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 merge to United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010. Opinions are split beween merge and delete, so lacking a consensus to delete outright the outcome has to be to merge this article into the election article. It can be spun off per WP:SS again should the lawsuit progress signifcantly and attract more coverage that is not mainly about the election in whose context it was filed.  Sandstein  07:51, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Miller v. Campbell (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log  • AfD statistics)

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Reasons: Lack of event notability which is required for a separate article. Lack of lasting significance; there is no indication this case is anything other than a flash-in-the-pan. One or two more days of vote counting, and Miller is likely to give up the suit due to mathematical impossibility as well as pressure from the Republican party. He is also unlikely to prevail based on a case (Bush v. Gore) that the Supreme Court specifically said was not to be used as a precedent in further cases. So the odds are very good the case won't be going anywhere, and there will be not be the depth of coverage which also required for event notability. Finally there is currently insufficient depth of coverage because the State of Alaska has not formally answered the allegations in Miller's complaint. Thus the articles' detailing of the allegations and issues lacks the depth necessary for a stand alone article. --KeptSouth (talk) 12:46, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Speedy keep This is a silly nomination given the timing—like nominating an article on Bush v. Palm Beach County for deletion on Nov. 18, 2000 because nothing has happened yet. Nor can the subject matter simply be merged into another article, because it pertains to at least two other articles, Joe Miller and United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010. Deleting the article now makes no sense if you consider the two possible ways this could play out: (1) The case could go nowhere, or (2) it could become groundbreaking and controversial. In a month, we will know which. If we delete the article now, and scenario (2) happens, we will have to create an article on the case, and so deleting it will waste everyone's time in creating, debating, deleting, and then recreating the article. Alternatively, if we leave the article in place and scenario (1) happens, we can delete the article at that point. There is no cost to leaving it, no benefit to deleting it, and it should stay until we see how this plays out. Think it through. Keep the article for now and let's revisit the question in a month. - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 14:13, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and delete Simon has unintentionally given more reasons why this topic is not ready to be a stand alone article. And that has made me think a little more about this. I now believe it should be merged into the United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010 article right now - that is really all it concerns . And if the case itself turns into a significant event, it can be forked off again. This case is in no way comparable to Bush v. Gore, and nothing will be lost by a merge at this time. -KeptSouth (talk) 14:37, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There's no such thing as merge and delete. We can either keep and merge, in which case no deletion may be performed per the terms of our copyright licence, or delete, in which case it is not possible to re-use any of this content or edit history. Having your cake or eating it. You get to pick only one. Uncle G (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It strikes me that KeptSouth's real beef with the article is that he thinks Miller's lawsuit is silly and doomed to fail: In saying "[t]his case is in no way comparable to Bush v. Gore," he fails to recognize that two days after it was filed, Bush v. Gore was in no way comparable to Bush v. Gore, either. Just how long must Wikipedia wait before creating an article on potentially significant litigation? Must an appeals court rule? What if the District Court had ruled for Miller last night? What if it rules for him next week?

And by the way, as to Keptsouth's claim that Bush was a one-shot deal and so a case citing it must be frivolous and doomed, Bush is alive and well, cited as authority by judges in cases like Stewart v. Blackwell, 444 F.3d. 843 (6th Cir. 2006), and by litigants almost every election cycle, e.g. Coleman v. Franken, 762 N.W.2d 218 (Minn. 2009); Fruitlands v. Todd, 279 F.3d 1204 (10th Cir. 2002). The court may reject the claim, but we may not do so a priori.- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 15:06, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Alaska-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 15:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Law-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 15:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 15:35, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge into the article on the election - nothing suggests that this case may attain independent legal notability outside of its relevance to the election, nor that the article would become so long as to require a fork. No reason to delete, as this makes a plausible redirect following the merger. Ray^Talk 15:42, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would absolutely support a merge—on the proviso that we wait a month and merge only if nothing comes of the case. Is that acceptable? - Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 16:17, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is exactly the opposite of how notability works. We follow the principle that not-notable things can become notable, notable things cannot become non-notable. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. We don't know if the court will make a significant decision or simply find some existing law to apply here. We don't know if this will become a Supreme Court case. We don't even know if any truly novel arguments will be advanced in the argument. Until one of these things (or something akin to them) happens, this is a WP:ONEEVENT and should be merged into the article about the election. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:21, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge/redirect to United States Senate election in Alaska, 2010. There's plenty of room for this content there. Beeblebrox (talk) 20:36, 11 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge pending appeals. Bearian (talk) 02:31, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I would like to request that this AfD be closed because there is a clear consensus for merge into the election article with the Miller v. Campbell article becoming a redirect. Would someone please close this AfD so that the merge can be done? Thanks. KeptSouth (talk) 08:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Your hurry is a little unbecoming... Needless and counterproductive haste to delete the article, needless haste to close the AfD (it usually runs for seven days, WP:SNOW notwithstanding)… You know there's no deadline, right?- Simon Dodd { U·T·C·WP:LAW } 13:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, I think he was calling SNOW on this discussion. --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 16:01, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete This is really part of the election campaign and should be in that article. If the case sets a precedent then it could be resurrected. TFD (talk) 15:52, 12 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete To rehash a rather constant complaint of mine regarding Wikipedia, people spend way too much time following the corporate media looking for things to write about. Meanwhile, the state of Alaskan political articles in general tends to be rather desultory, with entire eras of its history largely or completely unrepresented. Haven't we all been bombarded lately with "personal appeals from Jimmy Wales" which state up front, "no agendas?" A year and two ago, it was filling as many Alaska-related pages as possible with mostly nonsensical references to Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin ceased to be of concern to Alaska the moment she resigned as governor.RadioKAOS (talk) 18:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. From what I have read on Alaskan newspaper sites, this lawsuit appears to be a complete non-starter. I cannot see that the lawsuit will lead to any interesting precedent in a higher court, or have any impact on the election's result. The entire lawsuit is far less notable than the lawsuit attached to the United States Senate election in Minnesota, 2008, where a close vote count dragged out the election result for several months, and that lawsuit doesn't have an article either. Sjakkalle (Check!) 13:39, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• I have improved the content so that it is more suitable for a merge because even though the suit is very likely to be dismissed, discussion of the suit will still be notable as an event involving the election of Alaska's senator in 2010. Of course, the content can and should be summarized when merged into the elections article. KeptSouth (talk) 11:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge and redirect to the election article. The lawsuit does not seem to be independently notable yet. If it somehow turns out otherwise, it can always be expanded back. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:04, 18 November 2010 (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.