Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Christians (2nd nomination)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Issues of referencing and criteria were not sufficiently addressed by those arguing to keep. Chick Bowen 15:48, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Christians

An unmanagable list that violated Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons (BLP). Perhaps this is a bit of a test case for other such lists, but I will only nominate this one for now. We have a category system that works well enough for this and I'm not convinced that the mini-biography at the side of the names adds anything special to make this list acceptable. My major concern is the BLP worry though, as this list comprises information about people (both in the mini-summary and in their inclusion in the list itself) that is totally unsourced. Would people be offended by being called a Christian? Well I don't know, maybe, but the mini-summary is also problematic. Further this, I would say, violates WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. violet/riga (t) 11:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The previous AfD seems to have not gone through the full process. The consensus was for a rename but the AfD was not properly listed and was never officially closed. violet/riga (t) 12:59, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Rename as per the previous AfD, I'd suggest it be renamed to something to extent of List of Notable Christians. Pursey 11:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename as Pursey suggests. Most of the people on this list are dead, nearly all of them had positions in the church one way or another and it's not as if it's about satanism so I don't see where the BLP concerns come in. Nick mallory 12:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. The inclusion criteria is arbitrary: "This is for people whose Christianity is important to their notability or significance, but who may not fit above lists. This largely means people whose denominations do not have lists of their own for varied reasons, but others might not fit any existing denomination yet be known to history for their Christian philosophy or activities." WP:LIST, however, states that "Lists should always include unambiguous statements of membership criteria based on definitions made by reputable sources, especially in difficult or contentious topics." Jakew 12:14, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

But it's a list of people with professed christian beliefs who aren't included in other lists of christians - popes etc. I don't see what's contentious about it. Nick mallory 12:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree with Nick here. Even in the event it wasn't renamed, I'd be inclined to put in a comment in support of keeping it before I'd put in one supporting its deletion. Pursey 12:33, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's basically a self-reference, since it is defined as that which is not in other Wikipedia articles. It isn't based upon an established definition that's meaningful outside of Wikipedia itself. Jakew 12:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - Unmaintainable list with overly broad (and unclear) requirements for inclusion. Beyond that, the epitaphs next to the names are completely unverifiable. This should be a category. /Blaxthos 14:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rename as described above. Although the title is way too broad, the criteria for inclusion aren't hard to understand (Christian persons who became active in their church). Nor is there any difficulty in verifying the descriptives; you might try clicking on the blue name at the left of the line and it will take you to a Wikipedia article about the person. Mandsford 15:05, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete or Rename - The requirements for this list is unclear. The article should either be deleted or nemaed to better specify the list. Perhaps it should be a category? TheInfinityZero 15:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The second section is absurd. Done to completion, it would include many thousands of people. MarkBul 15:54, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I honestly do not think their religious affiliation has much to do with their notability. This is almost to the level of List of Scorpios etc Corpx 15:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)--at least unless and until that guideline is changed per some kind of consensus (not a huge problem if the list is merely renamed). This list is specifically mentioned in the guideline "how to" in composing lists of people. The fact that the list is up for AfD rather confirms my belief that there is widespread confusion about what constitutes a proper list and why this flagging policy conversation at On list guidelines really needs to happen. :)--Moonriddengirl 16:19, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment no position towards delete or keep, but I would suggest that we not rename it to 'List of Notable Christians'. Such a list would have a rather large WP:POV problem by definition. It'd be better to pick a more impartial name. --Bfigura ^(talk) 16:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It also seems to violate the naming conventions set out at Lists (stand alone lists). --Moonriddengirl 22:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I don't see how the list itself is a problem, if people are not added to it without proper evidence -- as the article itself mentions. On the other hand it doesn't seem very useful. I can't see why someone would want to use this list to look up a person's article. Steve Dufour 18:49, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- None of the entries are referenced at all. violet/riga (t) 18:53, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Wikipedia:Inclusionism and WP:PAPER, however, sources should be added for every person on the list. Canjth 20:21, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Fair comment re: sources. What would be your interim suggestion for those without sources? Should be remove all unsourced entries until they are readded with references? violet/riga (t) 20:55, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - The article could stay the way it is until references are found. Otherwise it would become unmanageable due to the enormous task of finding references for every person on the list. Canjth 17:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm doubtful that such references would be forthcoming, thus leaving the article as it is at the moment. violet/riga (t) 17:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - Those two links above isn't a reason for keeping an article. AFD is not a vote. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} ^Sports! 03:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Unmanageable because way too broadly defined. Use categories if person's religion is relevant. Weak keep and rename if it is only kept as a super-list of lists.— JyriL ^talk 22:48, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Partial delete and rename - delete all individual names and retain page as a meta-list called lists of Christians. Girolamo Savonarola 03:00, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Partial delete - per Savonarola. Unless the individual names are found to be notable as christians (and sourced as such), they should go. But a meta-list would satisfy WP:LIST. --Bfigura ^(talk) 18:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete the 'List of Christians who are not listed in one of the above lists'. Unmanageable list with weakly-defined entry characteristics; some of the more questionable entries (eg Adolf Hitler) strike a defensive tone, which is not a good sign. Keep the rest as a sort of disambiguation page, rather like List of Muslims and List of Jews. PS the List of Buddhists, List of Hindus and List of Sikhs may need looking at as well. Sam Blacketer 19:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as unmaintanable. Jaranda ^{wat's sup} ^Sports! 03:02, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - I don't consider it to be a BLP issue. We're not talking about List of ax murderers. But the fact is, it's a horribly unmaintainable list that doesn't really tell us anything. --B 05:00, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong delete – Hey, I'm a Christian. Can I put my name on this list? Ksy92003(talk) 05:09, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Making absurd arguments is fallacious. This is a list of Christians with Wikipedia articles, not of Christian Wikipedians (for which a category probably exists). If you want to have this article deleted, please exlain it more rationally and cite which Wikipedia policies would back up your position. Canjth 21:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - My argument isn't fallacious. The article is "List of Christians," and I am a Christian, so by that logic if I put my name on there, then you can't delete it because I am a Christian. Per the name of the article, I would be allowed to put my name there. If it were a List of "notable" Christians, that would be a different argument. Ksy92003(talk) 22:41, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Per WP:MOSLIST, no list article should include "notable," "famous," or the like in its title: those terms are always assumed. Thus List of Sun Microsystems employees is all blue links, as is List of collegiate a cappella groups, and so is List of Christians. Many of the deletionists here (and those proposing renaming) seem to be forgetting that. UnitedStatesian 18:49, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep if renamed to notable christians; but the actual limitation seems to be those for whom Christianity was in some way relevant to their career or other notability. The evidence for this seems obvious in many cases, and is always clear from the information in the linked WP articles. It can be repeated of course, but i think such indirect referencing acceptable. My bias is that there needs to be some actual evidence. Surely most Jews would regard it libelous to be called a Christian, and I assume the same is true of other religions. Ksy can put his name on if he gets a WP article on other grounds, and it talks about his religion in some significant way. DGG (talk) 10:07, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - My concern is BLP in nature: Lists are very similar to, and often used in place of (or even to get around) categories. WP:BLP#Categories requires that two criteria be met before a religious or sexual orientation category can be applied. I am inclined to apply the spirit of the BLP category restrictions to lists of this nature as well. It is very difficult to verify these things in list form, so I am inclined to not have such lists. - Crockspot 19:44, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as an unnecessarily large, nearly impossible to maintain list, not to mention the fact that it is entirely unreferenced. According to WP:WPBIO, there are 426,053 biography articles (and there is likely a lot more). According to Christianity, about 1/3 of the world's population is Christian. Now I doubt anyone has determined the percentage of people famous for being Christan or doing Christan related things, but if only 1% of Christians meet the definitions used for this list (if there is much of a definition), that would correspond to over 1,400 articles. This is a situation where a category should be preferable. Mr.Z-man 21:35, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Is there a legitimate need for this list that categories somehow don't satisfy? Besides, with the current title, it could never be compleated, listing the couple billion theoretical names of just living people alone might make the page too large to even view, but of course, there aren't notable sources for every single Christian that could go on this list. Furthermore, leaving more fighting grounds for the ridiculous Adolf Hitler: Can We Insult Christianity By Claiming He Was A Christian battle intact when they don't have to be seems like an unnecessary time sink for any editors involved in the battle. Homestarmy 00:00, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I strongly concur with Crockspot above. This is why we have categories, so they can be checked with references on the subject's page. Also, the principle of dual notability is central to categorisation and there is no reason why that should not be applied to lists as well.(That being said, the qualifier heading this list does tend to meet that objections halfway.) Hornplease 18:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per DGG.Baka man 23:14, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: Has two severe "what the Wikipedia is not" issues. --Eqdoktor 12:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information - its a huge sprawling list, unmanageable and ripe for BLP abuse/vandalism.
- Wikipedia is not a directory - Wikipedia is not the white pages for Christians (or any other religion, race or creed).
Strong Delete Well, many people in this list may not believe in Christianity. Many people may have been atheist, agnostics, deists, non-believers, theists but rejected Christianity, etc. This list is just too much! There is no way to prove that all the people in the list believed in Christianity. Delete it. RS1900 12:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BLP issues and other articles

As I mentioned in the nomination there are BLP concerns and several other articles that we need to look at. List of evangelical Christians, for example, includes a great list of living people that have no citation and naming them as "evangelical" could be a problem. Perhaps we need to have a new discussion area for this. violet/riga (t) 13:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Close as no consensus pending development of additional consensus around policies and guidelines related to list articles (and lists articles, which this actually is). While trying to assume good faith, I also detect the possibility some anti-Christian bias in the nomination and discussion - why was this one nominated first and not List of atheists, Lists of Hindus or Lists of Muslims? UnitedStatesian 15:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No consensus?! The AFD has been open for just over 24 hours - how could this have possibly had time to even develop a consensus? I also have a problem with accusations of "anti-Christian bias" - there is none that I can see, and the evaluation of impropriety based on the fact that other religions weren't nominated first is baseless and should have absolutely no effect on this AFD. Just because this article was (rightly) nominated for deletion doesn't mean that anyone is out to get Christians. /Blaxthos 15:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, allow the AfD to run its course. I would hold the same view I express above no matter what religion was substituted for "Christians". - Crockspot 19:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletions. -- John Vandenberg 09:08, 8 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.