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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. — Coren (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cultural and political image of Sarah Palin[edit]

Cultural and political image of Sarah Palin (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (delete) – (View log)

There are similar articles for some other politicians, but they have been magnets for controversy among editors, and magnets for useless material. The scope of this article is vague, and other articles already cover this subject's political positions and the like. So, much of the material here is redundant, and the rest is not notable enough. See WP:N and WP:BIO. This type of article easily becomes a content POV fork, as this one already has, and it’s just not suitable for an encyclopedia. Material about Palin's religious views, insofar as they may affect her political positions, can go into the article about her political positions (and her personal religious beliefs do not require a sub-article in addition to the brief description in the Sarah Palin article).Ferrylodge (talk) 21:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete per nom. Ferrylodge, I think you meant POV fork, not content fork. Kelly hi! 22:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Merge content to Sarah Palin keeping the redirect.≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:27, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. Theosis4u (talk) 22:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP (or, should it fail this AfD, MERGE its content elsewhere). The fact that providing encyclopedic coverage of this kind provides a POV magnet can be dealt with via normal editing, as can be inclusion of material failing notability standards or stuff that's redundant. The scope of this article concerns Palin's background and resume in a political and cultural context, much as Mitt Romney's subarticle of the genre concerns his religion; McCain's, his temperment; and Obama's, his religion and level of experience.   Justmeherenow (  ) 22:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. This article is rife with problems, including but not limited to POV issues, and has, apparently, been a sandbox for some people with political views opposed to Ms. Palin. Collect (talk) 22:52, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Every notable politician involved in national controversy should have a page like this. Opinions positive and negative should be represented at such a page. When people of all types of expertise and POV get involved, good articles emerge. At present the article is heavier on critique of Palin, but this will/should change over time.LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 22:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep until content is merged. I believe the creation of this article today was the result of an unresolved dispute regarding the religion section and content at the main Sarah Palin article. I agree that some of the religious content can be merged into Political positions of Sarah Palin and the more notable issues should be in the main article. IP75 75.36.70.205 (talk) 23:30, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Merges can be done through AFD if that's what you're suggesting. Admins do them routinely in closing AFDs. I think what you're suggesting is a complex "merge" more than keep".--chaser - t 00:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. These sections/articles seek to describe and measure aspects of the interaction between a political figure and the American public that aren't apparent in straight history-oriented biographical material. Since Palin has single-handedly turned around a presidential election, something that vice-presidential picks almost never do, such description and measurements are definitely warranted. But the article should be narrowly focused on this; the religion stuff I see in there now doesn't belong. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why doesn't it belong? It's about perceptions of her religious positions. Please respond at talk page LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 23:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WTR, can you think of a different name for this article that might narrow its focus? There is already an article on John McCain presidential campaign, 2008 that discusses her impact on the campaign.Ferrylodge (talk) 00:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Content fork per nom.--Hughgr (talk) 23:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. This appears to be an attempted end run around BLP policies. It is redundant with the other articles mentioned and will serve as a COATRACK for all kinds of controversial POV material that should not be included.WTucker (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with reservations. Ultimate determination of notability is currently in heavy flux. It will be as relevant as the outcome of the next eight weeks. I would suggest keeping this article for now, and review it again after November. If I were forced to vote right now, I would say keep, but after November 4th, who knows. Duuude007 (talk) 23:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • merge our best chance of keeping this NPOV is one good article. DGG (talk) 01:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree. Changed my comment from keep to merge. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What about the redundant material that is already in Political positions of Sarah Palin? DGG, are you saying that we should "merge" the redundant material from this article into that article?Ferrylodge (talk) 02:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note that the title of the article has now been changed to "Public image of Sarah Palin". But I think the title is still kind of fuzzy, and that means there will be lots of fights about what should go in the article.Ferrylodge (talk) 02:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The title change is not only inaccurate, it buttresses my opinion on removing it forthwith. It currently contains almost 100% negative elements. Collect (talk) 14:05, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete I supported other subarticles where there was a valid topic but the title and topic is not well-defined here. "Political image" sounds partly redundant with "Political positions" an article that we already have. Delete this now but keep the door open for other subarticles that cover a valid topic with a well-defined scope.Hobartimus (talk) 11:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT
  1. The subject of this article is, of course, the Public image of Sarah Palin, or, "Palin's life..." (her (1)personality (2)lifestyle, and (3)background) "and its reflection in her public image."
  2. An article's being POV is not a rationale for deletion, per WP guidelines, since it can be brought to NPOV through normal editing.   Justmeherenow (  ) 15:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
When you say "background", that could mean anything: educational background, employment background, family background, et cetera. Same goes for "image". Please see Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision): "Article titles give the reader an idea of what they can expect within an article." The title "Public image" is too imprecise.Ferrylodge (talk) 15:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IMO the concept of someone's "public images" would be and is distinct enough for encyclopedic purposes. It pertains to the pubic and opinion makers' second-person takes on somebody's life. Sure a life contains one's educational and employment background, and on and on and on, yet the the plain fact remains that the "life of the X," whether that person is a politician or some other profession, is something that is distinct. So here we have one distinct category, that of "public image," being applied to another, that of Sarah Palin's life: "the Public image of Sarah Palin."
So also with the distinct political event "the French Revolution." Sure, this includes the Revolution's theoretical background, its various stages and forms, and so on and so forth, yet Wikipedia has in addition to an article on the Revolution itself, a subarticle that covers notable, second-person, historians' views upon the Revolution called "the Historiography of the French Revolution."   Justmeherenow (  ) 15:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Of couse, it's too soon for an article about Palin's historiography. But if you want an article about her media coverage, then I would suggest a title like: "Interaction between Sarah Palin and the mainstream media", or something like that.Ferrylodge (talk) 15:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why single out the media? What about scholars? Various partisans? And also popular opinion? Their inclusion in our formula would brings us to "Sarah Palin and the public": which title is just fine! (although I believe the word image would lend our topic, as we've just delineated it, a bit of additional precision).   Justmeherenow (  ) 16:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. How about "Sarah Palin in American culture"?   Justmeherenow (  ) 16:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Sarah Palin in American culture" is still kind of vague, because there's all different kinds of culture: political culture, religious culture, popular culture, et cetera. How about "Efforts to shape the public image of Sarah Palin" or something like that? When a new politician arrives on the scene, everyone is trying to paint them as something, including the politicians themselves.Ferrylodge (talk) 16:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, anyone who says anything about her is trying to shape her public image, so I take that back.  :-)Ferrylodge (talk) 17:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your point is taken. "Efforts to shape the image of Sarah Palin" seems a little too pointed, however. How about elements of her image that almost seem to have spring organically from the Alaskan earth? (As did Venus from the waves? And, lol, for example, say that the image of Sarah Palin should become notable within religious culture in some way, why not allow this to be treated in the article, too?) How about "The image of Sarah Palin in the media"? Or, shorter, "Sarah Palin and the media"?   Justmeherenow (  ) 17:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let's look at what the article currently has (minus the religion stuff which I agree with Wasted Time R is already adequately covered elsewhere): there's a critique of Palin by some feminists, there's discussion of her physical appearance, and there's stuff about how comedians have dealt with her. I'd suggest trying a title that maybe covers some of those things without going much farther. Like, maybe, "Physical appearance and comedic use of Sarah Palin."Ferrylodge (talk) 17:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand what you're saying, Ferrylodge. You're saying that the current article (that is, within other than its religion piece) is only about Palin's appearance and a few notes about what ways her image is used in satire, and that it's pretty light fare for this to make up a whole article, therefore we should fold whatever is of value back into the main article or other subarticles until such time as enough material of a such a nature (or a slightly expanded one) materializes. However, what's close to full agreement with your premise is the premise that since material of a similar sort is guaranteed to materialize, we might as well allow well-sourced material to organically flesh out a stub on the topic.
IMO the topic itself is valuable to document and examine since -- the fact is, public figures' have images: a writer's, a celebrity's, a politician's -- as these images are promulgated through the individual's "work." And a great part of this work is to create and show to the public characteristics of the public person's self, which reflections of reality are then sort of batted back and forth by commmentators attempting to digest and analyze or, as you say, shape them, emphasizing appealing aspects and deemphasizing unappealing ones, and on and on. It has got everything to do with popularity, of course; and such popularity often has got to do with the public person's background and identity -- including intangibles connected with how the pubic relate to the celebrated person -- so that tons of ink come to be spilt on this stuff. Depending on what type of public person it is, it's not only in the popular press and news reports but in partisan statements, pundit pieces, and scholarly analyses, all touching on the public person's image.
(Two examples that come to mind with the current political campaign : Bill O'Reilly said, in his recent interview of Barack, something like, "Barack, people don't relate to you because you hang with ultra lefties." (Or, so O'Reilly alleged. Um, so apparently it's not necessarily being alleged that Barack's own views are themselves extreme but only that those Barack has associated with have views that are extreme, and these associations must be thought to rub off on him -- all in an "identity politics" kind of way, sort of?) Or notice this recent survey from the ultra swing state of Ohio that gives the percentage, currently, of Ohio voters that said they "related the best" to Sarah at 31%; that related the best to Mac there at 20%; to Barack, at 20%; and those that related the best to Joe Biden at 10%.)
  1. Religious debates over Harry Potter
  2. Ronald Reagan in fiction
  3. Media Coverage of the Iraq War
  4. Commentary on Palestine Peace Not Apartheid
  5. Santa Claus in Northern American culture
  6. Mark Twain in popular culture
  7. Wikipedia in culture
  8. Criticism of Noam Chomsky   Justmeherenow (  ) 18:42, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom. --Tom 16:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep This just follows WP:SUMMARY. Besides, other politicians like Obama and McCain all have their own <<Cultural and political image>> articles. Also, the main Palin article is already huge, and if we merge this article into that one, then it will be even bigger. Regards, Tempodivalse (talk) 18:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete with extreme prejudice: This is yet another unecessary content fork on a topicwhich we already have great difficulty in policing. It seems to be serving largely to degrade our sourcing standards even further from the encyclopedic. It's a WP:COATRACK and always will be, by design, for one set of partisans or another. Make it stop. MastCell Talk 20:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Please see * Public_image_of_Barack_Obama, and Cultural_and_political_image_of_John_McCain. There is no reason why this article cannot be as good as these two. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:02, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    To be honest, I'm not that psyched about either of those two articles either. But in both cases, the parent articles (Barack Obama and John McCain) are relatively stable and longstanding affairs. That sort of situation lends itself well to spinouts. The Palin article is still in a major state of flux and there are dozens of active disputes at any given time across a lot of subarticles. I'd rather prune some of them in the interest of funneling efforts into the main article first, and this seems like one of the less encyclopedic and more problematic content forks. But that's just my opinion. MastCell Talk 08:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I could not agree more with Mastcell here. He is absolutely 100% correct. You have no idea what endless arguments we had at the McCain article trying to figure out how to summarize that lousy subarticle. It was a complete and total nightmare, and that was a stable article. By contrast, the Sarah Palin articles are extremely unstable, and will likely remain so. We're just begging for trouble here.Ferrylodge (talk) 08:15, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ferrylodge, you made exactly the opposite argument in defense of the Mayoralty of Sarah Palin spinout, saying that its existence would allow a smaller group of editors to get the material right before summarizing it in the main article. I also think your characterization of "complete and total nightmare" for the McCain case is gross hyperbole. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:21, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WTR, it should go without saying that Mayoralty of Sarah Palin is an extremely precise title for an article. In contrast Cultural and political image of Sarah Palin is extremely vague. And dealing with the corresponding McCain article might not have been a complete and total nightmare for you, but it was for me.  :-) Ferrylodge (talk) 22:01, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand the idea that this article is necessarily a coatrack. Why does one's cultural and political image necessarily carry POV? Just because you're worried that it could be a POV problem or even if you think it already is a POV problem, that itself is no rationale for deletion. This only makes sense if you think that an article about one's "cultural and political image" must be inherently POV. Given that you think the POV could go either way, to me that means that there's certainly a middle ground of neutrality possible. No inherent POV, no coatrack, no POV fork. Oren0 (talk) 16:31, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that virtually anything anyone could possibly say about Sarah Palin qualifies as part of her "political and cultural image". So, it is virtually impossible to get consensus to remove just about anything. People who want to fill the article up with crud will have a very easy time of it, and the only way to counter that is for others to fill the article up with flattery.Ferrylodge (talk) 22:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V and WP:RS value scholarly/academic journal sources above all else, and that ideally is what would make up this section. See Hillary Rodham Clinton#Cultural and political image for a good example. If that is not yet available, then the kind of "serious writers" that are used in parts of Cultural and political image of John McCain should be used. The standard Hannity & Colmes or blogger bashing back and forth type sources, ignore completely. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WTR, if we look at the present article, and subtract the non-scholarly/academic journal sources, do you think that the article is justified at this point?Ferrylodge (talk) 02:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't especially care what the present article looks like ... AfD is about whether an article is allowed to exist at all ... but were I insane enough to work on Palin articles, yes I believe I could find enough "serious writer" content now to make a decent article, and surely enough scholarly/academic content in the intermediate-term future to make a good article. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:22, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for acknowledging that this article is written by insane people.  :-) Ferrylodge (talk) 05:04, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I assure you, while you might consider Palin critics insane, we feel the same way about her extreme pretense of normalcy;) LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 18:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete It is true that there are similar articles, but they are for the Presidential candidates themselves. So far as I am aware, there are no similar articles for Dick Cheney, John Edwards, Al Gore or Joe Biden. That suggests that this is not an intrinsically important topic. Moreover, while it might be possible to find good information, the current stage of the page is atrocious. Since the page both lacks direct precedent, and lacks any information would obviously justify a page, I think it falls under WP:N. For the next two months, Palin will be just a vice-presidential nominee, so her notability for encyclopedic purposes is actually rather low--look at the comparable content for Lloyd Bentsen. Should Palin become the actual VP, perhaps such an article would be merited, if public opinion had coalesced more. As it stands, there seems to be little rationale for the article. JustinBlank (talk) 22:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • looks like the current vote count is 9 "delete", 9 "something else". Sounds like no-consensus to me. Duuude007 (talk) 00:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's only been two days. I think the typical period for something like this is five days.Ferrylodge (talk) 00:17, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Over and over, material has been excised from the Sarah Palin article on the stated grounds that it is allegedly excessive detail. The daughter articles (political positions, governorship, image, etc.) are the only place where properly sourced information can be presented without being subjected to such expungement. If the "image" article tends to have more material on one side or the other, that can obviously be balanced, as is done with the other politicians' "image" articles. The tougher problem is balancing the main article. JamesMLane t c 07:51, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and neutralize The fact that her hunting, fishing, and Midwestern accent give her a folksy rural kind of image is interesting and can be presented in a NPOV way (which, by the way, is not the current state of the article).--Loodog (talk) 15:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Another reminder that the article should stay on topic: I deleted all the random facts that ended up in here in the last few days, none of which had to do with Sarah Palin's image. This article should deal with interpretations and perceptions. In other words, think popular culture, think opinion pieces, think reactions to campaign statements. I added a section on perceptions of Palin's take on teen pregnancy and on clinton - I think this helps to clarify the relevance of the entry.LamaLoLeshLa (talk) 18:24, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete: Article is not written per Wikipedia's policy of NPOV. Keep the objective material in the article on Sarah Palin, and have contributors put their perceptions of Palin's public image on their own blogs or in comments on newspaper articles.wleman (talk) 19:02, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or merge and make it better. See precedents below. FangedFaerie (Talk | Edits) 21:13, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Most of the article meets all Wikipedia Standards, including BLP. Remove information in violaton of BLP, and leave the remainder. Atom (talk) 21:56, 18 September 2008 (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.
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