non-notable neologism borrowed from the title of the US government article in External links. I don't even think it's worthy of retaining as a redirect. Perhaps this concept could be briefly mentioned and reffed in an article on US government or federalism? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:16, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. —Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I simply want to know how the concept of "laboratories of democracy" is anymore of a "a non-notable neologism" (cited from Shawn in Montreal -- reason for deletion) than a concept such as "pork barrel legislation," which you allow on your site. Yes it may be noticed that this concept is not defined in the Constitution (which I'm assuming is the only way you would open your eyes to conceptual belief), but neither is "pork barrel legislation," or "earmarks," etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prpldg8 (talk • contribs) 21:28, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My response: Pork barrel is a derogatory name for a common element in politics, for things that have real world existence. Laboratories of Democracy is one concept or metaphor for describing how the US federal system works, but isn't notable in its own right. That's my opinion and it's why I nominated it for deletion. There are other references out there to Laboratories of Democracy and others may disagree because this phrase does have some currency, but I doubt I'll and I may be swayed on this. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 23:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep - not new, and certainly notable. Ralph Nader did not invent this phrase - it's been around since at least the 19th century, and Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis allegedly coined it over 60 years ago. There are almost 400,000 Ghits, some news articles, thousands fo shcoalrly artciles about the concept, and even many books about it. Bearian (talk) 01:29, 18 November 2009 (UTC) P.S. I can find more books with the singular and hundred more in the schoalrly files. Where there's smoke, there's fire: there must be some reliable sources out there to use. A full article can be made. Bearian (talk) 01:32, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I should point out that mixed in with those Ghits are plenty of examples where schools are cited as laboratories of democracy, not states as Brandeis intended. I grant you that's not an argument for deletion: Maybe that's an indication that article needs to be broadened to state that this is a concept coined by Brandeis to describe X, that has also been applied to any number of things. Also, in the event that the consensus is to keep, I'd suggest a lowercase on "democracy" per our naming guidelines. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 14:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. —Shawn in Montreal (talk) 15:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Language-related deletion discussions. —Shawn in Montreal (talk) 19:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Bearian makes a good point. I also took a moment to click on Google Book search up top, and read the summaries of those appearing at the first page. This term has been used enough to warrant its own article. Dream Focus 01:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to federalism. The lead sentence clearly states that this is just an idiomatic way of describing an aspect of federalism. The phrase qua phrase (that is, separate from the concept it represents) is not even remotely significant enough to deserve its own article. Powers ^T 15:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • To be clear, I'm fine with a delete if a merge is found to be undesirable. Powers ^T 14:59, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. "Laboratories of Democracy" is just a figurative discriptive phrase used by Ralph Nader and some state department employee in their political propaganda. Even if the President used this phrase, that in itself would not be sufficient for including it as an article. There would need to be notable commentary about the phrase to show its importance. A search for "black as night" showed up 457000 hits. "Laboratories of democracy" showed only 81,000 hits. There is no Black as night page because Wikipedia does not have articles about phrases according to policy. There is no reason to give an exception to "Laboratories of Democracy."--Fartherred (talk) 20:12, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Amusingly, this was just referenced on the Daily Dish. I realize how this phrase plays into the whole states' rights thing in the US... Shawn in Montreal (talk) 21:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The bit on "Daily Dish" is close to commentary on the phrase itself, but one mention of the phrase itself hardly compares to the selection of "truthiness" as word of the year for 2006 by Merriam-Webster. The "thousands fo(sic) shcoalrly(sic) artciles(sic) about the concept" link offered by Bearian turned out to be a search by some division of Google called "scholar.google.com." Every entry on the first page of results was documentation of a use of "laboratories of democracy" not commentary on the phrase itself. Even the first item in the search with "laboratories of democracy" in the title turned out to be about supreme court justice Louis Brandeis. That puts "laboratories of democracy" in the same category as "black as night," just not as popular and no more worthy of a page in Wikipedia.--Fartherred (talk) 03:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Delete - the article as it stands is completely unsourced (no, external links do not count as sources). No one has yet come up with a reference about this topic, just to ones that use the phrase. Without sources about the topic, we're left with WP:NOR, WP:NOT#ESSAY, and WP:NPOV. After deletion, if anyone cares, redirect the name to Tenther movement. Dori ❦ (Talk ❖ Contribs ❖ Review) ❦ 02:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A redirect to Tenther movement would be perjorative, and thus inappropriate. If a merge or redirect is deemed appropriate, Federalism in the United States appears to be the best option (the idea seems to be specifically related to federalism in the US, and federalism takes a more global view). Baileypalblue (talk) 15:09, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. WP:NEOLOGISM is not an issue, and not just because the term is not new, as noted above. WP:NEOLOGISM#Articles on neologisms supports article deletion only when the article is a dicdef, not applicable here, or if the article is unverifiable. Note that "not currently referenced" is not the same as "unverifiable," and not a valid deletion rationale; the burden is on delete !voters to demonstrate that it will not be possible for the article topic to satisfy WP:V. That's not a problem here, because sufficient reliable source coverage exists (see below). Similarly, WP:NOR, WP:NOT#ESSAY, and WP:NPOV are all invalid reasons for article deletion unless it can be demonstrated that these problems are unresolvable by ordinary article editing (WP:ATD, WP:BEFORE). If the subject is notable, and none of the material is worth salvaging, the solution is to stub the article and allow other editors to start over. Thus, this comes down to a simple debate over notability. The subject has multiple, non-trivial reliable source coverage, particularly including reliable sources which are about the concept, rather than merely using it in passing (examples: [1] [2], plus a great deal of material in the various google searches I haven't gone through, due to time constraints). Thus the subject satisfies the GNG and is presumed notable; the fact that such sources are not currently references in the article is irrelevant. Baileypalblue (talk) 15:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

One more suggestion: if the closing admin believes there could be a viable article on this topic, but is inclined to delete based on current article content, consider moving the article to Wikipedia:Article Incubator instead. As discussed on that page, only articles which are going to be deleted should go there, because incubation means moving the article out of main article space, which reduces the number of eyes/hands working it over. Baileypalblue (talk) 16:15, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep per Bearians comments. Click23 (talk) 18:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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.