Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of dropouts (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 per clear consensus. --Anthony Bradbury^"talk" 14:59, 22 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

List of dropouts

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Not sure how this previously survived AFD. It is purely listcruft. Even if all of these were sourced, dropping out is rarely (if ever) relevant to people's notability to begin with. Snuggums (talk / edits) 18:09, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Education-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:11, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't even tell from the Afd closure statement what the heck the decision was: you know, sometimes we can get a little too cute with these things? It looks to me like it was closed as delete, but the edit history of the list seems to show otherwise? Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:25, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete its a Crystal Ball major issue waiting to happen. Ⓩⓟⓟⓘⓧ (talk) 18:26, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've misunderstood. It's not predicting people will drop out. It's people who have. I still would support deletion but it is not a case of WP:CBALL. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 18:29, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This is not a good article, although WP:AFDISNTCLEANUP, it is pointless to maintain. Listcruft, not relevant, and if this was a list of ALL dropouts, the article would be way too long. ThePlatypusofDoom (talk) 18:52, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Nonspecific, useless, and criteria for being a "dropout" is vague, at best Sheepythemouse (talk) 20:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Per the above. The definition and the context behind a "dropout" is clearly nebulous. If there really was a strong need or encyclopedic benefit in knowing who dropped out of school or didn't complete their education, Categorize could be an option, but I don't feel very strongly about it. Definitely a delete though. GabeIglesia (talk) 22:05, 15 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is also kind of a good point. For example, it was fairly common for men in 1700s America (and in some of the surrounding time periods) to start on a college education but never actually finish it. If anything, it was actually fairly expected that they'd go for a little while and then move on to other things without finishing their degree. This means that there is the possibility here for a list so incredibly long that it'd be pretty unwieldy. I'd say that if we were to have anything, it should be a category. I'd also suggest that the wording get changed. The reason for this is that the term "dropout" is inherently negative (like they dropped out due to poor grades, drugs, or some other attribute seen as negative) and is almost always used in a detrimental fashion. It'd be far better to use terminology like "did not complete schooling" or something like that, if it can be done in a less clunky fashion. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:30, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not a good point because we have a clear guideline WP:CLN which explains that "the "category camp" should not delete or dismantle Wikipedia's lists". Andrew D. (talk) 22:43, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

yes I agree with Andrew that that line of argument is a head scratcher: is it's too "nebulous" or non-notable for a list, I fail to see how it could ever work as a defining category. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 16:03, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I should clarify what I meant by "nebulous," and Tokyogirl79 fortunately was able to do that for me a little bit. My line of thinking was that there's a negative connotation to the term "dropout," and a blanket list of all dropouts rather ignores the different contexts for why people drop out. Various people drop out for financial reasons, health reasons, family reasons, or others; some are beyond the subject's control, and others are based on the subject's own volition. It seems that the list is more accurately a (non-exhaustible) list of people who simply didn't complete their education for whatever reason, and I don't see much encyclopedic purpose in listing that in an entire article. To think about it another way, consider that we have various categories and article lists of alumni of various institutions. These lists and categories are useful because they help identify the educational affiliation and experience of notable people. To my understanding, most people who drop out of an institution aren't notable for dropping out but are notable for something else (perhaps Mark Zuckerberg and his first work on Facebook might be an exception, but that's quite a unique exception), so I don't see a necessity or an encyclopedic benefit in highlighting this beyond what is already mentioned in the education sections of their respective articles. I hope this clarifies my position. GabeIglesia (talk) 18:01, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The list is well-sourced and clearly passes the relevant guideline, WP:LISTN. The nomination is poor as "listcruft" is not policy; not even close. Andrew D. (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:What Wikipedia is not#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information, which says Wikipedia is not the place for excessive listings. This is not by any reasonable measure worth keeping. Being a dropout isn't really relevant to what people are noted for regardless of sourcing within article. Snuggums (talk / edits) 03:00, 17 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or rename and turn into categories. I still stand by my point that if this classification is to be kept in any format, it should be renamed and it should be in category format because of the sheer amount of names that could qualify for this list in any given form or fashion. For a bit of a better explanation, here's what I suggest:

That this be moved to a category format. There are hundreds upon hundreds of names that could qualify for this list. The only reason we don't see more than a few dozen on this list right now is because they haven't been added. Trust me when I say that this is a list that has the potential to be extremely bulky and untenable in any format other than categorization - which is the format that has been used whenever we have a large amount of articles that could pertain to a specific qualification.
That this be renamed to category types that pertain to the various types of schooling that each person did not complete. For example, the categories would be something like this: Category:People who did not finish primary education, Category:People who did not finish secondary education, Category:People who did not finish higher education, and so on. I imagine that the bulk of names would fall within the last two categories. We can have one primary category, which I'd recommend be Category:People who did not finish higher education, since there are more people that fall into that category than any other, and put 1-2 paragraphs at the top of the category explaining the classification and also naming the other categories that could also pertain to this classification.

Now the problem with using the term "dropout" is that as stated above, there are some extremely negative associations with the term and it also does not take into account the various reasons people could not finish their education, especially as dropping out gives off the impression of the person voluntarily leaving the educational system, most frequently because of poor grades or some other reason that's almost always seen as negative. Not everyone leaves of their own accord and not every reason for leaving is negative, per some of the examples I listed in my prior post. Renaming this to the above category names will not only remove the negative assumptions that come with the term "drop out" but it'd also help with some of the BLP issues since I can already predict that if this is left as "dropout" then we will have people contesting the addition of names because the term is inherently negative, comes with very specific preconceived notions (most of which are negative), and the average person may not automatically assume that someone that left because they were "taking a break" (and then just never went back) would automatically be considered a dropout. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:38, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I also support a delete since I can see the argument that for many, this might not be that major to add. There are also some slightly unclear areas, such as (for example) someone in the early days of the US going to college but then leaving (as this was expected in the day), then going on to apprentice under a lawyer and pass the bar. Technically that person didn't complete their university degree, although they still managed to obtain a license to practice. These are all things that we have to consider when creating any sort of list or categories of this nature. Tokyogirl79 (｡◕‿◕｡) 05:44, 18 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or rename and turn into categories per Tokyogirl79 above. "Dropout" is a relatively recent and negative term. Until at least the early part of the 20th century it was fairly common for people to consider their education finished without formal "graduations" or, in the case of college, the conferral of a degree, for a variety of reasons, including lack of availability of formal education in all areas, cost of education, less requirement for formal education to get decent jobs, and the possibility of entering a field through self-education, on-the-job training or an apprenticeship program. Calling historic figures "dropouts" is applying a misleading modern standard to their education. With respect to modern "dropouts", for living people there are potential BLP issues with classifying people using a term with negative connotations. If a person does not finish high school but later completes an equivalency diploma, are they still considered a "dropout"? If a person leaves college but later is awarded an honorary degree, are they still considered a "dropout"? (There have been cases of celebrities taking their honorary degrees seriously and demanding to be called Dr. so and so.) At the very least, the terminology used should be "People who did not complete primary education", "People who did not complete an undergraduate degree" etc. rather than "dropouts" in order to maintain NPOV. TheBlinkster (talk) 03:39, 20 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and categorize instead as this is certainly questionable for a solid article. SwisterTwister talk 04:33, 22 April 2016 (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.