Talk:List of political parties in the United States

Affiliate Parties?

The Minnesota DFL and North Dakota Dem-NPL are affiliated parties of the Democratic party, both having their own independent leadership structure. Are these notable enough according to the criteria of this page? Piotr iskander (talk) 20:31, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

No, state affiliates of larger parties do not belong on this list, even if their leadership structures are more independent than that of other affiliates. Bulbajer (talk) 20:39, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

2024

It's about time to update the lists to reflect the 2024 election and ballot access. Thecommander236 (talk) 18:00, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Election discs

Should the election discs (the circular symbols used to represent political parties on the list) be allowed?

Technically, they are original research and are, in most cases, not official logos made by the parties. However:

• They are derived from the parties’ official logos or from symbols associated with the parties—they feature a symbol which represents the party at their center.
• They use (a) color(s) which are associated with the party.

In addition, they can be used on articles such as this one where non-free images (such as most party logos) are not allowed.

Should the election discs be allowed? If so, should there be a disclaimer saying that these logos are unofficial? Should they be allowed on political party pages (such as, say, the Liberal Party USA page)?

In short, how should we use the disc logos, if we use them at all? And should they come with a disclaimer?

Thanks! RiverMan18 (talk) 20:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

RFC on US political party disc logos

Should unofficial United States political party disc logos (a party’s logo or a symbol associated with the party in a circle) be used?RiverMan18 (talk) 15:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Examples of disc logos:

File:Libertarian Party (United States) Banner Logo.svg (common party symbol:)———

File:Liberal Party USA logo.svg———

——— (based on a previous logo of the party)

More examples can be found on the List of political parties in the United States article. RiverMan18 (talk) 16:10, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

It should be noted that these logos, although based on/derived from official logos, are almost always unofficial. Just modified the RFC to address this. RiverMan18 (talk) 16:17, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Strong oppose No, the porcupine is not widely associated with the Libertarian party, and the yellow disc should also be removed from the party article's infobox as it is not the party's "election symbol" (we don't use those in the US). Some members might use it as an unofficial symbol, but it should not be portrayed as a logo this way. The bison does match their official logo design, but stars shouldn't be added to all of these just because the donkey and elephant are often depicted with stars. For WFP, why the would there be a symbol using a previous logo? I also recommend deleting the discs for most of them – Yes the Independent Party of Oregon has an elk and the Vermont Progressive Party has a bird in their official logos, but I don't think it's appropriate to make up our own designs here. Just take the original logo and put it in a circle, nothing more. Anything else is original research, Wikipedia presenting something not based on. The flower for the Green party matches the one from Template:Green politics, but isn't connected to the US party. Reywas92^Talk 16:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok. Would you be ok with the symbols remaining as long as they are merely used to represent parties with disclaimers that they are not actual logos and if they are simply the original logos (or parts of them, in the case of the bison) in a circle.

The comments about the previous logo and the stars make sense—if we keep the logos (obviously with some changes) I’ll go through and edit them to make them match the current logos and remove the stars.

I think the reason that the Libertarian symbol is the porcupine in a disc is because it matches (in some way) the Democratic and Republican ones, but, again, I see where you’re coming from.

I’m sorry—this is my first time ever doing something like this and I kind of want to keep them. I do understand where you’re coming from though. RiverMan18 (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

This is purely decoration. There's no point to mere decoration whether or not there's a disclaimer. I'm okay with minimal modification of legitimate designs that are in fact used by the parties to represent themselves, i.e. putting the actual logo in a circle, but they should not be changed just for the sake of having pictures – the article should be informational. Other countries actually use electoral symbols for parties, like to assist people who can't read the language, but not in the US. Reywas92^Talk 21:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - if they're unofficial or inaccurate logos, I'm not sure why we would want to use them, unless they're notable in their own right for some reason? Generally speaking when we discuss political parties we use their actual symbol, where available, not an edited version or our own interpretation of it. (Since that would generally be considered WP:FORUM or WP:SYNTH.) When it comes to using them with a disclaimer that they are merely used to represent parties with disclaimers that they are not actual logos, it makes even less sense, since the parties already have logos that are used to represent them, why would we use completely different ones? Smallangryplanet (talk) 17:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok—I see where you’re coming from, but what if the party logos aren’t free? Using the logos allows us to get around that (ex. see the political parties list—non-free images aren’t allowed there). RiverMan18 (talk) 17:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Confused - this and this aren't allowed on the party list page? They have to be disc-shaped, even if the party has an actual logo which isn't? WP:LOGO includes the line, "Reasonable diligence should be taken to ensure that the logo is accurate and has a high-quality appearance. This does not mean that unnecessarily high resolution images should be used, but it does mean that resized logos should not be used if their appearance differs significantly from the original. Usually, the current logo should be the logo presented." Based on this, I support using the actual logos of political parties to represent them where logos exist, and oppose making our own versions. Even if they're not discs. Safrolic (talk) 18:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that party logos are allowed on the list page as long as they are free to use. Party logos don’t have to be disc-shaped, but I was thinking it might be useful to have disc-shaped versions for a “standard format” for pages such as election pages. RiverMan18 (talk) 18:40, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Reading further, I might be wrong; there might not be a valid fair-use case for official logos on this list article, per WP:NFLISTS. I don't know whether creating unofficial emblems is then acceptable; it may be that this article doesn't get to have images. Equivalent articles for Canada and the United Kingdom don't; Mexico's list includes both official and self-created emblems, but their laws apparently don't allow political party logos to be copyrighted in the first place. I've linked this RfC to WP:IMAGEHELP for editors with specific knowledge to weigh in. Safrolic (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Ok—thanks for linking this RFC.

What would you think about disc logos as sort of a “standardized” way to represent parties (as seen on election articles)? Such logos would only be cropped versions of the original logo in a circle (ex. the current Liberal Party USA logo, just without the stars). RiverMan18 (talk) 21:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I think if you're modifying the logo enough to avoid non-free-use restrictions, you're running into OR/SYNTH. I believe the answer here is that we cannot use icons in this list. Safrolic (talk) 21:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

In addition, the logos could be useful for a sort of “standardized party logo” type which could be useful on things like articles about elections. RiverMan18 (talk) 18:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - This is WP:SYNTH at its worst, apparently to create a bogus consistency and achieve a certain decorative consistency. We don't DO "decorative" in articles. --Orange Mike | Talk 22:04, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for weighing in. Could you take a look at the logos in List of political parties in Mexico? It appears to be a mix of actual and modified/self-created images, most created years ago by a blocked user. Safrolic (talk) 22:23, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose - we have colors to distinguish parties, and they have official logos. Making these new logos is clearly WP:SYNTH. If it's a fair use case to use real logos, we can include those (that question seems unresolved), but not these invented discs. This list (and others) might just have to be picture-free. Most other possible uses for these (e.g. on elections' or politicians' pages) are effective with standard party colors. ~Malvoliox (talk | contribs) 22:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your comments. I take it that the general consensus is that we should remove the discs and use official logos or colors instead. I’ll start this process tomorrow my time (the first time I’m able to do it).

Thank you. RiverMan18 (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - As a;lready pointed out, as an encyclopedia, we should not be using unofficial, made-up, or altered logos. And to be clear, that includes turning them into discs by putting a circle around them. As for use of the actual logos in the list, any non-free logo would need to have a non-free usage rationale provided to explain why it must be on that list article and I doubt very much that any usage would meet WP:NFCC#8. -- Whpq (talk) 23:22, 12 December 2024 (UTC)