The result was no consensus. While I am as skeptical as anyone about whether there can be a non-blank "list of honest politicians" (or of honest people tout court), the "keep" opinions make the valid point that whether a political leader is indeed "renowned for their integrity", as the list is now entitled, is a matter of collecting reliable sources to that effect, and not of editorial opinion (read: original research). There is therefore no compelling reason to delete this article in the absence of a clear consensus for deletion. Sandstein 08:18, 7 March 2013 (UTC) reply
Attempting to compile a list of "honest" politicians implicitly requires Wikipedia editors to make a value judgment about each politician, which unavoidably violates WP:OR, WP:NOT#ESSAY, and WP:NPOV. Sure, we can find sources that say "Abraham Lincoln was an honest politician" (after all, his nickname was Honest Abe), but we can undoubtedly find sources that say he was also dishonest (just google "Abraham Lincoln dishonest" for plenty of examples). How do we reconcile these conflicting sources to determine if he was sufficiently honest to appear in this list?
This is true of any politician, or any person, for that matter. No one is 100% honest for every moment of their life. How honest must someone be to appear on this list? 90% honest? 75% honest? Are white lies ok? How do we quantitatively measure their honesty level without original research?
This list is fundamentally flawed and not feasibly maintainable, because its inclusion criteria requires us to inject our own opinions. ‑Scottywong | gab _ 23:46, 27 February 2013 (UTC) reply
"George, said his father, do you know who killed that beautiful little cherry-tree yonder in the garden? This was a tough question; and George staggered under it for a moment; but quickly recovered himself: and looking at his father, with the sweet face of youth brightened with the inexpressible charm of all-conquering truth, he bravely cried out, "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet."--Run to my arms, you dearest boy, cried his father in transports, run to my arms; glad am I, George, that you killed my tree; for you have paid me for it a thousand fold. Such an act of heroism in my son, is more worth than a thousand trees, though blossomed with silver, and their fruits of purest gold."
Keep and work on, is better than the title makes you think it would be (maybe re-title). From the name, I thought it was a joke (and had a ready reply about why not a list of dishonest ones...too many haha). But it really is kind of a decent article on politicians renowned for integrity (Cincinattus and all). I think it could be expanded to look at this meme more. For instance, I was going to add a little boxed quote from the famous story about the cherry tree (which is apocryphal, but the point is that it spells out a concept. See here. (It's PD too...mwahaha.) TCO ( talk) 19:03, 2 March 2013 (UTC) reply