Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2024 Halifax municipal election

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. After much-extended time for discussion, opinion remains split between keeping and draftifying, but no one is suggesting that this content needs to be deleted outright, or that the subject is either devoid of current documentation, or unlikely to become unequivocally notable. BD2412 T 02:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

2024 Halifax municipal election[edit]

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WP:TOOSOON article about a future election that there's just nothing of any real substance to say about it yet. The election is scheduled for October, which means absolutely nothing is happening with relation to the election yet as of January -- none of the races have any declared candidates yet, and with just a handful of exceptions even the incumbent mayor and councillors haven't announced whether they're running again yet or not, and we're months away from even being able to identify any of the issues that people will be basing their votes on.
Future "next" election articles are permitted at the federal and provincial levels, because there are always things for such an article to write about -- ongoing polling on the performance of the incumbent government, scandals, by-elections, and on and so forth -- but at the municipal level we just don't start articles about future elections until much, much closer to election day, because there just isn't anything meaningful to say about them, beyond "this is a thing that will happen", until much, much closer to election day. As of right now, the only other future municipal election in all of Canada that has an article at all is the imminent mayoral by-election in Mississauga, where we have actual known candidates and polling to write about, and even if the exact date is still up in the air we know that it has to happen by the spring at the latest.
So this can certainly be sandboxed in draft or userspace as a base, if the creator wishes, but there's no need for it to exist as an article until there's a lot more content to write about it than just "incumbent has not yet announced whether they're running again or not" over and over again. Bearcat (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Politics and Canada. Bearcat (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Redirect to Halifax Regional Council: while this doesn't qualify as WP:CRYSTAL, the nom is right about TOOSOON. There is no encyclopedic information about this now, and not much is likely to turn up before October 2024. There's no need to keep the page as a placeholder until then. Owen× ☎ 15:52, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To be fair, I'd expect there to likely be meaningful content for an article by about July or August rather than literally having to wait until election day. Bearcat (talk) 16:57, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draft Until more news comes out about the thing, likely this spring, probably in summer for sure. Oaktree b (talk) 17:57, 16 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It's going to be notable at some point, it's very very likely to happen, and there's enough sourcing at the moment where an article may be justified. Can't really argue to keep it out of mainspace for a few months. SportingFlyer T·C 12:06, 17 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - The election is later this year so it should be notable enough for an article. User:Moondragon21 (talk) 03:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep (article creator) – most (65%) of the incumbents have announced whether or not they will run again, so I don't think the above characterisation of the existing article is quite accurate. I already find it useful as a reference as to who is re-offering and who is not. I appreciate the concern about this article being premature or lightweight and will keep that in mind when creating articles in the future. But in this case – news outlets are already coming out with pieces on this election, so the article may as well remain to be built upon in the coming months. Ben MacLeod (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Some of the arguments above aren't doing a lot to persuade me P&G-wise, relisting for further input.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Daniel (talk) 21:04, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify as this will clearly be notable within six months (the WP:G13 timer). There is not SIGCOV currently, and anyone advocating to keep this article should be able to point to some. "It will be notable" is not a reason to keep an article, because it is not notable at the current moment. But drafts need not be notable, and given that this article will certainly be notable in the not-too-distant future, incubating is the best way forward. House Blaster (talk · he/him) 21:40, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:12, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Consensus not established.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 02:49, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Draftify: per OwenX, Oaktree b, and HouseBlaster. This will be notable in short time, but there's no reason for a mainspace article until there's actually significant coverage of the election. Until then, once draftified, I think redirecting to Halifax Regional Council makes sense. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep the Global article that's been referenced is significant coverage of the election. No one objects when the Toronto election article is created 15 months before the election there. This one is a lot sooner than that! Like it or not, there is news already about the election, and the plans of most of council. -Nfitz 03:58, 11 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Draftify until more sources become available. There is no harm done in keeping it in draft space until we see WP:SIGCOV. Pretty much all sources right now are about candidates announcing if they are running for reelection or not, not about the election itself. Some of the arguments for keeping it are personally not very convincing (WP:TOOSOON, WP:WHATABOUTX, WP:ITSUSEFUL...). AllTheUsernamesAreInUse (talk) 23:12, 15 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Definitely WP:TOOSOON, but in the month that this article has been going through AfD, at least two further news articles (incorporated into the article) have been released on the election, I think in response to the mayor announcing that they would not stand for reelection. It's each to their own as to when "enough coverage is enough coverage", but I'm minded to think that said threshold will be met sooner rather than later, and I don't really see the usefulness of bouncing the article to draft and then back to mainspace in the time until then. IgnatiusofLondon (talk) 02:33, 16 February 2024 (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.