Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Republican/Democrat In Name Only

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Republican/Democrat In Name Only was proposed for deletion. This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was keep

The article states that this is a "disparaging term" and then goes on to list people who the term could be applied to. How can this article ever be anything besides a platform for POV-pushing and name calling? Even if the article is kept, the list needs to be removed (or at least provide evidence of who has applied the label to each person on the list). I mean, imagine if the articles for other disparaging terms (eg. Ugly American, Uncle Tom, Newbie to name three) had lists of "putative" candidates for labeling. If this term remains in use for a long time, maybe one day it will deserve an article. For now, I say delete. And if the vote is to keep, at least delete the lists (so please vote about that also, if you vote to keep the article). ~leif (talk)[[]] 07:03, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • This article is badly needed. Keep and cleanup. If anything, I applaud the editor that chose to combine both of these topics into one article. The list appears correct too. I think finding sources on these commonly-cited "in name onlys" will be no problem. Term has been in use for years and (at least "RINO") has fairly wide use. Enough that reporters ask questions about it and columnists toss it around. Ex: "Conservatives go RINO hunting" - Opinion "Moderate Republicans bemoan party's hard right turn" - news Cool Hand Luke 07:14, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Leif asks, "How can this article ever be anything besides a platform for POV-pushing and name calling?" Well, for example by being pretty much as it is right now. I'm not sufficiently well informed about US politics to be able to judge the article properly, but I know enough to recognize that RINO and DINO, as explained, fit several of the people listed and may very well be used for them. The article is polite and seems neutral. Unless there's a more compeling reason for deletion, keep. Hoary 07:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Do you think the politicians on these lists, or the people who voted for them, would agree that they are republicans or democrats in name only? I understand that a few of them do, but I think most don't, so their inclusion on the list is presenting only one POV of a controversial issue. There is no problem with Wikipedia containing the fact that politician (or columnist) X called politician Y an XYZ "in name only", but these lists in their present form (with no attribution of who called who what) seem unacceptably non-neutral to me. ~leif (talk)[[]] 08:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • keep. but back-up the names with references. It's definitely a real topic, and DINO/RINO are real, in-use terms, but I'm not so sure about some of the examples. John McCain, for one, may be a social moderate, but I don't think he's a real RINO, certainly not compared to the likes of Lincoln Chafee. Ditto Arnie, who seems to be a committed Republican, despite being way to the left of most of his party on social issues. Varitek 08:13, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • A "real" RINO? He's certainly called one, by the Club for Growth and National Federation of Republican Assemblies, for example. Agian, citing these would be no problem. If no one else does, I will before VfD is up. Probably it'd be easiest to footnote abreviations for each sorce, because there's high overlap. Say "John S. McCain III of Arizona (CFG, NFRA)", ect. Cool Hand Luke 19:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Reluctant keep. This seems like a flash-in-the-pan epitaph to me but we've kept political slogans that were even less timeworthy. If kept, I strongly recommend the removal of both lists of names. They will continue to create POV difficulties yet they add virtually nothing to the understanding of the concept. Rossami (talk) 09:57, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I disagree. The list of names is important for an understanding of context. -Joseph (Talk) 15:39, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)
  • Keep - wellknown political term. Article should outline the sources of the terms and response of those accused.
  • Keep, but: Keep, but I agree that the lists do less of a service than the rest of the article. The article provides references and gives actual actions taken by identifiable groups. Also, the article ends on a quote, where a guest speaker, as it were, tips the balance of POV for too long. There are quite a few edits that would help, but the article in general is sound and well done. Geogre 14:45, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Some people get overly offended when their pet senators or congresscritters show up on this list. The list is only for those politicians that are accused of being RINO/DINO in the widespread media. Eg. Arbitrary adding of names is a no-no. By the way, I'm amazed that someone had the gall to put a VfD on this. Ulterior motive? -Joseph (Talk) 15:18, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)
    • As the nominator of this VfD, I'm curious as to what you think my ulterior motive would be. Keeping wikipedia neutral and accurate is all that I'm trying to do here; I assure you that I certainly don't have a "pet congresscritter" on either list. ~leif ☺ HELO 20:41, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
      • Not certain exactly. It seems like you're determined to sink an article which I don't believe is nearly as POV as you seem to think it is. Also, keep the list. -Joseph (Talk) 23:44, 2004 Nov 22 (UTC)
  • Keep Good article on a relevant topic 129.177.61.120 14:38, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete unless there is an objective measure or verifiable authority for inclusion/exclusion, listing names is merely reporting hearsay, decidedly not encyclopedic. (Could be cleaned up to remove names, or to specifically ascribe each inclusion - at which point Wikipedia will become a mouthpiece.) - Amgine 15:35, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • I think citing well-known conservatives and RINO hunting groups that label them as such should be sufficient. We need to characterize the position of such POVs (although more needs to be done to qualify these name-callers). There's no need to include people who have merely been labeled "in name only" by a couple of random blogs because there's actually a reasonably large base that throws around many of the same names. Cool Hand Luke 19:19, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Mark Richards 17:28, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep Provides a good overview of a notable aspect of current US politics. --LeeHunter 17:36, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. If the list of names is no good, send it to Pages Needing Attention or cleanup or just edit the list yourself; I really don't see what the problem is. AND I've yet to see any remotely legitimate reason under current policy why this should be deleted - there's no case to answer. AND, since you asked, keep the lists too, provided that they can be properly cited. - RedWordSmith 18:11, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your suggestions. I did consider listing it on cleanup, but I saw that there were already a number of people actively editing it and I decided that the article itself seemed more like deletion material than cleanup. I didn't fix the lists myself, because I'm not familiar enough with various partisan name-calling organizations to have known how/where to find the attributions. The policy that is being violated, at least until every person on both lists has an attribution, is WP:NPOV. Without attributions, these lists are inevitably going to be subjects for argument and POV-pushing. I thank the people who have begun finding attributions for the RINOs list since this VfD started. The DINO list is still wholly unattributed, however. Even with full attribution on both lists, I would still favor deleting this article, but if the attributions are added it won't be such a blatant violation NPOV. ~leif ☺ HELO 20:41, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. [[User:GRider|GRider\talk]] 23:18, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. This term is in pretty widespread use... 33,800 Google hits for RINO republican. I don't hear it much from the Democrat side, but the Republicans use it quite often (Rush Limbaugh is probably the most prominent example, but I think it's used by Congress members too). So it's above just a mere inclusion on the list of political epithets. It deserves its own article. --Idont Havaname 00:20, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Extremely delete. Explaining what it is is no more than a dictdef. Listing people is possibly libellous, let alone POV pushing, and at that, original research. You could, I suppose, have lists of people accused of it. Then you'd only be libelling them. A term's being in "widespread use" does not actually speak for an article about the term. If you wrote an article about "the", I'd vote to delete that double plus extremely. (Don't tell me there is one...)Dr Zen 00:46, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • This is not libel. Libel cannot involve a subjective statement, period, let alone about a political figure. Nor is this a dictdef—it requires far more elaboration than that. Anyhow, the point of the article is not what any of us think, but to refer to a concept that political talking heads have furthered. In any event, what's with these panty-anty "strong keep" and "extremely delete" things? It's either "keep" or "delete." Nevermind the bad grammar. -Joseph (Talk) 01:45, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)
      • "Libel cannot involve a subjective statement"? Don't try that defence if you're ever sued! BTW, a man who doesn't know that "never mind" are two words ought to keep his opinion on "grammar" locked up where no one can see it.Dr Zen 02:06, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
        • Picking over words and insulting another member doesn't change the fact that there's no way the term can possibly be considered libelous, at least by the laws of the United States. No opinion on keeping or deleting article, just clarifying that there's absolutely no chance this could ever pose a legal problem. DreamGuy 02:29, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
          • It's almost impossible to libel a public figure in the US: you need malicious intent and at least a reckless regard for factuality. This article is no more in danger of that than any other. Keep. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:42, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, but prune the lists and contextualize the entries. "According to XXXX" is not, by itself, sufficient context for inclusion, as each party has extremists/centrists who believe the centrists/extremists to not be "real" members of the party. -Sean Curtin 01:36, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. NeoJustin 03:02, Nov. 23 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Notable concept. --Improv 21:50, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Notable topic. Keep, but consider splitting into two separate articles. Bearcat 03:56, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Delete. If the term is still in use in 2008, it can go into the Wiktionary. This is not an encyclopedia topic; there are no neutral POV criteria for determining whether a member of a political party merits the epithet "in name only". --Minority Report (entropy rim riot) 01:34, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. This is a very interesting and relevant term that belongs on this site. I didn't know what it meant when I heard it used an Wikipedia was the first place I checked. Imagine if it weren't there for those who don't know for what it stands... it's necessary. --the sleeper 03:41, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Why should we leave people in the dark on the premise of offending someone? --jm51 21:18, 25 Nov 2004 (PST)
  • Keep. Very informative and is, currently, reasonably NPOV. People will encounter this term and Wikipedia should explain this term to them. Also, the listings of specific politicians with the rationale is an important and quick heads up on US politics especially given the central role of the US today. As an non-American, I benefit from this kind of valuable information. Plus, this article will provide useful historic information for those in the future who try to decrypt today's bizarre US politics. WpZurp 05:49, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep, please. This is something that exist, if it is liked or not. -- Mattworld 04:31, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. I don't think the article is NPOV as is, but the article is not hopeless. COGDEN 08:03, Nov 28, 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. Ground 21:44, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
  • Keep. --Sina 09:47, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)


The vote so far (after one week) is:
Delete: 4
Keep: 25
Would someone mind double-checking my count? Not that it will matter much. -Joseph (Talk) 05:27, 2004 Nov 30 (UTC)
As the nominator, I'll go ahead and unlist this now... I see that I am clearly in the minority on this. At least the article got a bit closer to being NPOV during the course of this vote. Hopefully all of the DINO labels listed will also be attributed soon. ~leif ☺ HELO 06:58, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like other '/delete' pages is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion or on the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages. Please do not edit this page.

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