First statements by editors, Italian political parties[edit]

First statement by Firefangledfeathers, Italian political parties[edit]

I am grateful to Robert McClenon for moderating. I favor Option D. As editors at the talk page have noted, Italy has a plethora of parties and party-like political organizations. I think our readers will be best serve if we take advantage of the option provided by WP:NLIST in which "the individual items in the list do not need to be independently notable" as long as the grouping the list is about is itself notable. Including only parties with articles, or with a demonstrable chance of meeting a notability guideline, would exclude content readers will value. For the record, I initially joined this dispute as a WP:Third opinion volunteer. Firefangledfeathers 05:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

First statement by Scia Della Cometa, Italian political parties[edit]

I would exclude option A, any user could include objectively irrelevant parties in the list, without their own article. In the past there has been a significant production of articles about irrelevant or unknown parties (or similar subjects), so I would also exclude option B. I don't have a particular preference between options C and D, perhaps option D is preferable. Obviously the rules will have to be rewritten point by point, and will have to be established through consensual procedure. The rules should be simple, not full of quibbles. By simple rules I mean immediately demonstrable. The rules could be displayed on Talk:List of political parties in Italy, or on the page itself, as long as they do not have too much impact on the appearance of the page. --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 10:29, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

First statement by Autospark, Italian political parties[edit]

My preference is for Option D. The subject at hand, the scale of diversity and number of political parties in Italy, requires that approach. I think the rules should be compiled by consensus, with the end aim of being as concise and understandable as possible, while also detailed enough to be useful.--Autospark (talk) 22:54, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

First statement by Yakme[edit]

Italian parties are a lot, this is true. However there is no reason why we should exclude WP:NOTABLE parties from this list. In fact, the issue that Italian parties are a lot is an important characteristic of Italian politics (almost "a feature, not a bug"), and of the way it works. I do not think it is a good idea to "hide" this from the interested reader by presenting only a selection of parties in the article called "List of political parties in Italy": a reader would expect this list to be as complete as possible. Furthermore, any criterion to exclude parties is going to be arbitrary, and possibly the source of more disputes in the future whenever some major or minor political rules change (like electoral laws, that in the last decades have changed very often). So I would go for option B, noting that this does not mean to include only the parties that have WP articles, but actually all the ones that would be notable enough to qualify for one. --Yakme (talk) 13:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

First statement by Checco[edit]

Option D! Italy's party system, regional party systems and politics in general are very complex. List of political parties in Italy is one of the most clearly organised and complete articles of that kind, but also one of the longest in terms of number of parties. With no rules, it would be infinite and never settled. If having no rules is not an option for me, including all the parties with articles would not be fine: there might be relevant parties lacking an article, worth being included and ultimately having an article of their own. Rules should be simple, but also comprehensive (tracking Italian politics is not easy) and should be written and presented in a way preventing frequent interpretation disputes. --Checco (talk) 16:44, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

First statement by North8000[edit]

I'm not involved in a dispute but agreed to participate. First to note, the inclusion/exclusion criteria (rightly so) being addressed separately from the classification question. I would recommend an unlisted option "E" which is a criteria that it has a Wikipedia article. I think that "B" and "C" sort of strive for meeting this in spirit, but IMHO they both have significant technical and implementation issues. I'll not detail those unless asked, but a general note that trying to say that they meet the criteria for having an article sets this up for eternal debates on whether or not one meets the criteria, whereas saying that it has to have an article decisively settles it. The next question is whether or not "has an article" is too high or low of a bar. Looking at the article, even with the criteria, you certainly have a huge list. And it would only exclude a few percent of those currently listed. o IMO that shows that it isn't too. Also, if a party has an article, they certainly merit one line on this list so IMO that shows that it isn't too low. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:58, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by moderator on Italian political parties[edit]

It appears that most of the editors favor Option D, but there is some support for Option B. Option D is to have a set of rules on the listing of political parties.

So the way forward probably is to develop the proposed set of rules that has agreement by people who think that there should be a set of rules. Then the proposed set of rules can be submitted to the community via RFC. If there is disagreement, among proponents of a ruleset, as to what the rules should be, we can decide to develop two alternate rulesets, but not more than two, and not now.

So the next step is for those editors who favor a ruleset to state what categories of political parties or sections it should be organized into. If we have agreement on the categories of parties or sections, then we can start populating each category with rules. Otherwise we may identify issues about what the categories or sections are.

The responses by editors may each be several paragraphs if they are clearly structured. At this point, clarity is even more important than conciseness. So each editor should provide a clear breakdown of what they think the categories of political parties should be. Editors who don't want a ruleset can just state briefly that they don't think that we need a ruleset. We are developing a proposed ruleset at this point, not a final ruleset (and we might not have a ruleset). If you favor Option D, a set of rules, define how the rules should be organized. If you favor Option B, restate that view. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:59, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statements by editors (Italian political parties)[edit]

Second statement by Checco[edit]

I favour the current organisation of the list, featuring sections for political parties (active and defunct), coalitions and parliamentary groups, as they are currently defined. One could argue that coalitions and parliamentary groups should have separate lists, but a joint one has clear advandages. A better presentation of the current rules is available at Talk:List of political parties in Italy#RfC: new presentation of rules. Political parties are so many that both active and defunct ones should be classified in sub-sections: main/major parties (so that readers, who might not be interested in an in-depth study of Italy's party system, can easily identify them), minor parties, regional parties and parties of Italians abroad. By "regional" I mean political parties active only in one region or autonomous province, not multi-regional parties and/or parties supporting regionalism. There should be general conditions of admission and rules of classification. The fact that I like the current structure of the list and that I like a specific presentation does not mean that I am endorsing the current rules. --Checco (talk) 17:24, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

I begin to expose my point of view, the page should be divided first into Active parties and Defunct parties. Coalitions and parliamentary groups, which are not political parties, should not be included in the list (which is indeed called "List of political parties"), their presence on the page is redundant and not necessary. Both sections should be divided into: National parties, Regional parties (or "Parties active in a single region") and Overseas parties (or "Parties of Italians abroad"). I think the current distinction between Major and Minor parties is the result of original research, based on arbitrary criteria. I think instead that there is a need to make another type of distinction (only for active national parties): a distinction between the parties currently represented by a parliamentary group (at the moment there are seven parties with a parliamentary group) and the other parties that meet at least one inclusion criteria (Extra-parliamentary and minor parliamentary parties).

A brief consideration regarding the rules: I don't really like the idea of having inclusion criteria, but I realize that an excessive number of pages concerning Italian parties have been created on en.wikipedia, some with very little relevance. In my view, the new rules should meet the following characteristics:

• being very simple and immediately verifiable (no quibbles);
• being as inclusive as possible
• being the same for all types of parties (national parties, regional parties, overseas parties), no exceptions should be made for any type of party.

Furthermore, only parties with their own article, or with a high expectation of creating it, should be included in the list. The parties of which we have no information, and which therefore cannot have their own page, must be excluded from the list, because they do not meet the principle of WP:Notability.

When we decide on the new rules, we will have to consider the following factors: electoral threshold, the election of a representative in an assembly with its own symbol (which assemblies), the minimum number of representatives in an assembly for those parties born from splits (or that have elected their representatives within other lists or parties). --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 18:20, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

First Statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

I'm sorry I was not able to participate before now..... personal life. However- I would also favor option B or the unstated E- that they have to have a WP article to be on the list. I fail to see how adding anything to the list which is not notable enough to have a WP page meets WP guidelines, AND why re-invent the wheel when there is already a carefully developed policy that decides what is and is not notable. Any other list of what makes a party notable is going to be, by definition, original research- because Italy does not have such standards, nor do most developed countries. In addition, creating that list creates needless drama- Example A- this entire dispute! Nightenbelle (talk) 03:19, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by Yakme[edit]

I re-state my view supporting option B, or really any solution that avoids arbitrary selection criteria. Notability is enough and all it is needed to create a complete list of Italian parties. In the "parties" I also include political coalitions and parliamentary groups – really, any political organization which is notable and has (or had) a continuous activity in Italy. Inclusion criteria involving thresholds on the electoral results, or on the number of MPs, are going to be questionable by definition, and rightly so. Also because – like it is with the current criteria – the actual thresholds are probably going to be "doctored" by the Italian politics experts here to be inclusive of those parties they personally think should be in the list, and exclude the rest. See the amount of discussion on Talk:List of political parties in Italy about fine-tuning a threshold to be 1% or 0.5% (why not 0.6785%, I would say?), or rather 2 MPs or 3 regional councillors. Regarding the classification criteria: I guess in that case, once all notable parties are on the list, then approving criteria to simply order or separate them in a certain way is going to be a secondary discussion.

An additional note about the feasibility of option B: as far as my experience goes, the issue that an Italian party might be notable and not have a page on WP is virtually non-existent. Italian politics editors usually immediately produce articles for any smallest political group or regional party as soon as it comes to life. However for completeness and logical reasons, I would still use option B rather than E as the final choice: the difference is only going to be a handful of red links which – again, from my experience – would very likely become blue in a short amount of time. --Yakme (talk) 07:17, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by Firefangledfeathers (IPP)[edit]

I have been persuaded by some of the above statements into dropping my previously stated reasoning. I had been worried that notability as a list criterion would exclude useful content. I now worry that notability as the sole criterion would be overbroad. SDC alluded to this, and a glance at Category:Political parties in Italy and its subcats supports the existence of an issue here. I am torn between B and [D but with notability as one of the criteria]. B would create a long list and burden article editors with adding richness of content to elevate the list over a simple category. D would create a shorter list, but would likely perpetuate dispute over the additional criteria. Firefangledfeathers 17:29, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Third Statement on Italian Political Parties by Moderator[edit]

I was not clear in stating what option B was, and I intended it to mean that the party had to already have an article, so that the party would be listed in blue. However, I will now revise the list of options to be consistent with how they have been discussed:

• A. No rules. Any editor can list any political party.
• B. A party may be listed if it is thought to be notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. The party should be listed in blue link or red link.
• C. A party may be listed if it has a Wikipedia article. A set of rules can be adopted for when articles on Italian political parties are in order. These rules may be maintained somewhere else, such as at WikiProject Italy, and will need to be established by consensus, which can be established by RFC.
• D. This article can have a set of rules as to what parties are listed. If so, the list should be established by consensus. Any statement that there is an existing consensus will need to be established, and can be modified anyway, or an RFC can be used to establish the consensus.
• E. A party may be listed only if it already has a Wikipedia article, so that it can be listed in blue. A party has an article if it satisfies general notability.

The next question, regardless of what option applies to listing the parties, is how to order the list of parties. Are we in agreement that the list will be arranged as:

• 1. Active parties
• 1a. Active national parties
• 1b. Active regional parties
• 1c. Active overseas parties
• 2. Former parties
• 2a. Former national parties
• 2b. Former regional parties
• 2c. Former overseas parties

? Robert McClenon (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Each editor may restate their viewpoint on which option to use, and is then asked to comment on the listing of groups of parties. Robert McClenon (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Third Statements on Italian Political Parties by Editors[edit]

Third statement by Checco[edit]

Regarding the options, I confirm my preference for option D. The other four options look very similar to me and I oppose them.
I think that, similarly to most lists on political parties in countries, there should be a distinction between major/main and minor parties. Thus, I confirm that I would organise the list in the following way: 1. Active parties → 1a. Active main parties; 1b. Active minor parties; 1c. Active regional parties; 1d. Active overseas parties; 2. Former parties → 2a. Former main parties; 2b. Former minor parties; 2c. Former regional parties; 1d. Former overseas parties. As a side-note, I prefer "former" to "defunct". Finally, I continue to think that, for readers' sake, it is better to include in the list also coalitions and parliamentary groups (meaning groups formed by multiple parties and/or non-party independents). --Checco (talk) 16:20, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by Autospark[edit]

My preference is for "former" or "disestablished" as terms for non-extant political parties, although "defunct" is on balance not controversial. I support the idea of attempting to distinguish major and minor political parties, although I realise this could be problematic in practical terms – there would have to be clear guidelines, agreed upon consensual lines of what exactly constitutes either category. These categories would have to be time-relative (taking into account the variation in seat counts in the Italian parliament and regional assemblies over history) and region sensitive (the regional assemblies in Italy can vary significantly in terms of seat count).--Autospark (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Third statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

I have reread the various options better and I rectify my previous opinion: in my opinion, the best option is C. This option is certainly the one that would best allow us to have an overall view of the situation for a possible determination of new criteria. Theoretically, my preferred option would be E, but I think currently many blue-linked pages don't meet the WP:Notability criterion. The page might get too crowded.

About the classification, I agree with the Moderator proposal (I don't know if the more correct term is "Former" or "Defunct", I am not a native-English speaker, but this is a minor issue). A further distinction between "Main parliamentary parties", "Minor parliamentary parties" and "Extra-parliamentary parties" can be made only for active parties. The only objective criterion for distinguishing a major parliamentary party from a minor parliamentary party is the current representation in Parliament with its own parliamentary group.

Instead, the distinction between former major parties and former minor parties is much more complicated, parties born from splits and represented both in the Chamber and in the Senate with their own parliamentary group have eventually turned out to be micro-parties in the test of the elections (an example, Future and Freedom got less than 0.5% of the votes in the 2013 general election). These parties should not be classified as "Former major parties". Establishing distinction criteria for former parties is very complicated and should not take into account parliamentary splits. In my opinion, the distinction between "Former major parties" and "Former minor parties" is not necessary. Any criterion of distinction, in this case, could turn out to be arbitrary.

Surely the page should not list coalitions and especially parliamentary groups: their presence is a contradiction with the title of the page itself (List of political parties), their presence is decidedly misleading. On a page entitled "List of Political Parties", I expect to find political parties, not different subjects. --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 08:59, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Third statement by Yakme[edit]

I confirm option B, and I refer to what I wrote in my first and second statements. Option C could also be a good idea in my opinion: as far as I understand, this would mean that we will have a general written set of guidelines, approved by consensus, by which we can determine whether a new party (or movement, or group/association) meets the Wikipedia notability criteria; I think this could be very helpful to avoid future issues. Regarding the classification in the list, I agree with the one proposed by the moderator, and I would add two things: (1) a sub-categorization – or a sub-ordering – within the national parties, in order to be able to distinguish the main parties who usually are in Parliament from the rest of the smaller, but still active and notable, parties; (2) separate categories for party coalitions, e.g. The Union and the House of Freedoms (which are objectively a main piece of Italy's political history), and for parliamentary groups, e.g. the infamous Mixed Group or other relevant multi-party groups like For the Autonomies. --Yakme (talk) 09:03, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Third Statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

I confirm option B as well- why reinvent the wheel? I also would be okay with E- but I prefer B. As for how they are listed- The way Robert suggested makes sense imo- I wouldn't mind them being separated by major and minor, except that I think that will lead to yet more pointless, unending arguments. I oppose any option that requires this page to have a set of rules different than other lists of political parties for other countries. That's just silly and unnecessary. Nightenbelle (talk) 16:26, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Second statement by North8000[edit]

I suggest option E. Besides being a good and workable idea, this would make this simple and settled (vs. being an opening for more eternal debates), and not require major shifts in who is/isn't listed. "A" if taken literally has and issue which would need to get clarified if selected. Besides saying "no rules" has a second statement which can be taken as any one editor can force inclusion.

Regarding the sequencing, I see nothing wrong with that but will leave it to others more knowledgeable than me on this specific situation to decide. North8000 (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Third Statement by Firefangledfeathers (IPP)[edit]

I support B and D. More specifically, I support B if there's agreement that this wouldn't create an excessively long list, and I support D provided that notability or likely notability is one of the criteria.

Fourth Statement on Italian Political Parties by Moderator[edit]

I will focus for now on the organization of the list. The inclusion options still need to be addressed, but we can work on the organization of the list first, because we seem to be almost in agreement on that. We will refer to former parties rather than defunct parties for reasons of connotation in English. (I have probably spoken more English than anyone else in this discussion.)

It appears that some editors think that we should distinguish between major and minor parties, as follows:

• 1. Active parties
• 1a1. Active major national parties
• 1a2. Active minor national parties
• 1b. Active regional parties
• 1c. Active overseas parties
• 2. Former parties
• 2a1. Former major national parties
• 2a2. Former minor national parties
• 2b. Former regional parties
• 2c. Former overseas parties

Do parties ever change between major and minor status due to losing or gaining voters? If so, should active national parties be listed based on their present status? Should former national parties be listed as on their maximum status?

Do parties ever change between being national and being regional?

We know that parties can change from being active parties to being former parties, but that is not the question.

I would like each editor to state briefly why parties should be listed separately as major and minor, or why they should not.

There has been mention of groupings of parties, and coalitions. As an American, I think that I would want to see groupings of parties and coalitions listed, and that I would want to see them listed separately. I think that a Briton also would want that. If there is a reason why we should completely omit groups and coalitions, or alternatively why we should jumble them with the parties, I would like to see it stated briefly.

As I said above, I was initially not clear as to what option B was, and there is now confusion as to what options B and E are. Option A is no rules. Option E is that a party may be listed if it has its own article. Is there any other middle-ground option, or did Option B go away?

Option C is to have the set of rules defined somewhere else, such as by a WikiProject. Option D is to have this article define the set of rules.

I think that the remaining issues about the organization of the list are whether to distinguish major and minor, and how to list coalitions and groupings.

I think that the remaining issues about the inclusion criteria are whether to:

• Have someone else have a set of rules (C).
• Define our own set of rules (D).
• List all parties that have Wikipedia articles (E).

Please follow up briefly, as explained above. If this isn't clear, then I will start over on the next round. Robert McClenon (talk) 06:07, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fourth Statements on Italian Political Parties by Editors[edit]

Fourth statement by Yakme[edit]

@Robert McClenon: I did not quite get why option B has been dismissed now, given that three editors out of seven supported it in the third round. Option C – on the other hand – was supported by one editor, and by myself as a second option (even though I misunderstood the meaning of option C, so I was going to backtrack on that now). Before I write my full reply to your fourth statement, I would like to ask you to revise the "remaining issues about the inclusion criteria" by including also B which is one of the most popular options. --Yakme (talk) 07:53, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fourth statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

I apologize in advance that my statement will not be very short but rather detailed. I premise that I am not opposed to options B and E. If it were not possible to find a broad agreement on rules that allow the inclusion of the highest number of parties, I still firmly think that the page should not have any specific rules (but that only meet the general rules of Wikipedia). However, these options could potentially lead to future disputes (for example, in my view, not all articles on Italian parties meet general notability guidelines).

About the organization of the list: I am not in principle against the distinction between major and minor parties, but how do we determine objective criteria to make a neutral distinction? When is a party "major"? When, on the other hand, is a party "minor"? There is no doubt about some parties: in the past, DC, PCI, PSI, DS, AN, PDL, etc. were definitely major parties. But exactly what characteristics must a party meet in order to be considered "major"? It is not easy to determine objective criteria. Above all, it is not easy to determine equal criteria for active parties and former parties. Let me explain: in Italy, since the 1990s / 2000s, the phenomenon of parliamentary splits has become very frequent. In the Italian parliament, parties are frequently formed from splits with a considerable number of MPs. Anyway, when these parties participate in elections, their electoral results are almost always unsatisfactory. These parties are not historically remembered as large parties, because they had temporary relevance (SD, FLI, AP etc.). Even the parties currently represented in Parliament that were born from splits, IV and CI, have already achieved disappointing electoral results and are quoted in the election polls with very low results.

In my opinion, it is decidedly complicated to establish objective criteria for distinguishing between major parties and minor parties that are the same for both active and former parties. For active parties the most important feature is the current relevance (ie: parliamentary relevance), the former parties instead should be considered from a historical perspective. IMHO, it would be easier to make a distinction between current parliamentary parties and current extra-parliamentary parties, as in other lists of parties (this distinction would instead be complicated to apply for the parties of the past, as there have often been individual adhesions difficult to ascertain).

Answering shortly the questions: "Do parties ever change between major and minor status due to losing or gaining voters? If so, should active national parties be listed based on their present status? Should former national parties be listed as on their maximum status?" It depends on the threshold of voters considered. Surely the active parties can be categorized according to their current status and the former parties according to their maximum status, but it depends on what we mean by status: number of MPs or number of voters? As I said above, the number of MPs can be a valid criterion of distinction for the current parties, while the number of voters would be a valid criterion of distinction for the former parties (even if it would risk being arbitrary). "Do parties ever change between being national and being regional?" It's possible. For example, the MPA, initially active throughout southern Italy, subsequently remained active only in Sicily. But this is not a problem, it is enough to consider the current or historical status.

About parliamentary groups or political coalitions (or electoral lists): they are certainly interesting articles, however I think that the List of political parties in Italy is not the right place to list them; for example the List of political parties in France or the List of political parties in UK don't list parliamentary groups. A solution could be to list them on separate pages, a page like Parliamentary group (Spain) could be created, indicating it in the "See also" section at the bottom of the page. The same solution could be adopted for political alliances in Italy.--Scia Della Cometa (talk) 11:24, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fourth statement by Checco[edit]

I agree with the organisation of the list that the Moderator presented at the beginning of his fourth statement. Terminologically speaking, I have always preferred "former" over "defunct", I would avoid "national" (there have been parties neither regional-only nor national—see Lega Nord, Movement for the Autonomies, etc.) and, finally, I prefer "main" over "major".
And now to the issues! 1) Political parties should change between "main" and "minor" status due to losing votes and/or MPs. That is why the current rules are so balanced and, unfortunately, complicate. Parties should be listed on their present status, former parties on their maximum status. 2) Very rarely, "national" or "multi-regional" parties are reduced to being "regional" or the other way around, but, for historical purposes, I would consider them "minor". 3) Parties should be listed separately as "main" and "minor" so that regular readers, who might not be interested in an in-depth study of Italy's party system, can easily identify them. Basically, each and every "List of political parties in Xxxxx" does that. In our case, being represented in Parliament is not enough because dozens of parties are, so that not even all parliamentary parties are included in the list (the bar was raised recently and I was not the proponent). A certain share of vote and a certain number of MPs should be the thresholds. The distinction between "main" and "minor" parties matters also for former parties as there are so many. 4) There could be separate lists for parliamentary groups (meaning parliamentary groups not directly connected to a political party and/or formed by MPs belonging to different parties and/or non-party independents) and coalitions, but having those items in the same list would quite benefit readers. Also, in this case, we should have limits as coalitions and electoral lists are also quite common and numerous.
As I said, the only option I can agree with is D, due to the near-infinite number of parties in Italy. Having no rules is really not an option, in my view. I am an inclusionist and I will never propose an article on a party for deletion, but this does not mean that we should have a near-infinite list (option E). Also, there might be relevant parties lacking an article and they should be listed, possibly in red so that some editors might think about editing them. Having notability rules both for having an article and being included in the list (option C) would be quite problematic. We really risk moving controversy and debates to dozens of talk pages and requests for deletion: an opening to more endless debates, indeed. --Checco (talk) 17:48, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fourth Statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

I also don't understand why option B was removed when 3 of us were in favor of it. But I am also fine with E. I'm not sure why Checco thinks either of those options will create an endless list- both have rules- they require a party to meet general notability requirements for WP. And if they meet those requirements- and are, by definition- a political party in Italy, why then would we then exclude them from this list? That makes absolutely no sense. I like going a step further and saying that they have to actually have a WP page- saying that some editor has put the work in to make a page, and it has been accepted as notable so yes - that party deserves to be on this page.

As for listing them as major or minor- I think that is opening the page up to yet more arguments as we set regulations for what each of those mean (see the multi-paragraph responses in this section alone as evidence)- So I would rather just see current, and former as the only two definitions used. Nightenbelle (talk) 18:48, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth Statement on Italian Political Parties by Moderator[edit]

I either have confused everybody, or am confused. We will primarily go back to the inclusion criteria for now. We will work on the organization of the list again when we have the inclusion options defined.

I dropped Options A and B for the inclusion criteria, and have caused confusion by dropping Option B. I thought that I had worded it poorly, and I meant that each party should have its own Wikipedia article, so that it was the same as Option E. I had written that the remaining issues about the inclusion criteria are whether to:

• Have someone else have a set of rules (C).
• Define our own set of rules (D).
• List all parties that have Wikipedia articles (E).

So if there was an Option B that differed from Option E, what was it? How do the editors think that Option B differs both from Option E, which requires an existing article, and Option A, which is no rules? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:21, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of the organization of the list of parties can continue. If editors think that I should not have dropped an Option B, will they please tell me what they think Option B is, and how it is different from either A (which we agree should be dropped) or E? Robert McClenon (talk) 22:21, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth Statements on Italian Political Parties by Editors[edit]

Fifth statement by Yakme[edit]

[I move here part of my reply above, since I posted just a few seconds after the moderator started the fifth round of statements] Yakme (talk) 22:24, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

My reply to the fifth statement by the Moderator – regarding inclusion:

Yes definitely there is some confusion. By option B, I mean that parties should be on the list even if they do not have an article yet, but are notable by WP standards. Their notability should be proven by providing appropriate reliable sources (or by using an inter-language link if available). See also the Spanish, British or German counterpart, where parties which do not have articles (yet) are also listed in black (red). Alternatively, I could also support option E – but just because I know that the risk of having a notable Italian party without a WP article is virtually zero (likely the opposite is true: over-proliferation of non-notable Italian "parties" articles). Yakme (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

My replies to the Moderator's questions in their fourth statement – regarding classification:

• Do parties ever change between major and minor status due to losing or gaining voters? Sure, a party might start as minor and become major, or viceversa. If so, should active national parties be listed based on their present status? Yes, and Should former national parties be listed as on their maximum status? yes. The historical relevance of a former party can definitely be measured on their peak popularity, and I do not see any inconsistency in having similar criteria for major/minor current and former parties.
• Do parties ever change between being national and being regional? Other editors might know examples of this which I do not, but certainly this change cannot be excluded. In these events, I would – again – use the maximum extension of the party as the reference status for classification of former parties.
• I would like each editor to state briefly why parties should be listed separately as major and minor, or why they should not. A separation is necessary given the amount of notable political parties in Italy: with a simple alphabetical or chronological list of parties, the reader would get lost and not understand which parties actually hold power and popular support. For example, having a separation based on whether a party has MPs or does not have MPs could be a criterion (I would generally take as reference the very-neatly-organized List of political parties in Spain, where there are also many parties, and a reasonable grouping has been achieved).
• Regarding coalitions of parties and "parliamentary groups", I also do not see a reason why not to include them here, in a separate section.

The risk of having a very large number of parties listed in this article is real. But if this becomes a problem, the solution cannot be to cut off notable articles based on an arbitrary selection. If we notice that we are getting to a very long page, the list can surely be split (for example by creating a List of former political parties in Italy, as a special case of WP:NCSPLITLIST). Yakme (talk) 22:21, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth statement by Firefangledfeathers (IPP)[edit]

Originally, Option B was A party may be listed if it is notable enough to have a Wikipedia article. A party may have an article if it satisfies general notability. I took that to mean blue or red link. Your followup tweak didn't change my understanding of Option B. I believe most people who have supported Option B have a shared understanding of that meaning. Option E appears to be bluelinks only. Firefangledfeathers 22:29, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

I interpreted the difference between options A, B and E like this:

• A: inclusion of blue links and red links, regardless of notability;
• B: inclusion of blue links and red links, provided that parties meet the principle of WP:Notability (I did not understand only one thing: only the parties with the red link must meet the principle of notability or also those with the blue link?);
• E: only blue links.

It seems to me that we all agree to exclude option A, which would allow anyone to include any objectively irrelevant party on the list. The practical difference between options B and E is minimal: as has already been stated, it is easier that an irrelevant / unknown Italian party to have its own article than a known party not to have its own article yet.

I think it is absolutely necessary to go beyond the current criteria, and it finally seems to me that most users think like me, not only these criteria are arbitrary, but they create incredible paradoxes: they exclude from the list potentially known parties and allow the inclusion of completely unknown "parties". Until last summer the situation was even worse.

When I refer to inclusion criteria, I refer to criteria that tend to include, not exclude parties, like the current criteria. Indeed, if we can't agree on inclusive (and consensual) criteria, I think the best options are B or F. More precisely option B, if the WP:Notability principle were applied to both blue and red links. But when does a party meet the principle of notability? I think I have interpreted this principle correctly, but some other users might think differently from me. And there would again be disagreements about what meets this principle and what does not meet it.

About "major" and "minor" parties: it is not enough to agree on applying this distinction, but it is necessary to determine when a party is major and when a party is minor. The distinction between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties is different from the distinction between major and minor parties. It is necessary to make concrete proposals, and to take into consideration all the possible consequences.

About coalitions and groups: there are many reasons for excluding them from this page. 1. First of all they are not political parties, while this is a list that explicitly concerns parties. 2. No list of political parties also includes lists of coalitions and parliamentary groups. 3. A reader may be confused about the inclusion of entities other than parties on a list that should only include parties. 4. If we include coalitions and parliamentary groups, why not include further political entities other than parties? Electoral lists, youth wings, factions, movements (not parties, but movements in the literal sense of the term). If we list anything related (directly or indirectly) to a party, the list would become really huge and the situation would become anarchic, since in a list of political parties we could include in it a series of entities that are in no way political parties. IMHO, the best solution would be to list them on other pages, to be indicated at the bottom of the list of parties.--Scia Della Cometa (talk) 10:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth Statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

I still prefer B- any party that qualifies for a WP page based on notability can be included. I am totally fine with E though- any group with a blue link can be included- I don't think there are many parties that don't have a page that would qualify- and if someone wants to add them- well they can go make a full WP page and then add them. I still maintain anything more is contrary to our WP:NOTABILITY policy. I 100% do not want more rules. I think separating them into major/minor/defunct is just going to create more drama and is unnecessary. I like the idea of if the list becomes too long creating a separate list for defunct (or whatever word people want to use) parties. Nightenbelle (talk) 14:39, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Fifth statement by Checco[edit]

I appreciated the fact that some options had been dropped because too many options looked similar to me. I was thus a little bit confused to read the following statement. If B is restored as an option, others might go. By the way, I am going to answer below. --Checco (talk) 17:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Sixth Statement on Italian Political Parties by Moderator[edit]

I will restore Option B now that I understand it. The possible inclusion criteria are:

• List only parties that are thought to be notable, so that they must have either a red link or a blue link (B).
• Have someone else have a set of rules (C).
• Define our own set of rules (D).
• List all parties that have Wikipedia articles, so that they will have a blue link. (E).

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Option C can go away if there is no other candidate for who will have the set of rules, in which case the choices are between B (red and blue links), D (our own list of rules), and E (blue links only).

We will try to set up an RFC to decide between those criteria, but not quite yet.

In the meantime, we will discuss organization of the list of parties. I think that we should try to keep the organization of the list relatively simple, because it won't be simple anyway. The most detailed list of parties seems to be:

• 1. Active parties
• 1a1. Active major national parties
• 1a2. Active minor national parties
• 1b. Active regional parties
• 1c. Active overseas parties
• 2. Former parties
• 2a1. Former major national parties
• 2a2. Former minor national parties
• 2b. Former regional parties
• 2c. Former overseas parties

So what groups can be combined? Some editors have said that it is not necessary to distinguish major and minor parties, and some have said that is necessary. What else can we possibly combine? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Editors may reply to any previously asked questions, but do not reply with a wall of text to any question. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Sixth Statements on Italian Political Parties by Editors[edit]

Sixth statement by Yakme[edit]

Regarding the classification of parties, I tend to agree to the one proposed by the moderator. However, if not major/minor (which are terms that sound too "generic" and open to interpretation), then at least a separation between national parties with current Parliamentary representation and national parties without current Parliamentary representation must be done IMHO. A similar separation could be done for former parties: former parties that were in Parliament at least once, and former parties that were never. Yakme (talk) 11:37, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Sixth statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

Yup, I'm still pro-B

As far as separating parties. I still think former and current are enough. However, I would be open to dividing them by who had candidates in parliament and who did not. I don't like the idea of terms "major" and "minor" because those are subjective and unless we have a Reliable source calling them that- WP:OR. Nightenbelle (talk) 15:04, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Sixth statement by Checco[edit]

Option E is probably the worst because it would overlad the list with mostly unrelevant parties and still exclude some relevant parties lacking an article (there are about 20 red links in the current list and they are all relevant parties—I hope to be able to start those articles soon). Option B and option C look very similar to me and are not acceptable because, through very generic rules, they would also create an endless list. Per option D, I continue to think that we should have conditions of admission and a reasonably long list that can be an effective guide for readers.
Being an effective guide also makes necessary the distinction between "main" and "minor" parties, as it happens in most lists of political parties. Quick readers should be able to identify the main parties, while other readers would still be able to have a broader picture. Being in Parliament should not be the bar, as there are usually several dozens of parties in Parliament, they come and go, MPs frequently switch parties (more than 200 did so in the current parliamentary term), some parties are short-lived, sometimes parties are formed by only one MP and have not an electoral base (that is why User:SDC successfully proposed to raise some thresholds during 2021) and so on.
On the organisation of the list, I have to repeat myself, as the question was asked again. I broadly agree with what the Moderator presented in his sixth statement, but I need to clarify three points: 1) I am happy that "former" replaced "defunct; 2) I prefer "main" over "major", as the former is more accurate; 3) again for the sake of accuracy, I would refer simply to "main parties" and "minor parties", by avoiding "national" (there have been parties neither regional-only nor national—see Lega Nord, Movement for the Autonomies, etc.). --Checco (talk) 17:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Question for Checco[edit]

I am genuinely curious- if both B and E require that a party meet WP:NOTABILITY, other than "there are too many," how can you justify not including all notable parties? I'm genuinely confused by this- not trying to pick a fight- just a question. Nightenbelle (talk) 19:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

My answer is quite simple, sorry about that. There have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of parties in Italy meeting notability (meaning that they had an organisation and/or MPs and/or MEPs and/or regional councillors and/or a notable share of the vote and so on). My argument is that all of them are worth of an article (and I will never propose any party for deletion), but not all of them are worth being included in the list, that would become near-infinite and unreadable. --Checco (talk) 09:01, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Sixth statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

It is not easy to distinguish between major and minor parties in Italy. And it is even more difficult to put the current perspective and a historical perspective on the same level. Objectively, the parties currently relevant in the Italian Parliament are seven, not five as currently shown on the page: in addition to Lega, M5S, PD, FI and FdI there are also Italia Viva and Coraggio Italia. That is, those parties that are currently represented by a parliamentary group. But I am not sure that IV and CI, when they are dissolved, will be remembered as major parties. For this reason I struggle to find uniform criteria of distinction for both the current parties and the former parties.

The distinction between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties might be reasonable for the current parties, but extremely difficult to implement for the former parties. The political and party situation in Italy is unstable. On this point Checco is right: too many MPs change party, in some cases joining small extra-parliamentary parties (until then). The current situation can be monitored, but making a clear distinction between former parliamentary and extra-parliamentary parties would be complicated.

I understand that making big parties stand out over small ones is useful, therefore I have a proposal: we could distinguish the current parties into "parliamentary" and "extra-parliamentary" parties. Parliamentary parties would be listed from most to least represented, in this way the major parties would automatically stand out on the others.

I would make a single list for the former parties. To make the larger parties stand out (such as DC, PCI, PSI, PPI, PDS, DS, AN etc.) we could insert in the table (not yet existing) their maximum result: for example their best electoral result for the Chamber, Senate and the European Parliament; or the maximum number (if available) of Deputies, Senators and MEPs. In this way the readers would immediately understand which were the most relevant parties, without making arbitrary distinctions on the list.

One last brief comment on a statement by Checco: some parties remained with the red link because there are no sources that describe them. I myself tried to create a page for some of those parties, but I gave up due to lack of sources. If a page is to be a three-line stub based on a single source, it better not exist. --Scia Della Cometa (talk) 21:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Post scriptum

In this last statement I did not comment on the topic of the rules: at this point I believe that option B is the best choice. No arbitrary rules, let's just include all parties that have an article (except blatantly irrelevant stubs or subjects that are not parties, such as regional council groups) and let's include only red-links of parties that may potentially have a page.--Scia Della Cometa (talk) 13:51, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Third statement by Autospark[edit]

My preference is still for option D, with option "B" a distance second-choice (albeit with the proviso that the red-linked articles would be soon created). If the sub-categories or "major/main" and "minor" former parties have to be combined into a single "former parties" list, User:SDC's solution has its merits for a means to distinguish the more significant parties; however, I raise the issue that seat counts for the Italian and European parliaments have varied over time, so that may lead to "apples and orange" comparisons.

For notability reasons, I think there should be a mechanism in the rules for inclusion of former parties, however small, which participated in national-level government cabinets at some point, even if said parties never participated in later elections independently.--Autospark (talk) 19:56, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Seventh statement by moderator on Italian political parties[edit]

The status quo would appear to be D, a set of rules, which are listed in the article. I will comment that, if we keep a set of rules for when parties are to be listed, then it will serve as the special notability guideline for Italian political parties (even if it has a clause saying that it is not a notability guideline). There is less difference between a special notability guideline and an outcomes essay than may be intended by those who categorize the essays and guidelines.

The status quo breakdown of categories of rules is as I previously listed them:

• 1. Active parties
• 1a1. Active major national parties
• 1a2. Active minor national parties
• 1b. Active regional parties
• 1c. Active overseas parties
• 2. Former parties
• 2a1. Former major national parties
• 2a2. Former minor national parties
• 2b. Former regional parties
• 2c. Former overseas parties

A tabulation of the number of parties in each category in the current article, List of Italian political parties, is:

• 1a1 - Active major parties - 5
• 1a2 - Active minor parties - 37
• 1b - Active regional parties - 82
• 1c - Active overseas parties - 2
• 2a1 - Former major parties - 27
• 2a2 - Former minor parties - 84
• 2b - Former regional parties - 106
• 2c - Former overseas parties - 2

• 3a - Active coalitions - 2
• 3b - Former coalitions - 14
• 4a - Active parliamentary groups - 1
• 4b - Former parliamentary groups - 18

I will comment that this is a list article, and that lists often include a few hundred items, as this list, which is organized into sublists, does. The number of parties does not seem to be a reason why either inclusion criteria are needed or why inclusion criteria are not needed.

Are we in agreement that the choice of inclusion criteria is between the status quo, which is D, a set of rules, or B, red or blue links, or E, blue links only? If so, a question is whether any parties are being excluded by the current rules. If so, should we include them by going to B or E, or leave them excluded?

We currently have 12 sublists. I would suggest that those who wish to reduce the number of lists, that is, combine lists, should explain why the lists should be combined.

We already have lists of coalitions and parliamentary groups. Editors who want to exclude those lists should explain why they should be excluded. In a list article, additional information is often good.

The next step should be for editors to explain why they want to change the status quo, which has a set of inclusion rules, and 12 sublists. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:40, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Seventh statements by editors on Italian political parties[edit]

Seventh statement by Scia Della Cometa[edit]

I still think that option B is the best: we should include all blue links (except blatantly irrelevant stubs) and we should exclude parties whose pages will surely never be created. Anyone who wants to include a red link must at least prove that there are enough sources to create a page. For this reason I prefer option B to option E: the red links of potentially relevant parties are very few in the case of the Italian parties, but some pages can still be created. The inclusion of the red link in the list may be an invitation to create the page, but to include this party, it will be necessary to demonstrate that there are already enough sources and therefore the party meets the principle of WP:Notability. If instead we decide to create a set of rules, these should be flexible, inclusive and free of quibbles.

I think 12 sublists are too many. I also think that other parties should be included in the list, and that they should be organized into informative tables. I do not think it is consistent to complain about the length of the list if one wants to include subjects different from parties in it (meanwhile excluding parties that could instead be listed). I have not proposed to delete this information, I have proposed to move them in different pages, such as "Parliamentary group (Italy)" and "List of political alliances in Italy", whose links could be indicated at the bottom of the page. It seems to me the most coherent and efficient way of organizing information; if we want to make a complete list of parties, it would be long enough, it doesn't seem like a good idea at all to want to include different subjects on the same page, when they might just be listed on different pages. If we begin to include subjects other than parties in this list, we risk never ending: movements (such as Sardines and Pitchforks), youth wings, factions, etc. It seems useless to steal space from information that is certainly more inherent.

For those who want a distinction between major and minor parties, I invite other users to make specific proposals. For example, it seems to me that there are currently 7 Major parties in Italy, not 5 (I would also include Italia Viva and Coraggio Italia).--Scia Della Cometa (talk) 09:05, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Seventh Statement by Nightenbelle[edit]

I want to go with option B because the current set of rules is arbitrary and contrary to WP:Notability. I see no problem having a long list- with a couple hundred parties. That is the nature of Italian politics and should be accurately represented by this list. I don't care if we go with blue links only or red and blue links- as long as there is enough sources to prove the party is notable enough for a page.

I'm not a fan of 12 sublists. I would rather see it split thus:

1. Active parties

1a1. Active major national parties

1a2. Active minor national parties

1b. Active regional & Overseas parties

2. Former parties

2a1. Former major national parties<

2a2. Former minor national parties

2b. Former regional & Overseas parties

Just for simplicity sake. But I'm less passionate about how they are split up than I am about inclusion rules. If others want more or less or a different arrangement- I'm okay with that. As long as all notable parties are included and ones that are not notable are left off. Nightenbelle (talk) 15:10, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Seventh statement by Checco[edit]

I have little to say on the latest issues raised by the Moderator, as I am basically in favour of the status quo over:
1) Option D — I would change the current rules, however they are already so lax and inclusive that all notable active and former political parties, by any definition, are already included.
2) 12 sublists — I would adopt different names ("main" not "major", no to "national") and I would surely change some of the classification rules, e.g. those between "main" and "major" (if I am not blatantly wrong, they became stricter after a proposal by User:SDC that I endorsed for the sake of collaboration, but I would be more than happy to lower the thresholds). Finally, I could accept separate lists for coalitions of parties and non-party parliamentary groups, but I believe that it is beneficiary for readers and editors alike to have them in a joint list.
I am more than willing to change how the rules are presented. There should be general conditions of admission (notability, if you will) and then a reasonable classification of the parties in sublists. That is exactly what I have long been arguing for. The point is: which admission/notability rules? --Checco (talk) 16:14, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Eighth statement by moderator on Italian political parties[edit]

I have created a subpage for this dispute resolution, at Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/List of political parties in Italy, and has a shortcut of WP:DRNLPPI. I have done this so that our discussion does not overshadow any other DRN threads. There aren't currently any other DRN threads, but there may be, and this discussion appears to be still unfolding rather than wrapping up.

There are three separate related questions that we need to address. The first is whether this list article needs special rules for listing of parties, or whether general notability is a sufficient guideline. The second is how to divide the listing. I would like to try to resolve the first question, which is the choice between options B, D, and E:

• B. Parties should be listed if they satisfy general notability, and are listed either as blue links or as red links.
• D. A set of rules should be used. The list currently includes rules for listing, and these rules will be the status quo, and we can then discuss where to go from there.
• E. Parties should be listed if they satisfy general notability and already have articles.

Since Wikipedia already relies on the general notability guideline, GNG, going with either B or E simplifies the housekeeping of this article, and avoids the need to argue over percentages, and numbers of seats, et cetera. I will start by saying that option B is the easiest to maintain, and so will suggest that editors who disagree should explain why they disagree. At least one editor has said that option B or E would result in a near-infinite number of parties being listed. Isn't 300 already quite a large number? I have a homework exercise, that is optional. How many political parties have articles but are not currently listed? How much expansion would B or E really result in? Can someone identify how many articles Wikipedia already has on Italian political parties that are not listed in the list? If there are only a few parties that have articles that are not currently listed, then we do not need inclusion criteria other than GNG. So my assignment to any editor who says that we need to keep or modify our inclusion criteria is to identify how much longer the list would be with no criteria other than GNG.

The second is whether to retain the lists of coalitions and parliamentary groups. Since we already have them listed in this article, that is the status quo. So my question for any editor who wants to delete those sublists is to say what harm is done by keeping them.

The third question is how to group the lists of political parties. Each editor may briefly restate their position on whether to combine or modify the sublists.