Talk:Alaska's At-large congressional district

As an Alaskan, I must take issue with the notion that we should delete this article. Why should we? There is much useful information about Alaska's at-large congressional district--for instance, a list of Representatives from Alaska. --Larry Sanger 14:43, 7 November 2006 (CST)

There is an issue over whether CZ should expand into the areas WP recently has in terms of elections (one of my specialties - see Paddington South (UK Parliament constituency) which I wrote). WP is aiming to have articles on every constituency for election to national legislatures and significant sub-national ones as well. However this is the sort of thing which traditional encyclopaedias have left to more specialist publications. It's not that there's not a lot to say about the issue, more a question of whether it is truly an encyclopaedia function. I don't have strong views and indeed I would love to write more comprehensive constituency articles. David Boothroyd 15:10, 7 November 2006 (CST)

The policy that I advocate, and which I want to articulate more clearly, is that if we can have a full set of articles of a certain type (as well as about broader/more important topics as well!), then we should. We are not bound by the space requirements of a general encyclopedia; we have the disk space (and needn't worry about paper publishing costs) and we have more personnel than proprietary encyclopedias. Therefore, the only question is whether we will, in the near- to medium-term, be able responsiblyto maintain articles about all national election districts (or whatever the best catch-all term is). Frankly, I don't see why not. That's my off-the-cuff analysis, and I invite further analysis. --Larry Sanger 16:18, 7 November 2006 (CST)

I disagree here. For an article to exist in an encyclopaedia, even if we agree that anything can potentially be included in it, it must give answer to the five Ws and be written at a certain level.

As it is, the article does not tell us when this district was created (time frame, time line), what is it exactly ("congressional district" is not an answer), where exactly it is, who (historical figures of interest connected to it) or why should this interest us. Or, in short, there should be a story here.

I also dislike showing election results here: there should be a place that will display those properly and unless there is detailed analysis of the elections (every election) that adds some information necessitating this displayed here, this is a plain distractor to readers. It's much better to refer users to a reliable source (e.g. here) and simply describe what went on.

As it is, this article is no more than simple stats that should not exist in an encyclopaedia. Ori Redler 08:34, 11 November 2006 (CST)

FWIW I've added the certified election results. David Boothroyd 08:10, 10 December 2006 (CST)

Ori, when you say, "For an article to exist in an encyclopaedia, even if we agree that anything can potentially be included in it, it must give answer to the five Ws and be written at a certain level," I agree, but we are developing encyclopedia articles. The articles here are drafts. They may be severely lacking. But it is counterproductive, on a wiki, to delete everything that is not perfect. It is not the case that only complete articles will be permissible on CZ. That would be a profoundly counterproductive policy. Of course, only complete articles should be approved, but that's another matter entirely. --Larry Sanger 12:14, 10 December 2006 (CST)