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 delete.  Sandstein  16:48, 5 April 2016 (UTC) reply

Current leaders of Seattle (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log · Stats)

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This article has several issues which make me believe that not only is it in an outdated state of disrepair, but there is also no way to salvage it. As stated in the first line of the article, this list may or may not be accurate since 2006. Something like this would be better off as a category, not an article. (Also, I don't recommend redirecting this title since it seems that none of the Seattle-related articles have a section or anything similar listing leaders. [Which, in itself, "leaders" is a rather vague and ambiguous word; does the word refer to governmental leaders, motivational leaders, etc.?]) Steel1943 ( talk) 15:24, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politicians-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 17:42, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 17:42, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Washington-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal ( talk) 20:05, 20 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete. Other than being arbitrary about the criteria for "leader", what's there is already handled by List of mayors of Seattle, Seattle City Council and Seattle Public Schools. Clarityfiend ( talk) 09:29, 21 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Delete. If this were a good format, we'd use it for all similar cities. Better for readers to just go to the Seattle, Seattle City Council, etc. pages. Chris vLS ( talk) 17:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC) reply
• Move to List of elected officials in Seattle to salvage, as with List of elected officials in Los Angeles and List of elected officials in Bakersfield, California. The criteria are clear: all the officials elected in the City government, plus those representing city residents at other levels of government. Also the Port of Seattle commissioners and the school board. A similarly defined category is also a good idea, per WP:NOTDUP. Whether a government body's chief executive, chief of police, judges, and others are elected or appointed is a defining characteristic so it's meaningful to enumerate them, and to be able to compare what's elected and what's not between cities.

  Navigation tools like {{ Seattle Government}} are fine as far as they go, but they're defined to include appointed officials like police chief or Seattle Public Utilities director, while excluding other elected such as the school board and Port of Seattle commissioners. The elected officials representing the city are a unique class worthy of a list. I'm surprised there aren't more lists like List of elected officials in Los Angeles. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 04:48, 22 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Delete per WP:NOTDIR and permanence principle: The title, as it stands, seems to be the sort of time-restricted thing that Wikipedia tries to avoid, at least as a goal. Having the word "current" in there practically guarantees the content will become false once a year or more, rather than merely incomplete. There's a long-standing principle on Wikipedia of article content not being temporarily true on Wikipedia: see, for example, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references, Wikipedia:Notability is not temporary, WP:EPHEMERAL, WP:PRECISELANG. That sort of constant churn should be left to Portal:Current events, and those folks shouldn't have to keep up on local city events to update articles. It could also be in a navigation template, except that most of the people there would not be separately notable. Also, this seems to violate WP:NOTDIR: A list of all Seattle mayors or something might be in scope; but a current directory is not: Anyone can get the current list from city hall, and if they're not important enough to stay in an article for the next 100 years, they're not important enough now. -- Closeapple ( talk) 18:28, 29 March 2016 (UTC) reply

• Nothing in WP:NOTDIR says anything of the sort. Which part do you think is relevant to a list of current leaders? A leader is not an event, they are an office holder. How is that ephemeral? Saying Andrea Merkel is chancellor of Germany is "likely to be outdated" per WP:EPHEMERAL, but that's not what the guideline is referring to.

  There is no "longstanding principle" that you imagine. Just take a look at Wikipedia:Featured lists. List of tallest buildings in Albuquerque? That's very ephemeral. Academy Award for Best Director? Changes every year! List of current Canadian first ministers, List of current Indian chief ministers, List of current Indian governors, List of current members of the Maryland Senate? There are many lists of current officeholders.

  "The featured lists are what we believe to be the best lists in Wikipedia. Before being listed here, lists are reviewed as featured list candidates for usefulness, completeness, accuracy, neutrality, style and prose according to our featured list criteria." It takes significant consensus to reach Feature List status, and it's strong evidence that this kind of list is very much accepted, per Wikipedia:Featured list candidates. A simple reading of the relevant policies and guidelines -- Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists -- flatly contradicts your arguments. Wikipedia has nothing like a "not important in 100 years" rule. -- Dennis Bratland ( talk) 18:56, 29 March 2016 (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.