Wikipedia talk:WikiProject World's Oldest People/Archive 1

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Our Current Status

Our current status is somewhat inactive, with having an absent group leader and such. However, I'll be watching over this page. Neal (talk) 23:15, 29 March 2008 (UTC).

Not really inactive, as the Project is just beginning. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 00:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Fine, just the 2 of us. But our leader is currently working on his thesis, we'll be active again this summer. Neal (talk) 03:00, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

This WikiProject may have some virtues, but it now reads like a massive promotional statement for the GRG. This is completely against Wikipedia policies. The collage must be removed. Indeed it would be best to remove all mention of the GRG. I also have concerns that you have a project leader who is on a long term block. He can hardly lead if he can not edit. I do not see that he has agreed to be Project Leader on wikipedia either. I hope that you realise that most projects do not have leaders or coordinates. Some of the images seem to have license concerns and if these are not resolved, then the collage has licence concerns also. It also reads as if you think you own articles. This is against WP:OWN. --Bduke (talk) 05:01, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, I don't think we want to spam/advertise anything. Which is why we don't list any urls in the page. We merely only link the word GRG which links to the Wikipedia article. Our project leader, politically, has no power on Wikipedia. This place came as a result of not having members having to post on everyone's talk page regarding articles for deletion, which would be canvassing. So the logical thing to do was have a WikiProject page for announcements. (NealIRC)

It is spam/advertising and indicates a link that is a conflict of interest. It must go. You can add the link to GRG as one of the articles you aim to support. --Bduke (talk) 22:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay, will remove the link. Neal (talk) 22:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

This project, is of course, for the 'Wikipedians' of Ryoung122's Yahoo group. I pre-maturely started this group before his 2nd unblock request, which he will do this summer. Maybe I created it too early. If Robert Young wants to come back to Wikipedia via his 2nd unblock request, I'm sure some admins will want him to cooperate and not canvass via his own group. This place should (help) solve that problem. (NealIRC)

"This project, is of course, for the 'Wikipedians' of Ryoung122's Yahoo group". That is unacceptable. WikiProjects should not be linked to outside groups and are open to all editors who want to help with articles on a specific topics or series of topics. --Bduke (talk) 22:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, of course, it is open to all of Wikipedia. We don't have the choice to not allow who to come in or not. Neal (talk) 22:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

I just added the GRG collage since I thought it was cute. The Yahoo group started as a board explicitly for supercentenrians, in which the GRG only allowed scientists and people with degrees. (NealIRC)

No, we don't own articles, I just started a "Articles We Cover" section just to list for our own organization. I really don't care to add any button to the articles that point to this group, such as "this article is under the scope of.. <our group>." I know AMK152 has been doing some of that, but I don't quite support it. Neal (talk) 12:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

It's for a purpose of article Assessment. As this WikiProject's goal is basically to improve the World's Oldest People articles, it would help to know which articles need improving, which articles are close to becoming good/featured/etc. and if an article is about to be deleted, and we have the WikiProject banner on the article's talk page, usually someone will go to the WikiProject's talk page and notify people. Over 1,300 Projects are doing this and there's nothing wrong with it. We can just simply organize and see a list of the status of the articles. And we're not ownign the articles by doing this, we're just a WikiProject with goals for a particular group of articles like all the other projects. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 18:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

AMK152 is perfectly correct. It is fine to add a project template to the talk page of articles that the project is interested in. It also allows article assessment and he has done a great job on it. --Bduke (talk) 22:19, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, by not supporting it, I also meant I was not against it. Neal (talk) 22:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Purpose of Images

I don't understand the purpose of member's pictures. If someone wanted to know what a person looked like, wouldn't they just go look for it on one person's user page? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 18:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like something on the individual level to be worried about. ;/ Neal (talk) 18:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Still, is having these pictures here helping us expand, update, and improve articles in regards to the World's Oldest People? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Wow, this has nothing to do with what you said. The point of those images were not to help us expand, update, and improve articles in regards to the world's oldest people. But you knew that. Neal (talk) 19:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Yes, it is. But I'm trying to figure out the purpose of the images. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:28, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Same purpose as in why any other images exist on articles. -_- Neal (talk) 19:31, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

There are many different purposes for images. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

That's very true, but as you asked, the images do not actually "help us expand, update, and improve articles in regards to the world's oldest people." Neal (talk) 19:40, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

I don't understand why we're not gettign anywhere. How about this. "Why did you include the images of some of the members of the WikiProject on the Project page?" -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:43, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Hm, good question. So they know what we look like. Neal (talk) 19:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Seriously? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:45, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Yup. ;) Neal (talk) 19:47, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

I know of no other WikiProject that has images of its members on the project page. It is certainly not common. I also note that some of these images have license issues on Commons. --Bduke (talk) 22:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. I removed them to prevent license issues. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 02:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, removing an image from a page doesn't solve the problem. If the image itself has licensing problems, it has to be deleted from the servers itself, where the image itself can be nominated for deletion. Removing a linked image doesn't delete the image, afaik. But you knew that, (I hope). Neal (talk) 14:39, 31 March 2008 (UTC).

There is absolutely no point of those images on the WikiProject page. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 20:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This if of course, dodging the question. The issue wasn't that the images are linked on the project pages, but are hosted on the servers itself. Do you think a rational conversation consists of creating your own argument and arguing against that? Or dodging questions? In any event, I'll reply to what you said. Wikipedia has a policy where a no consensus defaults to keep. This is why in an AfD, if exactly half vote for keep and exactly half vote for delete, the default goes to keep. How you can conclude that a 1 vs. 1 consensus defaults to remove, could be a mystery to me. Neal (talk) 00:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC).

You did not even ask me a question, so I can't "dodge" and I wasn't arguing against my agrument. Besides, you are the only one who said they want the images.-AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 15:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You were replying to Bduke. Your "agreed" reply to Bduke did not solve the problem. Maybe you thought removing the image from the project page solves the image-licensing problem which Bduke mentioned but it didn't. Therefore, I don't consider what you did a solution. You then decided to make an argument that the image itself is pointless, which was different from Bduke's original argument, and used that as your argument. Neal (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC).

My original arguement is that there is no need for the images. Bduke's arguement is the licensing. I then agreed ALSO with Bduke's comment. Just because I already stated my arguement doesn't mean I'm not allowed to agree with someone elses arguement. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 15:55, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Group Leader?

Per Wikipedia:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, we shouldn't have a leadership committee or whatever. We work collaborately. Projects can be deleted for doing this. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I know I know, he's a leader in our heads. You're not inclined to follow him, especially since I don't think you're a member of our Yahoo board. We came as a result of his Yahoo board. Neal (talk) 19:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

But actually saying that he is the "Group Leader" may actually make people think he is the "group leader." Yes, it is important to know that he is part of the GRG, and this fact can be provided to inform people that he has more knowledge in that particular field. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:21, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Right. Neal (talk) 19:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Okay then. We have consensus. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

(After revert) And by removing the title, "group leader," that contradicts people actually thinking he is the "group leader." Neal (talk) 19:52, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Let me just make this clear 1 more time so you don't go about reverting that edit for a 2nd time. It simply says he is the "group leader." It does not say he has power over the group. It does not say he has administrative authority over the group. It does not even say he is a Wikipedia administrator. It simply says he is in charge. He is a leader by consent. That means anyone whom has a dispute over something in the group can go to him. Back before he was blocked, we voluntarily edited the articles. Now this page serves as an announcements section so we know what's up. That means anyone whom wants to know about which of our articles are nominated for deletion and such can come here.

In any event, none of the WikiProjects I know of, have members that join in and change the layout of the project page themselves. Sigh. Neal (talk) 20:05, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

What?? Changing the layout and content of the Project pages is what members of the Project are here for. This is Wikipedia - the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. You do not own this page, Neal. On the Group Leader stuff, I have two points. First, some projects have a Lead coordinator. A good example is the Military History Project and later, but still a long time ago, the Wikipedia:WikiProject Scouting followed. I do not think it is acceptable to have a Project leader and certainly not a Group Leader. Second, in particular a blocked editor can not coordinate the project because he can not edit. --Bduke (talk) 22:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, project leader, group leader, wikiproject group leader, pretty much same thing, different working. Right, I kind of pre-maturely created this. This is why I labeled this group as inactive. Neal (talk) 22:33, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Project Point: Educating?

• Are we seriously going around telling people about Supercentenarians and aging and stuff like that? That's not what WikiProject's do. I though we were going around improving the articles. If the Project members were actually teaching people, we would go to their talk pages and tell them about the subject. Or perhaps you mean by the actual articles that tell people about the subject. WE educating people sounds like WE own that articles we use to "educate." -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:18, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • No, the people [us] do. Robert Young said on his WOP group that his #1 goal is to education people about human longevity. And he uses Wikipedia as a medium for that too. Even I like to educate people about human longevity. No, we don't own the articles, we edit them. ..Don't worry about it. Neal (talk) 19:20, 30 March 2008 (UTC).
    • Yes, the articles are educating people. It does still sound like own. Perhaps we need a third party's opinion? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:23, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
      • *We* - as in, the people of the group. Or the people that *founded* the group. Not every individual whom manually joins us has to agree to that philosophy. I understand you found us through Wikipedia and don't know much about us. Neal (talk) 19:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC).
        • 2 Questions:
        • Are you referring to the "group" as in the Yahoo Group?
        • Are you referring to "us" as in the members of the said group?
        • -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:27, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
          • Well, in that case, it doesn't matter, because we're on both this group and Yahoo group. So both. Us as in the people. Neal (talk) 19:30, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

What Robert Young does on his web pages has nothing to do with what should go on here. It looks to me like your are trying to link this WP Project to an outside Group and deter editors who are not members of that outside Group to participate in the WikiProject. This is unacceptable. I also note that you describe the GRC as "Our parent company". Really? This is indicating a gross conflict of interest and is simply not allowed. It has to be removed. --Bduke (talk) 22:24, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, Robert created his Yahoo group because his parent company, GRG, only allows scientists in their news letter or so. I use the words Gerontology Research Group so we know where our source is - so we do have some sort of a reputable reliable source. Neal (talk) 22:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Am I misunderstanding this?

• Is this just a group to teach people about the World's Oldest People? Did I mistakenly assume this was a Project to improve, expand, and update the articles? I assumed it was the second one, because I have been trying to shape this into a Project, but apparently there is conflict. The title has "WikiProject" in it and I hope I assumed correctly. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:34, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Also yes, and yes. But you're also expanding and deleting and removing comments in the project page itself. You're welcome to contribute to the articles which everyone has default control over it. But whether or not you come to the WikiProject to edit and edit content of the project itself is something else.. In any event, I do appreciate you *adding* the project assesment, showing all the grade high medium low class articles, etc. As well as tagging. But I don't need you changing our philosophies or appreciate you editing our goals when you know little about us. Neal (talk) 19:39, 30 March 2008 (UTC).
    • When you say "us" who are you referring to? -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 19:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
      • Robert Young and his Yahoo group. Everyone listed in this group is/was a part of his group with the exception of you and Kitia. Neal (talk) 19:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

The reason I added Kitia to this group (as he is blocked), he has showed to me tremendous love and dedication to the group. I mean, him, me, and Bart, would vote the same thing in all the articles. He even posts on my talk page 4 supercentenarian articles (plus others) that were under deletion. He of course, got in trouble for that. As he is blocked, he can't add himself to this group. Then on his unban requests, he talks about how he felt Ryoung122 didn't get a fair block and did his doings for him. You'd also understand if you read his talk page. Wow, what a tremedous sacrificer. So of course I added him here. Neal (talk) 19:49, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Wow, that seems to be the first positive review of Kitia. [adding name to list] Editorofthewiki 21:56, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no "of course" about it. You do not add others to WikiProjects. They have to do that themselves. It is strange that people who edit these articles get blocked. I noticed quite by chance yesterday that User:Joseph A. Spadaro was indefinitely blocked, but then the block was lifted. --Bduke (talk) 22:29, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I've only known Joseph A. Spadaro for a few days, and his block will be lifted in a couple of days or so. Neal (talk) 22:37, 30 March 2008 (UTC).

Future of this Project

(After edit conflict - after a quick read of Neal's recent edit that cause the conflict, I still think you need to consider all these points) It is quite clear that this Project has a whole host of problems. It needs to be fixed or it will not have a sound future. I am reluctant to fix it myself, but I urge the members to thoroughly consider the many points I have made above and edit the project page appropriately. In particularly you should remove "members" who have not added themselves, list all members under a single heading of members or participants not separating GRG members from others, remove all the other spam to the GRC, including the collage, and make it quite clear that this is a regular WikiProject to improve articles on the World's Oldest People and not something linked to any other group. --Bduke (talk) 22:42, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I just tried fixing all the problems to where it is appropriate for Wikipedia. If anyone wants to readd what was removed, it is best to discuss it first before readding it. -AMK152^{(Talk • Contributions • Send message)} 02:19, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Bduke's sentiments. The project page and the agenda in some of the comments above are very concerning and conflict with Wikipedia editing principles. By "leader", I assume Neal is referring to User:Ryoung122 who is blocked indefinitely. WP works on consensus and a user who has been blocked for violating editing policies and engaging in personal attacks certainly has no role to play in project coordination (even by proxy). —Moondyne click! 03:10, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. This does now look like a standard WikiProject main page. I strongly support the view above from AMK152 that any reversion of the changes made by the two editors above should be discussed here first. --Bduke (talk) 04:48, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Name of this Project

Would Wikiproject: Longevity be a better name for this project? It sounds more encyclopedic. What do people think? --Bduke (talk) 22:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Bduke: I note your edit comment "just list articles without confusing paragraph - thanks to Robert Young for suggested deletion," (in the project page, not the talk). Moondyne clearly stated that blocked users can't get things done even by proxy. So I would think that means you can't delete stuff sourcing Robert Young said so/told you to. *shrug* Neal (talk) 16:42, 3 April 2008 (UTC).

Where did Moondyne say this? The edit, that I thanked Robert for suggesting, was to the Project page where I removed a very confusing and unnecessary sentence at the beginning of the section on articles covered. Robert suggested its removal. I removed it because I had already thought it needed attention. I certainly take responsibility for removing it. The courtesy blanking on the talk page was a living person issue because you had accused Robert of encouraging harassment of admins off wiki. He rightly took exception to that and denied it. I therefore removed that comment. Just because a user is blocked does not mean that you can make accusations about them. --Bduke (talk) 23:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Not sentence, but paragraph. This particular edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:WikiProject_World%27s_Oldest_People&diff=202993391&oldid=202212703. We do cover biographies, such as Jeanne Calment, Sarah Knauss, etc. I didn't see anything relevant in removing it completely, except maybe clarify. Neal (talk) 00:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC).

Then add something back that makes sense. Do not talk about ages, as that was totally unclear and inappropriate. Just say something like "Biographies of oldest people". The articles covered are defined by those with the Project tag on their talk pages. From the assessment table, that means the project covers 90 articles. There is no need to list them all. In fact their is really no need to list any of them, but you might list the most important. --Bduke (talk) 00:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Right, I obviously didn't want to list all the supercentenarian articles, so I mentioned the age group we cover. We don't cover people below 110 nowadays. There are exceptions going back in the 1970s and 1960s. And then I added we'll cover certain underage articles at our discretion. My point was you removed it because Robert Young told you so, and Moondyne said blocked users can't play any role in project coordination even by proxy. Neal (talk) 00:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC).

Robert Young did not tell me to do anything. He has been commenting on the WikiProject page and said that the paragraph in question was unclear and he thought it would be better if it was removed. I agreed and that is why I removed it. I still do not know what Moondyne said, but from his comment below he does not seem to think there are any issues other than you twisting his words. --Bduke (talk) 06:06, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

That's right, he didn't tell you to do it, but merely suggested, as the edit comment goes "thanks to Robert Young for suggested deletion." This of course, could contradict why he would tell you what he thinks is unclear/should be deleted. Of course, 1 way you could argue this by getting around it, is say you also agree with him, so you also did it for yourself, but you merely did it because he came up with the idea instead. However, I don't support or enforce Moondyne's statement since I really don't give a damn whether blocked users play a role in WikiProjects to begin with myself. Neal (talk) 17:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC).

Neal don't twist my words—you know what I said and what I meant. Also, I agree with a rename to the much simpler and broader Wikiproject: Longevity, but frankly I do not wish to get involved in this project other than helping to ensure it stays on the rails as far as Wikipedia policies are concerned. —Moondyne click! 00:07, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

That's very easy to say that - much harder to show why. But I feel the above was in a misunderstanding edit. Neal (talk) 00:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC).

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
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Joining team

Greetings,

It may be COI for me to assess some of the articles in the WOP project, but I'd like to stay informed through the newsletter. Also note the name of the project was blatantly copied by Neal Conroy from my Yahoo webgroup, World's Oldest People, http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Worlds_Oldest_People/

(founded in 2002)

but I do not object to the use of the name so long as proper credit is given as to its origin. Ryoung122 00:23, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Neal was blocked and didn't return at all. Extremely sexy (talk) 13:54, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for World's Oldest People

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Biography focus should be biography

Greetings,

It seems to me that for some, the focus of supercentenarian biographies is off-target. Firstly, "as of" comments should be used sparingly...if it needs to be updated frequently, then's it not very encyclopedic. Consider using other terms, such as "person A broke record B on date C."

Second, the focus of a biography should be more on unique identifiers for that person, their life history, how they managed to overcome the extreme odds (5 million to one or more) to survive to 110+. Please consider the use of more biographical material and less made-up stuff like "the oldest person in the Southern hemisphere." Ryoung122 03:17, 18 October 2008 (UTC)

Lazare Ponticelli at FAR

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Coordinators' working group

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Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of surviving veterans of World War I/archive1

I have nominated List of surviving veterans of World War I for featured list removal here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured list criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks, where editors may declare to "Keep" or "Remove" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. -- Scorpion⁰⁴²² 04:04, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Maiden names

User:Pascar has recently been changing names to maiden names on a number of longevity pages with the reasoning here that the "same criterion for all supercentenarians, i.e. for all them maiden names" be applied. Is there any basis for this? Cheers, DerbyCountyinNZ 01:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Henry Allingham navbox

Folks, someone added navbox code to this article. The navbox should probably be put in a proper template and transcluded on the appropriate articles. Before I do that, does this exist as a template anywhere? I did a few searched but no relevant hits. Any ideas? Thanks. – ukexpat (talk) 21:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

"Honorary" titles

Greetings,

I'd like to remove the POV word "honorary" from the "oldest person" titles navbox. The word "honorary", ironically, carries the connotation that someone didn't really 'earn' something (such as 'honorary degree') but was just recognized as such, a sort of system of flattery. To be honest, the titleholders have EARNED their title by living to be the age they did, and having documentation to prove it.

On the other hand, just because someone has the title doesn't mean they are an "honorable" person. So, I'd prefer a NPOV "titles".Ryoung122 23:13, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal for what to do when the final veteran of WW1 dies

At the talk page of List of surviving veterans of World War I‎, I have started a discussion about what to do when the final veteran dies.

My proposal is at the article's talk page, and your input would be appreciated.

Hopefully, it'll be a long time before we have to implement any decision made, but I feel we need to discuss it - especially as someone specifically asked about it.

Thanks -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 17:52, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

• Five proposals were made for what to do. If you would like to contribute with what you think should be done, the discussion is at Talk:List of surviving veterans of World War I‎#Renewed: Discussion about what to do when the last veteran dies -- PhantomSteve (Contact Me, My Contribs) 18:40, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Yohani Kinyala Lauwo

Any truth here? I guess it's not possible to verify and it's unlikely to be accurate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Melchitt (talk • contribs) 01:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Longevity myths

I would like to chip in, on a very temporary basis, to deal with the sad state of articles in relation to Biblical longevity, in that nothing like proper weighting or encyclopedic treatment is going on IMHO. I have begun by proposing, among other things, that longevity myths be renamed to "longevity narratives" or "longevity lore"; that better scopes be defined for that article and for what is almost a content fork, longevity claims; and that a simple navigation template "Biblical longevity" be created. I will also be doing some basic cleanup and sourcing and removal of POV.

A couple other concerns that I have (and this may simply be due to the project members having more experience with GRG than with WP) are that articles generally break self-reference and timelessness rules. Any breakdown that uses the word "this" (this list, this article), should be checked for whether it is WP:OR, or whether the reliable sources actually use the same criteria that the article is defining ad-hoc and self-referentially. For instance, supercentenarian properly establishes a reliable-source cutoff of 110; and the priority for year-and-day counts rather than total-day counts is also relatively well-established; but the cutoff of 130 between longevity claims and longevity myths has no real basis in reliable sourcing and I have reasonably proposed removing it, and other issues exist. As for timelessness, any article that is structured in such a way as to need nonautomated updating every day breaks one of the basic ideas of what WP is not. There are ways to handle this but they need new consensus to support them.

Anyway, please comment on my proposals here and/or at the "myths" talk. JJB 01:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I am back to continue this process. Those favoring rename of "myths" appear to prefer "longevity traditions". Also that unclear scope definition and questionable 130 cutoff still need fixing. JJB 07:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It's more than clear that you are simply biased in favor of Biblical myths. There's no scientific evidence that humans live to 950 now, or in the past. It's also clear that you are pushing an agenda. Go back to WorldNetDaily.Ryoung122 10:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

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Oldest military veterans

Could someone with more reputation then I have please make clear to MK5384 that Josef Kowalskis age is not verified? Thank you! --Dangermouse600 (talk) 00:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

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Might wanna Wake Up!

Massive things may be afoot at WP:FTN#Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-01-04/Longevity myths. I would be in favor of significant pruning myself, especially if whole list articles are redundant or not individually notable. JJB 01:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

There is now a merge proposal at Longevity myths to merge --> Longevity. Many of us who are not regulars at Longevity myths are of the opinion that the page is not encyclopedic and that relevant information ought to be saved elsewhere. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Counterproposal: An article that you have been involved in editing, Longevity myths, has been proposed for a merge with List of disputed supercentenarian claimants. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. JJB 18:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Reposting something I've been barked at, off-wiki, for posting in the wrong place. Has WP:AGF just been totally forgotten in this dispute?David in DC (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks David, although I don't think this is about misunderstanding the definitions of myth (as you may perhaps agree), it's about the fact that most (if not all) sources on this topic who use "myth" mean "falsehood" and we would not use them on this point via WP:RNPOV even though we do have articles on creation and flood mythoi. Incidentally, the merge discussions were bogged down with misunderstandings, so I closed them as "no consensus action" and continued editing per my best judgment. It appears, however uncharitably, that the WikiProject members are more interested in (excuse me) rearranging deck chairs as the iceberg approaches; and I'm also disappointed that FTN editors do not seem to be concentrating on proper weighting of the topic set as a whole. C'est la vie. JJB 18:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for handling both BDP and tabular OR issues

I have drafted a policy proposal for WP:BDP, which mentions a cutoff of age 115, that both addresses its flaws as well as the difficulties in datedness that require near-daily correction of several tables. I trust the workgroup will be interested in ensuring a draft that is salable to the WP:BLP regular editors. Please review User:John J. Bulten/BDP and comment at talk there. JJB 20:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

List of living centenarians ?vandalism?

Someone has been adding a non-notable entry at List of living centenarians. I've reverted twice. Probably enough hours that WP:3RR does not apply, but would be more comfortable having another editor take the next step. Ma^t_chups 02:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Longevity myths

I would like to chip in, on a very temporary basis, to deal with the sad state of articles in relation to Biblical longevity, in that nothing like proper weighting or encyclopedic treatment is going on IMHO. I have begun by proposing, among other things, that longevity myths be renamed to "longevity narratives" or "longevity lore"; that better scopes be defined for that article and for what is almost a content fork, longevity claims; and that a simple navigation template "Biblical longevity" be created. I will also be doing some basic cleanup and sourcing and removal of POV.

A couple other concerns that I have (and this may simply be due to the project members having more experience with GRG than with WP) are that articles generally break self-reference and timelessness rules. Any breakdown that uses the word "this" (this list, this article), should be checked for whether it is WP:OR, or whether the reliable sources actually use the same criteria that the article is defining ad-hoc and self-referentially. For instance, supercentenarian properly establishes a reliable-source cutoff of 110; and the priority for year-and-day counts rather than total-day counts is also relatively well-established; but the cutoff of 130 between longevity claims and longevity myths has no real basis in reliable sourcing and I have reasonably proposed removing it, and other issues exist. As for timelessness, any article that is structured in such a way as to need nonautomated updating every day breaks one of the basic ideas of what WP is not. There are ways to handle this but they need new consensus to support them.

Anyway, please comment on my proposals here and/or at the "myths" talk. JJB 01:25, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

I am back to continue this process. Those favoring rename of "myths" appear to prefer "longevity traditions". Also that unclear scope definition and questionable 130 cutoff still need fixing. JJB 07:28, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

It's more than clear that you are simply biased in favor of Biblical myths. There's no scientific evidence that humans live to 950 now, or in the past. It's also clear that you are pushing an agenda. Go back to WorldNetDaily.Ryoung122 10:02, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

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This message is being sent to each WikiProject that participates in the WP 1.0 assessment system. On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the WP 1.0 bot will be upgraded. Your project does not need to take any action, but the appearance of your project's summary table will change. The upgrade will make many new, optional features available to all WikiProjects. Additional information is available at the WP 1.0 project homepage. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:11, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Oldest military veterans

Could someone with more reputation then I have please make clear to MK5384 that Josef Kowalskis age is not verified? Thank you! --Dangermouse600 (talk) 00:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

World's Oldest People articles have been selected for the Wikipedia 0.8 release

Version 0.8 is a collection of Wikipedia articles selected by the Wikipedia 1.0 team for offline release on USB key, DVD and mobile phone. Articles were selected based on their assessed importance and quality, then article versions (revisionIDs) were chosen for trustworthiness (freedom from vandalism) using an adaptation of the WikiTrust algorithm.

We would like to ask you to review the World's Oldest People articles and revisionIDs we have chosen. Selected articles are marked with a diamond symbol (♦) to the right of each article, and this symbol links to the selected version of each article. If you believe we have included or excluded articles inappropriately, please contact us at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8 with the details. You may wish to look at your WikiProject's articles with cleanup tags and try to improve any that need work; if you do, please give us the new revisionID at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.8. We would like to complete this consultation period by midnight UTC on Monday, October 11th.

We have greatly streamlined the process since the Version 0.7 release, so we aim to have the collection ready for distribution by the end of October, 2010. As a result, we are planning to distribute the collection much more widely, while continuing to work with groups such as One Laptop per Child and Wikipedia for Schools to extend the reach of Wikipedia worldwide. Please help us, with your WikiProject's feedback!

For the Wikipedia 1.0 editorial team, SelectionBot 23:51, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Might wanna Wake Up!

Massive things may be afoot at WP:FTN#Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2010-01-04/Longevity myths. I would be in favor of significant pruning myself, especially if whole list articles are redundant or not individually notable. JJB 01:32, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

There is now a merge proposal at Longevity myths to merge --> Longevity. Many of us who are not regulars at Longevity myths are of the opinion that the page is not encyclopedic and that relevant information ought to be saved elsewhere. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 12:57, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Counterproposal: An article that you have been involved in editing, Longevity myths, has been proposed for a merge with List of disputed supercentenarian claimants. If you are interested in the merge discussion, please participate by going here, and adding your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. JJB 18:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Reposting something I've been barked at, off-wiki, for posting in the wrong place. Has WP:AGF just been totally forgotten in this dispute?David in DC (talk) 18:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks David, although I don't think this is about misunderstanding the definitions of myth (as you may perhaps agree), it's about the fact that most (if not all) sources on this topic who use "myth" mean "falsehood" and we would not use them on this point via WP:RNPOV even though we do have articles on creation and flood mythoi. Incidentally, the merge discussions were bogged down with misunderstandings, so I closed them as "no consensus action" and continued editing per my best judgment. It appears, however uncharitably, that the WikiProject members are more interested in (excuse me) rearranging deck chairs as the iceberg approaches; and I'm also disappointed that FTN editors do not seem to be concentrating on proper weighting of the topic set as a whole. C'est la vie. JJB 18:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Common deletion outcomes

The 2007 notability discussion seems to establish that most specific longevity records do not establish inherent notability. Even the oldest verified living person (note also subtle difference with oldest recognized living person), listed at Template:Oldest people for holders since 1955, does not confer notability to everyone listed. It is clear that some persons can be retained for notability other than supercentenarianism (Buffalo Soldier Mark Matthews). But it's also clear that consensus favors creating some more reliable guidance (toward delete, merge/redirect, or keep) than previously agreed on, and this is the page to do it. I start by noting the common outcomes shown in the majority of the above 2007 cases are that a couple of longevity-only sources will get you deleted, and a handful of them will get you merged and redirected. Specifically:

• The first five supercentenarian cases above were kept, but they appear exceptions to this idea because the discussion had just gotten started; Mueller and Page may be deletable or mergeable on review, along with later cases like Bidwell, Greene, Hannah, Keith, Watkins (and potential 2008-10 cases) which have only essentially the basic longevity-group sources.
• Graham has the same problems of having only basic longevity-group sources, but has the additional problem that the "keep" close does not appear to be valid, suggesting WP:DRV.
• Baines clearly passes WP:GNG on five very mainstream sources and several longevity sources, indicating many more; similarly for Hardy and Knauss (and maybe McMorran), which have much mainstream coverage.
• It is clear that by 2007-12-10, AFD nominators (mostly BrownHairedGirl) had gotten enough feel for consensus as to nominate reliably for result of either deletion or redirection, with only one exception. I would propose that criteria similar to the above should be reratified, namely, that the article should be kept only if there are many unquestionable sources, merged if there are a few questionable and longevity-group sources, and deleted if there are only a couple.
• Naturally, as to still-open discussion on Goossenaerts, I find these data to support my position of "delete or redirect", recognizing there are other POVs. Decision should be made on sourcing rather than on "one of several unverified claimants for oldest living man in Europe". When sourcing is limited to mirrors of one wire story that quotes GRG, plus one or more older Belgian-only sources of uncertain provenance (the primary one being a political party), the notability falls somewhere between delete and redirect as per the above outcomes. However, this is only the current and immediate application of what ought to be a wider principle. JJB 21:33, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Given that Jan Goossenaerts has now been kept by closer Mandsford, contrary to this logic, I anticipate that the keepers will all come over here to help create some consensus about the general deletion principles different from the logic above that indicates a merge for Jan G. If they should fail to do so, why, the project consensus would remain toward merge at this page, and would force a merge and overthrow the nonconsensus at the AFD for which they fought so hard. Great. Jump in, guys, and show us why the above WP:OUTCOMES show that an article with unexpandable minimal sourcing should be kept rather than merged. I'll give you at least 2 weeks. JJB 04:55, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The subject of my tongue-in-cheek "anticipation" has not materialized. I know very few of the active topic-area editors seem to want to contribute to this page, but I will test the WP:SILENT consensus with another round of deletion recommendations, at which point I "anticipate" objectors will comment here. That proposal, accepted silently so far, is that supercentenarian articles may be deleted or merged to lists if they have only local notability and heavy GRG advocacy evident in the sources. It appears that this was also done for many of the 2007 AFDs, so it is not just a one-man silent consensus, but it needs to be restoked. JJB 22:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I think we have a problem here. First of all, one could argue that a simple obituary is a "one event," but if someone is reported for several events (say, 114th birthday, becoming Japan's oldest person, dying) over a two-year period, that's more than "one event." Many of the articles you deleted were sourceable and expandable. Unfortunately, there seems to be a problem of "recentism" and a pro-English language bias here. Someone such as Ura Koyama, for example, was Japan's oldest person for more than two years, and a lot of articles and coverage can be found, but whoever made the article didn't bother to do that. In the past, expandable articles warranted labels such as "stub" rather than "delete", with the idea that someone would expand it one day.

The second problem is that you are taking advantage of sub-standard article creations to create a standard that is too tight, and in fact contradictory. We saw articles such as Nyleptha Roberts with a lot of coverage and sourcing, yet you campaigned to have it deleted, anyway. This is a sort of a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario that is flatly unacceptable.

Third, there seems to be a problem with list-fanaticism. It's important to have statistics, but just as we have biographies for baseball players, not just their batting stats, so it's important to have background biographies on supercentenarians as well.

Some of the problems are delineating "how notable" someone has to be, to be notable for age. Right now, you are guilty of overpruning, something that was done in 2007 as well. Other years, like 2006, 2008, 2009, etc. may have seen overexpansion...but often the problem is not that the articles couldn't be notable, but that someone just started a stub and left it.

Ryoung122 05:56, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The solution is to thrash out here a consensus on notability. There is a general notability guideline. There is a guideline for biographies. Some WikiProjects have extra guidance, e.g. WP:PROF. IMHO the biography notability guideline covers all the bases, but if anyone thinks biographies of long-lived people are a special case, then this is the time and the place to say why, and to propose specific criteria. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I would like to bring attention to WP:OBSCURE, since in some AFDs it has been proposed that being exceptionally old is not notable, even if WP:N is met. In short: having a specific, perhaps limited, audience is not grounds for the deletion of an article. SiameseTurtle (talk) 18:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome Robert! Thanks for providing such a moderate summary that I actually thought someone else had written it: the only presentation issue is that you still need to work on WP:INDENTs. To your first, if you do have three independent sources on birthday, becoming oldest national, and death, I would probably use a merge template rather than an AFD (although 3 is right at the borderline and source quality would be a factor); none of my nominations had anything like three independent sources. I am generally in favor of stub templates also, but in this area there has been such rampant standards failure, and such time for providing sources that hasn't happened, that there comes a time sooner or later to make an AFD list and give proponents just one more week to find sources. I find it odd that, in eight or more of my nominations, the whole week passed and not a single new source was cited from any proponent. "Expandability" must be proven by explicit reference to extant sources and stated intent to insert, which can then be rebutted if the insertion does not materialize in a long period ("100 days"?).

I'm not sure why you'd accuse me of recentism when I am deleting recent articles and was expanding coverage of supercentenary claims prior to 1900 (some of which you wanted deleted or flagged, in Prichard and Custance). There was also no language bias, although I noted that by the standards I used (maximum one reliable source) there was a higher proportion of Japanese cases, but I attributed that to apparent weaker creation habits on the Japanese articles. Again, reliable independent sourcing would change that.

Second, the standard (WP:GNG) is as tight as everywhere else on WP. I do not use contradictory standards, and I did not prod Nyleptha, I only procedurally started the AFD after you objected to David's prod. I recall Nyleptha had one reliable source and one bio from her last home, the latter of which provided most of the article. In general, a care-home newsletter is not a reliable source or a mark of notability, although it may be useful in supplementing reliable sources; when the article is essentially based on that source then notability has not been shown (as consensus demonstrated). I would agree that if I were playing heads-I-win it would be unacceptable, but in fact I am using consistent standards in my own nominations, although procedural nominations that I've carried out for others may have been begun with different standards than mine (particularly Jan G., on which my position changed from delete to merge).

Incidentally, even if you don't like the standards of other deleters, you can always recreate the article with additional independent reliable sources not found during AFD! So you have remedy already if you choose to use it, even if noms are truly contradictory or misguided.

Third, I am not a list fanatic just because I'm deleting bios this week; I helped Nick nominate seven lists, all of which were deleted IIRC. Again, right now I'm deleting solely on patent GNG failure. There are also way too many lists still; in baseball, we have secondary reliable sources who make the same lists for every single statistic that WP contains. In longevity, there is simply no reliable source making a list of successive oldest person in Belgium of whatever, not even GRG in most cases. BHG created an excellent compromise by moving minibios to list articles, and that is fine for merge consensus, although not for delete consensus of course.

In short, Robert, please read the current (growing-consensus) guidelines at WP:WOP#Notability and sourcing, because you haven't said anything contrary to them, although I grant you have voiced suspicions that some of them have been broken. If you can agree with those guidelines as stated, or if you can discuss changes to them with such continuing coherence as you are demonstrating, why, we might be finally making headway. JJB 19:55, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment. I have a proposed solution.

1. First of all, notability is established, in part, by coverage outside the local area. So Ruth Bauder Clark is not quite notable enough:

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/heraldtribune/obituary.aspx?n=ruth-r-clark&pid=146992036

However, when we see article coverage go worldwide, then there is an argument for notability. Thus, Harry Patch is notable because coverage extends outside the local area:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/25/AR2009072502036.html

Thus, the media can choose exceptions, based on war service, or other reasons

2. Second, we should generally recognize as notable:

--persons recognized as the world's oldest person (unless no significant sourcing exists) --persons recognized as the world's oldest man (unless no significant sourcing exists) --persons aged 114+ or top-100 all-time (sometimes, finishing second is notable...Sammy Sosa hit 66 home runs in 1998, to use the baseball analogy)

3. Third, if someone is not quite notable on a world scale, but was the oldest person in the nation and there was biographical material available, they should have their mini-bio on the "list of (nation X)".

This is self-limiting: believe it or not, world's oldest persons don't die every day. On average, dating to 1955, the world's oldest person keeps the title for 1.12 years. That's not too much coverage.

Mini-bios are important, as they include human-interest (why are we interested in WWI veterans?). Some coverage, for example Japan's oldest persons (Ura Koyama) should meet the "notability" guideline, but whoever created the article didn't bother to make a full-fledged article. In cases like that, they can be merged for the time being. If the article is later expanded, it can be un-merged.

Remember, the mini-bio solution was SUGGESTED BY WIKIPEDIA. It should be kept, but only for those who meet a certain standard (oldest in the nation or in some exceptional cases, second-oldest...for example, if someone was 115 and second-oldest in the USA). In that case, a 114+ line or perhaps a top-100 line would work.

Ryoung122 18:07, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

This is a good start, and I apologize for not seeing it before commenting on a draft at #Notability; but language is fuzzy. Particularly: 1. Generally nonlocal (e.g. international) coverage confers notability, but only with a plurality of independent RSs; two might still get you merged, but three very good ones would be enough for an article most of the time. Your statement may hint you want notability on the first nonlocal source, which is not what GNG says. 2. There has been no demonstration of inherent notability (apart from general notability) in this area (that demonstration should appear in a plurality of independent RSs per my comments at #Notability). However, your point is again formally correct, if we don't argue about what "significant" sourcing means and agree it is a summary of GNG. 3. Yes, I agree with minibios, when there are only a handful of local sources and not much nonlocal. So in short, the next direct step is for you to add any clarifying language to the project page section, for further discussion. But there's a more important step you can take.

Fuzziness may still get us in trouble. Ura Koyama, your example, has ONE reliable source (plus OHB): the Memphis Commercial Appeal, presumably "reliable" but not "significant" either in audience or in size (two sentences on Koyama), and certainly not "sources" plural. For you to continue suggesting that there is something to merge that's not already in the Japanese list (beyond "lived in Iizuka and died of pneumonia", hardly encyclopedic) indicates that even if you tacitly agree with GNG you may still unconsciously act against it. If your conclusion is really as you state, you should change your AFD comment from "keep or merge" to "merge", and take the responsibility for merging the one clause yourself, and then I might change my policy-based "delete" to "merge" as well. If you do not do these two very simple things, you belie your statement that Koyama "can be merged", which indicates that the fuzziness is not helping us.

The situation is more problematic in my batch of 9 other AFDs. Here you have up to 6 people commenting "keep" with not a single one providing any sources (besides Siamese in 2 cases), when all 9 articles have only one reliable source (or fewer). If you really agree with GNG, you should vote to delete 7 or all 9 articles. Whatever of your categories above they fall into, they don't have sources and you have not provided them. This WikiProject has less than 200 articles, and many of them have failed GNG for many years, and nobody can get around to fixing them all this time, and when they start getting nommed you think you need more time beyond a week or two to document everything when your project has already had years? (And you have a history of asking for time, 100 days here, 30 days there, and not using it?) No, the right thing to do is delete and let the editors come back when they have a plurality of independent RSs. So whatever the specifics, in the 9 cases I mentioned you have voted only "keep", contrary to everything you and everyone else has said on this page.

I should add my comfort that you're at least retreating from more adhoc arguments to more consistent arguments, but that does not change the fact you have no consensus for the arbitrary consistencies you choose that are contrary to policy.

Look, these AFDs are expiring soon. You have a brief opportunity, with one comment here, to cut through a narrow region of the divide and shake hands with me. All you need to do is affirm GNG as stated (and of course WP:V, which says others must be able to verify the sources). Without two independent RSs, there has never been hope of retention on WP. 7 of the 9 AFDs have never had two independent RSs, and the jury's still out on the other 2 because we only have one editor proposing bare AFD links not furthered by that editor. You could just agree "delete now and we'll rebuild when we can find the sources", which believe it or not IS the simplest path to improvement. You could just suggest "merge now without prejudice to deleting other AFDs that fail GNG" on two articles, or more than that. You could suggest "relist another week to permit all parties to seek sources". But policy does not allow "merge all bios no matter how unsourced", nor "keep all bios because they have reached an unverifiable record or originally-researched benchmark". Your language above permits the former compromises; your language elsewhere suggests the latter entrenchments. If you can find yourself admitting one of these compromises now, by your providing a statement below, I will do all the clerical (not source-finding) work for you, to alleviate your time concerns, and we will declare the consensus to have been reached, for codification at the project page section. But if you find yourself sticking to the entrenched nonpolicy positions, my AFD summaries will need to note that you have skipped the opportunity to build consensus and that the closes should be based on the best argument (GNG failure not resolved by any editor), and your missed opportunity will of course be further evidence of antipolicy disruption rather than encyclopedia-building. But your choice. JJB 20:43, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Off-topic

COI notice: the above person has been pushing a radical, far-right agenda that suggests that humans live to 950, so of course age 114 is nothing to him. However, scientific fact establishes that there have been fewer then 100 persons all-time who have verifiably reached age 114. We should be more concerned that Mr. Bulten is pushing systematically to delete material that in most instances should be kept, and he has also recruited others (such as DavidinDC) as a sort of "tag team", which makes their deletion "hit squad" biased an unfair...all this is happening when other, more impartial editors have been attempting to come up with standards, rather than simply turn this into "electioneering," which is clearly happening.

I find it incredulous that Asa Takii, reported to be the oldest person in Japan at her death and the oldest survivor of the A-bombing of Hiroshima, is being treated so callously.Ryoung122 19:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I find it incredible that an experienced editor and wordsmith like User:Ryoung122 does not know how to use the word "incredulous". Since he's announced, in response to a deadline in an ArbCom case to which he is a party, that he's unavailable until after December 15, and since someone using his account has posted a number of things already today, some of them quite intemperate, the question arises: Has someone hijacked our friend and colleague's account? David in DC (talk) 21:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

R's comments do not seem to relate to common deletion outcomes, except by indirect implication, which I do not believe I would treat justly if I were to attempt to divine it. JJB 23:54, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for handling both BDP and tabular OR issues

I have drafted a policy proposal for WP:BDP, which mentions a cutoff of age 115, that both addresses its flaws as well as the difficulties in datedness that require near-daily correction of several tables. I trust the workgroup will be interested in ensuring a draft that is salable to the WP:BLP regular editors. Please review User:John J. Bulten/BDP and comment at talk there. JJB 20:53, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

List of living centenarians ?vandalism?

Someone has been adding a non-notable entry at List of living centenarians. I've reverted twice. Probably enough hours that WP:3RR does not apply, but would be more comfortable having another editor take the next step. Ma^t_chups 02:37, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Notability

Per Itsmejudith at mediation, I agree that this project needs to thrash out notability guidelines among the editors who have conflicting broad and narrow inclusion criteria. My base proposal would be as follows (and I will be taking silence as consensus): — John J. Bulten — continues after insertion below

You should strike the above remark as an example of an abuse of Wiki-etiquette. "Silence" does NOT equal consensus, especially when you did not inform others about your post.

However, I do agree we need to come up with a general policy regarding individual supercentenarian and even centenarian biographies, when those persons are noted for age.Ryoung122 04:01, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

1. A supercentenarian claim is a reliably sourced statement that reasonable people believe some human to have been over 110 years old.
2. All supercentenarian claims are notable for inclusion in lists; these lists include:
   • List of living supercentenarians.
   • The various "deaths by year" articles listed at Template:Longevity.
   • When claims are controverted by other evidence of an exact age under 110, List of disputed supercentenarian claimants.
   • For uncontroverted unverified claims, Longevity claims and Longevity traditions (demarcation and subscopes being discussed).
3. Individual bio articles are notable if some major interest and coverage is available beyond being age 110. ADD: Bios with the barest coverage (two RSs or so) can be single paragraphs in list articles.
4. Other list articles are notable if similar lists occur in reliable independent sources.
5. All other longevity-article notability should be determined by consensus, such as those reliant only on GWR, GRG, WOP, and OHB.

JJB 15:08, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

#3 seems a bit vague. — Timneu22 · talk 16:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

From what I've seen of various WikiProjects, the notability guidelines should concentrate on individual articles, and only when those are agreed turn to the question of lists. So I'm only commenting for now on article notability.

I think that this project can agree that people currently living, or who have lived, to over 110 will usually be notable enough to merit a biography. Not simply because of their age, but because there is likely to be independent coverage. That goes against my !vote on Jan Goossenaerts - I might change it - the point is that we need to thrash out a consistent policy here. Where the age is in doubt or it has been positively disproved that the person lived past 110, then notability is entirely dependent on the extent of coverage. The kinds of sources we are looking for in all doubtful or disproved cases will depend on when and where the person lived, but we could state here that we will usually expect more than one reliable source and that sources should be in national or international, rather than local media. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, the intent of #3 is to remain vague enough to achieve consensus until it is better honed. The basic position I have taken and seen taken is that being 110 is sufficient for list inclusion but not for a bio article; the discussion over Jan is so heavy because he also has the imaginary title [oldest] [living] [verified] [male] [in Europe]. JJB 16:04, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

OK, you've convinced me. Since we have no contrary view then I will put it in a notability section on the project page. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:35, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, I like your phrasing! That will stand well until somebody notices it. :D I would just like to reaffirm: #2. For me, it seems that the first article for a new claim should be the appropriate article out of living verified, dead verified (by year), controverted, unverified (two). #4. I would delete a list article if there is no secondary source that includes a comparable list and if it's wholly redundant with the base articles. #5. Based on GRuban's WP:RSN opinion, I would treat GRG (and thus OHB) pages only as data dumps, i.e., subject to correction by reliable secondary sources (while also keeping in tension the credulity of newspaper sources on this topic); and I would treat Yahoo WOP as deletable as inaccessible if no quote is provided in a reasonable time, and as a data dump if a quote is provided. JJB 16:41, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Comment: "Notability" may not be "temporary," but it can change, especially when someone is still alive, just as notability of sports figures may change (from minor to major leagues) or actors (from bit parts to major roles).

Thus, we need to establish a few basic parameters regarding notability or alleged notability due to extreme age:

1. different rules for living/dead

2. different rules for male/female

3. different rules for verified/unverified

I would generally propose these guidelines, first for verified supercentenarians:

A. Listworthy notability: for living females 110+ (general) and deceased females 110+ (by nationality); for living males 108+ (general list) and deceased males 108+ (by nationality). For example, if we check out the French Wikipedia, they list French males aged 108 and over, in part because the oldest man in France is generally at least age 108:

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doyen_des_Fran%C3%A7ais

Note that the above article, in another language, came up with their own solution.

B. Mini-bio notability: (This means the person would have a paragraph about them as part of a larger article) for oldest persons by nation, oldest males by nation, but for which a generalized article is not warranted.

C. General biography: If the person was a "world's oldest person" titleholder, "world's oldest man" titleholder, or if the person generally ranked in the top-ten oldest living persons, age 113+, and for which significant media coverage would warrant an article.

D. Longevity claim notability: for claims to age 113+, that are living, to be included on a list (Longevity claims); for claims to age 115+, deceased, to be included on a list.

In addition, those claimants that warranted significant media attention (such as Elizabeth Israel of Dominica) would warrant their own article. This generally would be limited to claims to be the world's oldest person.

I'd like to hear what some others have to say about this. The problem is that media coverage often is dependent on whether the person wants attention or not. Thus, we can have verified 114-year-olds from Spain that are anonymous and thus warrant only list inclusion, not an individual biography.Ryoung122 04:14, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Since this comes close to actually discussing the problem, it attracts interaction. My notes:

• Insofar as this proposal reflects current practice among the workgroup it does not have special pride of place among other proposals.
• Overspecific notability rules do not have consensus like general notability rules; note that #3 and #5 are deliberately vague to retain that consensus.
• Particularly, the current rule for living/dead unverifieds is that a living unverified under 113 is list-notable for list of living supercentenarians but if that person dies under 113 they are removed from that list and not replaced, as nonnotable anywhere. This contradicts notability not temporary.
• A. The age-108 portion of proposal A is a rejection of current consensus, by appeal to fr.wikipedia, a tertiary source, so it need not be considered without further backup. As to two other portions, I fully agree with using the accepted age-110 criterion as established by RS, and the idea of listing living "general"ly and dead "by nationality" could take a little discussion, as follows.
• If someone has a supercentenarian claim not on WP and wants to find the "correct" or "base" article for potential insertion, there is zero guidance right now. I've argued in my notability point #2 that verifieds should be split into living (all) and dead (by year). It is possible to regard the base articles as the nationality articles instead of the by-year articles, with the living article regarded as a permissibly redundant subset of the nationality articles, to accommodate R's ideas. The difficulties are: (1) determining nationality, which is often dual; (2) housing some people in one-item lists, or creating arbitrary continental arguments (see current AFDs). That is, how could an inserter find the "correct" article for discussion if the nationality itself is unclear and the party may have to start a new article for a small country that is itself not a notable article, and how could this be tracked easily on the longevity template? It appears that, although moving to a nationalist base might satisfy some group concerns, it does not have an objective enough scope statement to be workable at this time.
• B. Not sure this would be needed: Oldest female and male by nation do not get inline minibios unless RSs permit, and other claimants do not avoid getting minibios when RSs permit, so a separate guarantee for oldest-in-nation does not seem to have any force. This discussion belongs at #"People" sections at end of list articles, where it appears minibios are being tolerated for the nonce. However, I made an add to #3 that might both address this and be acceptable to IMJ per her comments below. JJB 16:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
• C. Same problem as B. If you have significant media coverage (and above I stated that significant is a high bar here), it doesn't matter what title you have been accorded, or not, by Young & Co.
• D. R uses "claim" to mean "unverified under 131y0d". I have objected vehemently, both to the WP:OR cutoff of 131, and to the OR idea that such claims begin at 113 and 115. Again, other editors enforce the same violation of notability-not-temporary, in that if you are a living claimant age 114, you are listed, but if you die at that age, you are delisted as "no longer notable", which phrase is a contradiction on WP. As hinted in point #2, I am fully in favor of listing all claims over 110, with objective scope breakdowns, either in longevity claims, longevity traditions (or folklore or myths), or list of disputed supercentenarian claimants (we'll work on that title later). The exclusion of ages 110-115 due to verification status is inherent WP:BIAS. Thus here, very oddly, I am arguing, via policy, for greater notability of unverifieds, while Ryoung122 and other editors are the deletionists. There are a dozen or two cases that have been deleted and I have not fought to restore on precisely this line. So let's stop the charges that one camp is deletionist, when it's about objective scopes and policy conformity, thanks. JJB 16:55, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Ryoung122 has, while letting the reference to WP:GNG in this notability section stand, continued to argue for a form of inherent notability, not recognizing the contradiction between it and the GNG formulation he has passively accepted, nor addressing the significant problems with such inherent notability stated above. Rather than responding here, he has dropped the following comments into an AFD in his own idiom, once again the wrong place (I have reformatted them):

Third...the 2007 discussion suggested that when notability cannot be independently demonstrated, there still could be a mini-bio in the "list of" pages. Where do you think that idea came from? Wikipedia.

Fourth...I realize that we don't need an article or even a mini-bio on EVERY supercentenarian. I suggest you put off further nominations for deletion and come to the table for some practical proposals. For example, I generally favor biographies if the person is:

1. Recognized by reliable outside sources as the World's Oldest Person or World's Oldest Man.

2. Claims to be the world's oldest person or oldest man and has international coverage.

3. Is 114+ (or alternately, is in the top-100 list all-time) and has substantial media coverage outside the local area. Thus, Ruth Bauder Clark,111, may not be notable as her obit only appeared in the Sarasota news, but someone like Beatrice Farve was featured in USA Today (coverage outside the local area), which argues that OUTSIDE sources selected this person to be notable enough.

4. Oldest persons of a nation should at least have a mini-bio on the "list of" page, if not notable enough for a standalone article.

5. War veterans may be notable for reasons that combine age with their tie to an historical event (i.e., Harry Patch).

3. I agree with minibios. I propose they be used as merges when we have about three or four sources, with the number wobbly due to the variety in reliability (for instance, we might perhaps still merge with five local sources, but perhaps still keep with three national sources). However, these numbers should stay wobbly rather than be hard and fast (unlike the GNG rule that one reliable source equals delete, which is a brightline).

4.1. Consensus has contradicted this, because the list of world's oldest woman or man (you should also include world's oldest woman when the oldest person is a man, to avoid bias) has never been fully populated, and to create an inherent notability where one has never existed would be a nonstarter; some of these people have never been notable by WP standards, and you also have that recentism bias against people who died before 1955 as well.

4.2. Since it depends on coverage, this is not an inherence argument, but a special case of considering sources that should follow the same rules already unobjected to by any party, namely GNG and the minibio merge. Accordingly, I could take 4.2 as further demonstration of consensus with these guidelines in the special case, as well as an indication that an article with only local sources in whatever quantity is not notable (as opposed to what I said, an article with a handful of, say five, local sources). But we need not press this now.

4.3. I don't see anybody indicating that the top 100, or age 114, are always notable; media coverage indicates to me that if they're not the oldest by nation or state (4.4) it is haphazard whether they get coverage or not. That is, maybe the top two ever, or even ten, are notable, as we do see top-ten lists in independent sources, but not top-100 or 114+ lists. In GWR we see sometimes up to 20, but GWR must be supplemented by other sources. So there is no reliable source to back up this inherence argument, and the stance of sources, which might better back point 4.4, was already dismissed by R as not necessarily conferring article notability.

4.4. As you state it, I agree with this; it is not an inherence argument but another special case of the same GNG and minibio rules already agreed to. It also is another admission that many oldest nationals are not notable. Incidentally, this repeats R's point B above, and so, unless R decides to edit the project page on this point, I can posit we're just talking past each other and we have basic agreement on the GNG and minibio rules as stated.

4.5. This is yet another special case that is no different from the GNG and minibio rules.

In short, I see no true objection to the present standards. If an argument were to be made that some hypothetical class of subjects is inherently notable even when not generally notable, such as all claims to age 114, I think it would require demonstration of reliable independent sources attempting to enumerate that class per se rather than adhoc. Such argument has not arisen, and the only arguments taking its place are based solely on Ryoung122's "favor". JJB 19:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)