This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of politics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PoliticsWikipedia:WikiProject PoliticsTemplate:WikiProject Politicspolitics articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Canada, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Canada on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CanadaWikipedia:WikiProject CanadaTemplate:WikiProject CanadaCanada-related articles
Latest comment: 18 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
The section on the US says that only Maine has elected an independent governor. Are we talking true independents (that is, those who have no affiliation) or can we also include small third parties on this list? There are numerous examples of third-party governors, the most recent being Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. whose A Connecticut Party was essentially a vehicle for his personal post-Republican political career. --Jfruh (talk) 02:27, 20 July 2006 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 17 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Senator Harry F. Byrd, Jr. was also an independent politician in United States. He was originally a Democrat but left the party in 1970, remaining in the Senate as an independent until 1983. Wooyi03:11, 9 March 2007 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 16 years ago10 comments4 people in discussion
The IPO was created to provide ballot access for independents. Both the effort by the Oregon legislature to limit ballot access for independent candidates and efforts to remedy that action are as pertinent to this category as the references to local parties in the UK. Also, reference list from IPO web site included contemporary news articles from Oregon newspapers, fair use with attribution, that are otherwise no longer available on the web. Bad form to delete them and revert the article without at least reading the references to determine relevence, or taking part in discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speralta (talk • contribs) 06:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Also show me an article thats not based on your page and i'll belive you because the articles I found just say its another party trying not to be a democrat or republican Gang1406:23, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
3 articles pertain to HB2614, which limited ballot access for independent party candidates. Not one of them mentions the Independent Party of Oregon. The fourth reference is an Amicus Brief filed by the organizers of the Independent Party on behalf of independent candidates whose ballot access was restricted by HB 2614 -- the subject of the other 3 articles. If you'd actually read the articles, you'd know that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Speralta (talk • contribs) 07:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
doesnt matter if i read it or not the articles are come from that site so it will help your cause second sign you dam posts third I put the extra stuff for everything in the right part of the article so stop putting it at the top where it doesnt belong Gang1407:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
P.S. I'm not deleting it I'm just asking for more proof and again sign your posts its not hard you just have to press the same button four times Gang1407:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)Reply
Restored reference to independent party. The articles archived on the IPO site are from major Oregon media sources, and are cited as such. Archival of the pieces was necessary since none of the papers in question maintains articles for more than a few months.
I disagree with your change. The issue of the legislature blocking ballot access to independent candidates in Oregon was the reason why a political party is created. The formation of such parties is a critical component of ballot access when independent candidates run. There are similar references to local political paries in this wiki, and have been for some time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.111.142.43 (talk) 05:15, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply
Bill Slavick received 5% of the vote, and had no impact on the race; Christy Mihos received 7% of the vote, which had no impact on the race, and was not a candidate for Congress, so should not be in the Congressional section. I've removed Slavick from the count as 'major' candidates - single-digit percentages in an election decided by more than 15% is not "major". XINOPH| TALK
FORMATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES BY "INDEPENDENT" CANDIDATES IN US
Latest comment: 15 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
As in other countries, many "independent" candidates for public office form political parties to gain ballot access in states where it is easier to form a political party than it is to run as a wholly unaffiliated candidate. Most notably, this happens in Oregon, Idaho, Connecticut, and New Mexico. These parties may or may not be called "Independent Parties". In Oregon, for example, Nader formed "the Peace Party" to gain ballot access in 2008. This page recognizes candidates who form parties for the purposes of running for public office as "independent" when it relates to other countries, but one unscrupulous editor (gang14), repeatedly changes the page without comment or discussion when similar provisions are created as it relates to the United States. Further, in some states, legislatures have similarly made it more difficult for non-affiliated candidates to gain ballot access. These changes are also frequently deleted by gang14, even though they are relevant to the history of independent politicians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.225.245.198 (talk) 16:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Most "Independent parties" in US were formed for the purpose of giving independent candidates ballot access -- most notably, Ralph Nader. The Independent Party of Oregon example is a clear example of a response to legislative efforts to keep independent candidates off of the ballot, and is cited as such in full accordance with wikipedia guidelines.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Speralta (talk • contribs) 04:55, 16 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 15 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
What's the deal with the addition to this article of Teddy Roosevelt's running as a Bull Moose in 1912? That wouldn't be an independent candidacy, but a third-party candidacy. Qqqqqq (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 06:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)Reply
Political independent person vs. political independent politician
Latest comment: 14 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
Will editors please stop removing the reference to Independent Candidate and stop trying to promote the American Independence Party which has no relation to this article and is simply spam?
The reference to independent candidate was removed by me a few days after my revert of independent candidate to redirect here for the reasons outlined on Talk:Independent candidate. I have no view on small American political parties; I simply left that link in when removing the one to independent candidate. I will leave the link here until the discussion is resolved. 128.232.241.211 (talk) 23:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Bob Katter (Aussie pollie) from 1 June 2011 is no longer an indepentent politician - because he is a member of the Bob Katters Australia party! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.148.207.230 (talk) 04:36, 4 August 2011 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 12 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Do people think it might be a good idea to have mentions of Italy and Greece down there given that both countries currently have independent Prime Ministers? Or should our position be that technocratic leaders do not fall within the category of Independent Politicians given that they are not professional politicians in the career sense and have not been elected via the usual democratic process? I'm curious to hear people's views on this, but I think that perhaps some mention ought to be made on the page either way that non-party affiliated leaders can sometimes end up in office in democracies as technocrats during periods of crisis. Pbrione (talk) 16:34, 27 January 2012 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 10 years ago34 comments14 people in discussion
This discussion is going in two different directions. Let's try and settle on a single new title before a move.
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Note that the proposal has been altered. Originally the new name was simply Independent politician sans parentheses, but Victor falk's comment below is persuasive. The previous voters have been informed.
Strong oppose the absurd rescoping proposal that was just put forth. Wow. That would lead to the removal of almost all the content on this page, since it is about politicians, not mere "political independents". Red Slash04:03, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Support, the current title sounds artificial because it... well, is artificial; the proposal is much more natural. @doktorb: what "untold" damage? Even if there is some extra work needed to fix that, technical reasons should not be a showstopper (although they must be factored in) for executing a natural page move. No such user (talk) 11:57, 17 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Changing my vote. Procedurally: it is NOT cool to change the proposal no less than five days after !voting commenced. It is OK to introduce new proposals, but changing the header to alter history is equal to grandfather paradox. You could have tested the new proposal during or after this erm, previous one. Substantively: I agree with opinions of later, erm, previous posters, about "a vague, ORish creation", "used extremely rarely" and, semantically, being on the completely wrong track as to the article scope. No such user (talk) 11:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose The proposed title sounds less natural to me. I don't know if it's an ENGVAR issue, but in American English, you'd always refer to these people as independents, not independent politicians. Would people know what you mean by that phrase? Sure, but it's not one that would be commonly used. "independent politician" -wikipedia returns fewer results than you'd think, and most are about praising politicians for being independent. --BDD (talk) 18:00, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
WP:NATURALDIS addresses COMMONNAME at the natural disambiguation bullet note: "If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English, albeit not as commonly as the preferred-but-ambiguous title" (here, "Independent"). Dralwik|Have a Chat23:42, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose Most Independents are not actually politicians - they may contest, but most of them fail and as non-elected persons they generally remain non-notable - being a candidate for political office does not make one a politician. Wherever it is used for an elected person it is generally piped, so [[Independent politician|Independent]] affords no advantages over [[Independent (politician)|Independent]]. Gramatically, Independent (politician)isNoun (adjective) - Independent politician flips this on it's head to Adjective noun, and since such an individual is always an Independent but only sometimes a politician change is not warranted. This political designation is more used for /meta/data templates in election tables than it is for elected persons, and as such doesn't need changing. FanN | talk | 13:13, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
I do not see the relevance of the grammatical argument; by that logic we should have the English (language) article instead of English language. As well, the shorthand linking on other pages is not binding on the title of the actual article. Dralwik|Have a Chat14:11, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
I would move this to political independent. I'm not worried at all about templates, since we will still have redirects. bd2412T01:44, 24 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. "Independent" with the necessary disambiguation is really clear. "Political independent" is a vague, ORish creation for an article subject; it's a term I've seen used extremely rarely if at all. The Drover's Wife (talk) 06:54, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
SupportPolitical independent, as it covers both actual politicians (elected or failed), and the concept of political independence. As for templates, since they've been mentioned a few times, nothing is insolvable with a few redirects so they're not really an issue. FanN | talk | 09:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. "Political independent" is an OR term, as far as I can tell. Overwhelmingly within political discourse they are referred to simply as "independent" or "independents", and we should follow that here. Of the two options "independent politician" is far superior to "political independent". I disagree that someone who does not win is not a politician; in fact, our own article explicitly includes candidates for office under the definition. But the current option of "Independent (politician)" is easily the best and clearest option and so should remain. Frickeg (talk) 10:18, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
The current form with parentheses fails our own guidelines on disambiguation, where parenthetical forms are used as only a last resort. But this specific request has gone awry, so I'm withdrawing it and hopefully somebody can find a more unifying proposal to eject those parentheses. Dralwik|Have a Chat13:13, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose; the topics are separate, and we definitely need an article on Independent (politics), about that bloc of voters and and their domcgraphics and history, but it's not this article. Note that even aside from the fact that this aritcle is about independent politicians, the title Politically independent is not how we title articles here. It's not WP:OR, as someone claimed above (the phrase is quite common), but it's a description that seems to require a subject; we have an article at Hunger not "Hungry" (that's a DAB page to various songs and stuff, but that's incidental to the point here). I'd be okay with this article moving to independent politician, since that is actually the subject. However, I think the present title is fine, as the usage is reflected in reliable sources, e.g. "so-and-so ran unopposed as an independnet". — SMcCandlish ☺☏¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 14:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
A) I wasn't notified, and B) what?? have you guys (victor falk, Fanx, BDD, BD2412, Dralwik) even read this article? The lead notwithstanding, the entire article is clearly about politicians, meaning elected officials directly involved with the running of government. Write an article about political independents if you want, but this article is about politicians. I respect you all a lot (well, pleased to meet you, Fanx and Dralwik) but I'm stupefied to how this happened. Please read the article and then write a different article about independent voters, etc. and leave this one at a title that discusses independent politicians. Red Slash03:11, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
At least for the notification bit, check your talk page (and those of the other users). I'm sorry you were caught unaware, but it seems this new proposal has a better chance of passing, preserves the grammar of the original title better to satisfy Fanx' objection, sounds a bit better to my ears which goes with BDD's vote (I took the liberty of moving the bold to his current vote), and if this notion passes, we can get rid of those parentheses. Dralwik|Have a Chat03:17, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I missed it. Your rationales are true, but you ignore the fact that such a move would lead to the deletion of basically all content currently on this page, since the whole article is about independent politicians. Read the article, and then I dare you to tell me it's about anything but independent politicians. And if it is on independent politicians, then the title should reflect that. Red Slash04:01, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
But a political independent is usually not a politician, victor falk. This article is about those rare human beings who are not just political independents, but actual independent politicians. Red Slash05:13, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
A) Yes Red Slash, I have read the article - if you care to do your research you'll note I've contributed to it, as well as to this talk page - long before this current conversation. I have also linked to this article several hundred times, nearly always from these perennially hopeless candidates that clutter the lower end of our election tables. That we don't cover the concept of independent candidacies is our collective failure, but that doesn't mean it is not relevant as a topic. I suspect it is far easier to write about actual independent politicians than it is about the concept.
and B) As I am not one of the guys I'd like like to point out masculinity is not a prerequisite for a wikipedia editor, even if it is the default status for the majority of editors. That said, I thank you for your otherwise charming introduction. FanN | talk | 09:43, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Indeed, User:Fanx, I didn't mean it that way: you guys refers to a group of people regardless of gender (though I see how it could be construed otherwise). And yes, again, the article is about politicians. Red Slash05:07, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Latest comment: 10 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
Well, if we're going to close the then-ongoing discussion because it had forked, and decided that the two directions need to be sorted out first, we actually have to have a discussion in which to do that. The points I get from the above are
This article is not about political independents and political independence generally (which describes voters as well as whom they're voting for), but about politically independent politicians in particular.
An independent politician is one kind of political independent. I therefore see no conflict in using the latter as a title. bd2412T19:50, 25 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Wouldn't a more logical path be to create an article for any broader concepts, and to leave this for what the title says - about independent politicians? The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:21, 26 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 10 years ago24 comments8 people in discussion
The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Independent (politician) → Independent politician – The lead of the article (prior to my recent edit) notwithstanding, the entire body of this article discusses politicians who are independent politically. WP:NATURAL says to boot out parenthetical disambiguators whenever we can; we can here. Let's make something clear: this article is not about independent human beings who are not politicians. It is entirely about politicians. Therefore, the discussion two sections above has nothing to do with this, and we can move on and move the article at the same time. Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 15:50, 6 July 2014 (UTC) Red Slash01:03, 27 June 2014 (UTC)Reply
Strongly Oppose "Independent politician" is not the WP:COMMONNAME. The common name is "Independent", and it has developed a particular meaning not encompassed by the adjectival use of independent. Independents are not always unaligned or simply "independent". The particular meaning of this topic is obscured by the proposed new name since "Independent" is a term of art within politics. Gabrielthursday (talk) 05:00, 3 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Gabrielthursday Can you clarify? I am unaware of any particular meaning of "independent" used to describe a politician that "independent politician" could not convey just as well. Red Slash20:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Well, I'll do my best. Independents come in many forms, and not all of them are "independent" in every sense. In the US Senate, the two "Independents" both caucus with the Democratic Party, and iirc, receive committee assignments and seniority as though they were full members. In lots of national parliaments Independents occassionally style themselves as "Independent Liberals" or "Independent Labour", etc. Independents participate in cabinets, municipal governing coalitions and so forth. "Independent" encompasses all these different expressions, where the adjectival "independent" is inapt, which is why "Independent" has taken on a particular and specialised meaning within politics. Gabrielthursday (talk) 20:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Linguistically speaking, "Independent" has a particular and specialised use in the political arena. It has become a noun, with a distinct (though obviously closely related) meaning to the adjective it is derived from. So "independent politician" (where the adjective is modifying the noun) need not mean quite the same thing as "an independent". It is true to say, for example, that many independents are not very independent. If this is causing confusion, look at it from the perspective of WP:COMMONNAME: it is vastly more common to refer to politicians who are not formal members of any political party as "independents" rather than as "independent politicians".
As an aside, I think the simple title "Independent" might be suitable. Obviously there are lots of other articles about "independent film" and "independent music", etc; but I think a disambiguation note ought to suffice for that. This would perhaps render the parenthetical (politician) unnecessary. Gabrielthursday (talk) 07:47, 5 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
I appreciate the point you're making, but I consider "independent" really more of an abbreviation, in the same way that you might call members of the something called the "Green Party" the Greens, or the "Conservative Party" the Conservatives. I would be surprised to see many case where "independent politician", if that phrase is used, referred to an independently-minded party politician rather than a genuine independent. Although I understand your grammatical point, I don't think there is any meaningful difference between "independent" and "independent politicians" in political parlance. I do not see the title "Independent" as a plausible option; the term is much too far-reaching to be given this narrow meaning. Given that our two options here are "Independent (politician)" and "Independent politician" (subject to a more suitable suggestion), I am inclined to think the one that removes the parentheses is superior. Frickeg (talk) 08:44, 5 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Frickeg writes: "I would be surprised to see many case where "independent politician", if that phrase is used, referred to an independently-minded party politician rather than a genuine independent." Firstly, the fact that the phrase "independent politician" is rarely used should weigh strongly against its use as the article title. I mean, even if you don't perceive the slightly different connotations, that should indicate that the proposal is not the common name when we have a perfectly fine common name. Secondly, your observation is fair enough - "independent politician" probably isn't over-inclusive, but I would say that it is under-inclusive, inasmuch as there are some independents who I would have great difficulty describe as "independent politicians". Bernie Sanders is indistinguishable from the left wing of the Democratic Party, doesn't face Democratic opposition in his election campaigns, even appears on Democratic primary ballots (though he declines the nomination); yet he is one of the most notable independents in the world. Gabrielthursday (talk) 22:07, 5 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
I do appreciate the difference, but I don't think it's significant enough to worry about here. I would have no difficulty describing Sanders as an independent politician, because that is what he is. An independently-minded politician, maybe not. But I feel the WP:COMMONNAME argument is trumped by the WP:NATURAL one. No one ever calls the Liberal Party of Australia by its full name, but just as the Liberal Party; but Liberal Party (Australia) would not be a suitable disambiguation. I see this as a similar case. Yes, "independent" alone is more commonly used, but as the term is ambiguous, it requires disambiguation; in that case, our first choice should be the natural option rather than the parenthetical one. Frickeg (talk) 02:39, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Well, to quote from the WP:NATURAL guidelines: "If it exists, choose an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English". The proposed title is not "an alternative name that the subject is also commonly called in English"; it is a descriptive phrase which only approximates the meaning of the current title. Descriptive phrases are certainly permitted where there is no common name, or the common name is offensive or has massive POV problems; but they shouldn't be used where we have a perfectly fine common name. There is also a WP:PRECISE issue: "Usually, titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article, but no more precise than that." The proposed name does not unambiguously define the topical scope fo the article, as it leaves it unclear whether we are discussing in a full (adjectival) sense independent, or also those who are formally independent of party, but practically aligned. The article takes as its subject both, but the proposed title makes it unclear this is the case.
One further note on the distinctive meanings of an "independent" and an "independent politician". Perhaps you're thinking of "independent politician" as being the equivalent of "Liberal politician", i.e. a politician who is an Independent, a compound noun. But it will not be read that way, unless the reader already has that meaning in the back of their minds - others, untutored in the particularly political meanind of "Independents" will read "independent" in its normal adjectival sense. And then they will read about Independents who have firm and lasting partisan allies, who sit in party caucuses, who even serve in Cabinet and executives. Gabrielthursday (talk) 05:45, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
I'm still unconvinced that this distinction holds any significance whatsoever, particularly in the eyes of our readers. WP:PRECISE works against you as much as it works for you, because as the previous move request shows, even established editors get confused between this article and Independent voter. Your WP:NATURAL argument runs into the same problem - I just googled a bunch of famous independent MPs and "independent politician" and came up with thousands of decent hits for each. The Drover's Wife (talk) 08:32, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Well, we appear to be at a bit of an impasse. I see your point on WP:PRECISE, but isn't that exactly why the current title has the parenthetical politician to clarify? I don't see where the ambiguity in the current title is supposed to be; and I think it remains the case that there is some ambiguity in the proposed title. The weight that should have is certainly up for debate. I'm sure that the phrase "independent politician" is often employed with respect to Independents, but I wonder how often that occurs as an incidental descriptor rather than a formal attribution. Ultimately, I suppose it will be up to an administrator to determine if consensus has been reached on this RM, but I will say now that this has been one of the more pleasant discussions I've been fortunate enough to have here. Gabrielthursday (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Oppose. The common parlance is "a Liberal" or "the Liberals" or "an independent" or "the independents". They are "independents", not "independent politicians". We don't call party articles "Liberal Party of Australia politicians" etc. "Independent" is what they are and disambiguations of words should be bracketed to break it up. Timeshift (talk) 02:44, 6 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
Support. Interesting discussion and I see Gabrielthursday's point of view, but my reading of WP:NATURAL lines up with Frickeg's and The Drover's Wife's opinions. Jenks24 (talk) 11:49, 14 July 2014 (UTC)Reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Independent politician. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2022 and 30 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): W.N.Mason (article contribs).
N | talk | 13:13, 23 April 2014 (UTC)Reply
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 11 January 2022 and 30 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): W.N.Mason (article contribs).