Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Margaret Skeete

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 keep. The consensus is to keep, but I would recommend that people find/use sources such as the Free Lance-Star and Daily Times articles as found by SiameseTurtle -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 06:13, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Margaret Skeete

Margaret Skeete (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

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Continuing nominations of nonnotable supercentenarians with no more than one reliable source per WT:WOP#Common deletion outcomes. I intend that, during discussion, any article supporters either find sources or merge sourced material to deal with the indisputable WP:GNG failure (the requirement of multiple reliable sources); without either of these actions, bare "keep" votes will not address that failure. I also intend that any who disagree with the WT:WOP proposal, which affirms GNG for deletion of these articles, should comment at that link. Article-specific details with my !vote below. JJB 05:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

• Delete as nom 7-sentence article completely about unverifiable longevity OR/SYN. Sources are an apparent mirror of WP or an unreliable source, and one 10-sentence LAX article that does not support most of the material in the WP article (unsourced research presumably by GRG members). JJB 05:38, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

It's common Wiki policy NOT to ivote on your own deletions, but as usual you have no idea what COI is about. It's also preposterous for you to suggest that you can describe your proposed policies here but others must comment elsewhere.Ryoung122 00:03, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. -- Jclemens-public (talk) 07:11, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
• Delete The only source in the article is 10 sentences long, which is not substantial. Inclusion in lists is fine. Neptune5000 (talk) 04:53, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
• Keep 115 is notable as hardly anyone has reached it and she is 15th overall. DHanson317 (talk) 20:02, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
  • Reply: DHanson317, your contributions to six AFDs each argue based on an implied belief in "inherent notability" for the individual criteria you state. While further consensus is still sought at the discussion link in the nom, I believe it established that there is no consensus for biography-level notability inhering in single-source cases on such broad criteria: the few cases truly inherently notable also turn out to be generally notable. Consensus indicates instead that these individuals have only line-item notability, i.e., one reliable source would permit the individual to be (only) a line-item in one or more list articles: and in your six cases, the individual is in an average of seven WP lists already, which is still excessive. JJB 20:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
• Keep Another case of a pre-emptive AFD on a longevity-related article by User:John J. Bulten. Next time you submit batches of articles for AFDs, please do you own research to try and locate articles. [1][2] SiameseTurtle (talk) 11:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't have the WP:BURDEN, especially when there are so many malformed WP articles to start with, and I am choosing to start with the simpler methods due to volume. Would you mind adding content to the article based on those links, so that I can consider what action they support (as I implied, merge can be considered if you do)? JJB 20:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
    • Yes, you do. Please see WP:SOFIXIT, WP:ITJ, WP:SEP. There are templates that you can add to articles to alert others that more sources should be found. That takes far less time to do than an AFD, and it other Wikipedians the time to locate them, even if you did not try. If you see something that can be improved, improve it! SiameseTurtle (talk) 11:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

It's not that simple. First, a party who quotes SEP to make their problem someone else's problem is not quite getting the point. The burden is on the inserter, in this case, the person who inserts the sources in the AFD asserting they show notability. And it "takes far less time" to paste your links in the article typing one-sentence quotes from the articles than it does to paste them here with original arguments. Yes, I'll grant that by "find sources" above I unconsciously meant "find and insert sources", but even if your two obscure newspapers were added to the article, you have not proven notability or keep status: a short LAX plus two short locals does not necessarily equal significant coverage in independent reliable sources. According to the common deletion outcomes already linked, such a borderline case should be merged instead of kept, because if one main and two local sources are the best anyone can do in a week, it should remain a minibio, i.e., a list merge. There is also the issue that if I inserted I would be presuming upon what you see in the sources, when I might not see anything notable in the sources. If this were a fixit, I would change my position, but you haven't shown that fixing it would result in a notable full-keep article; in such a case deletion would improve the junk even if the sources were added.

We might save some time with a compromise. I could suspend my position that the local sources don't confer notability if you can suspend your keep and make it a merge. If you can agree with that, I would happily do the job that "takes far less time" by merging the sourced text plus details from the two locals into the "list of whatever-nation supercentenarians" and we could all go home early. But short of that, I'm going to need to insist that you interact with WT:WOP, in which a strong consensus was demonstrated in 2007 that articles with as much sourcing as you propose ended up getting merged rather than kept. The quality of the arguments has not changed, just the number of COI arguments against GNG policy. Since you're actually doing the legwork of finding sources, maybe I can count on you to accept the compromise (it "takes far less time") instead of defending a stub that hasn't been properly sourced for years. This might work for the other AFD you argued similarly on as well. JJB 17:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. JJBulten's arguments are fallacious on several fronts:

1. The GRG is a reliable source, as determined not just by ArbCom but by the BBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc.

2. Notability is not established or disestablished by how well the article is written or whether it is completed. If the person is notable but lacking sources, the appropriate thing to do is to "tag" the article as a "stub," not delete it.

3. Your personal attack on DHanson317's "belief" is irrelevant, and you fail to mention that you are attempting to bias the same criteria you cite, which are recommendations you made, rather than Wikipedia policies.

4. Probably your WORST argument is the claim that if someone is in a list, biographical information is not needed. That's B.S. That's like saying that since Hank Aaron is in a home run list, we don't need an article on Hank. WRONG. Whether we need a biography on Margaret Skeete is not diminished by her statistical inclusion in a list; it is in fact enhanced by it...because people would like to know how she got so far up the list. It's called "human interest."

5. A death report may be a "one event," but if someone is reported for their age over several years, that does not constitute "one" event. Margaret Skeete was also the "oldest living American" longer than many people serve as prime minister (about two years).Ryoung122 00:01, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

1. Would you mind citing that "ArbCom" decision you keep mentioning? I think you are instead referring to a 2007 RSN decision, but in any case current consensus is reflected at RSN 2010 and WP:WOP. 2. If what you say is "the appropriate thing", why don't you add the stub tag or add the sources yourself? You have never answered this question in any forum. 3. I said "implied belief", but it's really explicit rather than implicit, as several editors on several AFDs clearly argue adhoc for inherent notability; but these editors (including you) have always failed to abandon the adhoc by proposing and gaining consensus for topic-wide inherent-notability standards different from those I already linked at WP:WOP. Why don't you answer my question there by proposing a change on talk or project space? 4. Probably your worst argument is comparing these AFD subjects to Hank Aaron. If you or Siamese added sources that passed muster, we could talk about merge. 5. If. Why don't you add your sources? JJB 03:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. 1)The oldest person from Texas. 2)15th oldest ever. 3)The proponent of deletion has a personal agenda against articles about longevity.Japf (talk) 01:05, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Japf, would you please provide sources telling me how you know whether I have a personal agenda? I am working straight from WP:GNG here. I also encourage you to comment at the WP:WOP links above. JJB 03:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep For John J. Bulten every supercentenarian is nonnotable, even Jean Calment. He and his friends nominate all these articles about supercentenarians, because of his religious believes. He believes the only notable elderly people are those mentioned in the bible, who claim to be minimum 130+ years old. Now where is the proof these people were really that old? What stops me from "requesting" deletion of articles of every single elderly person from the bible? Who says the genesis is a reliable source? I dont! I do not believe the ages claimed in the bible. And that is my right to believe this, because we live in a free world. So in name of the free world. Let us stop this battle once and for all. I vote to keep all these articles, because if they are deleted, things may get out of control. We are having a battle here against believers of aged people in the bible/genesis and believers of aged people in the current world. Just my two cents. Petervermaelen 07:14, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome Peter, I'm going to reply only once to this identical comment you made on 5 AFDs, because you aren't saying anything about any of the articles themselves. You make several unfounded and negative statements about me and my motives and others, and several arguments inappropriate for AFDs. But I don't think that is your fault, because the kind of charges you make against us are very similar to those that arise from someone else, someone who may be influencing you to make them by proxy. I respect your appeal to the liberty of this world and proclaim to you that there is no battle on my side: these nominations are completely policy-based responses to longstanding notability failures, and any behavior you may perceive as battling will disappear as soon as a supermajority of editors starts defending such policies. If you want to help build Wikipedia, the steps I proposed in my nomination are: merge the sourced article text to a list article; or source the article better; or edit the notability and sourcing criteria of the WikiProject. Repeating the baseless charges I've heard often from others does not build WP. Thanks. JJB 10:28, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I should add that I think I discovered the source of your out-of-the-blue assertion that I want to delete Jeanne Calment (note spelling). Ryoung122 misinterpreted my proposed guideline, deleted here, as saying all supercentenarians should be deleted. I grant my statement was ambiguous and could be misinterpreted by the passionate; my clarification here shows that the intent is that supercentenarians do have inherent notability for inclusion in lists, additional to whether or not they also have ordinary notability to sustain biography articles, which of course would be sustained if so. Incidentally, since Ryoung122 let those ordinary notability guidelines stand while making this edit, they do indicate the deletion of all five AFDs you commented on, and not a soul has objected at WP:WOP or talk against the use of that guideline for the deletion of every nomination I've made (I grant Jan G. was debatable, but that was not my nom). I trust this clears up the misunderstanding and we can all be careful about making charges that we may have heard from others without asking the accused party what he meant first. Thanks. JJB 18:59, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the reply JJB. I do not always agree with you, because some references that you don't accept, I do accept (like the GRG). Sometimes it is a matter of a different interpretation or different opinion about certain sources. For example the GRG does contain valid documents about supercentenarians. I know this for sure, because I am a gerontology researcher and I do have private documents stored on my local PC belonging to Belgian supercentenarians. But due to the privacy laws the majority of documents cannot be used as sources for articles. I need the permission of the family or the court of first instance before I am even allowed to store most of these documents on my PC. If I do not have permission I wouldnt even be allowed to do just that. So one of the questions is: do we accept sources which cannot be posted on wiki or not? But of course I respect your opinion as to why articles should be deleted and or merged so the wiki rules are respected. We live in a democracy and everyone is free to have their own opinion. I believe the wiki moderators/administrators, have to make the final decisions whether to keep or delete certain articles. And whether we provided enough acceptable sources, yes or no. Sometimes there will be enough sources. Sometimes there won't be. If you believe an article has lack of sources, we will try to correct that. On other thing. You say I am using a proxy for my posts? If so, I want to say, I am not really making comments by proxy on purpose. I am making the comments at work and I guess my employer is using a proxy. Petervermaelen 07:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about the ambiguity, I meant "proxy" as in saying your comments seemed to echo those of Ryoung122. I provided evidence that he had misunderstood something I said, and I didn't think you had committed the same misunderstanding, but believed that you had heard it from him instead. I appreciate your working with WP policies. One such policy is that, yes, a private document is emphatically not a WP source; although a GRG member might or might not create a reliable source, dependent on how that member publishes. JJB 15:26, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep Was the oldest American at one stage and the oldest from Texas. A notable person Amply documented.Cam46136 (talk) 08:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)— Cam46136 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Delete She was old. She was the 14th oldest person in a large country. She's the oldest person ever to come from one of 50 states in one of 150+ countries. As of 2008, she was the oldest something. She married someone. Could someone pleae explain to me what's notable here? Would someone who was once the 14th oldest person in Djibouti be notable? What if she was also the oldest person ever from a particular canton (province?) (state?) (department?) of Djibouti? My judgment is no.
  

So why USA? Why Texas? I smell bias, unless the answer to the Djibouti questions is yes. Then I smell utter b.s., er... nonsense. David in DC (talk) 02:20, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, unfortunatly most editors might not think that person is notable, not to be disrespectful, but as of OCT 2008 shes the 15th oldest person ever, it didnt say 14th oldest American ever, 14th oldest person ever in the world is more like it, take out the disputed and its even less than that. Longevitydude (talk) 12:14, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Keep She was the oldest living American, and she was the oldest person ever from the state of texas. Longevitydude (talk) 12:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why. All I know is that she was the oldest person in the United States at one time and the oldest from Texas. Therefore she is a notable person and she was documented.Cam46136 (talk) 03:54, 12 December 2010 (UTC)Cam46136

• Keep Saying things like "She was old. She was the 14th oldest person in a large country, (etc)" is weak reasoning. She was already the oldest living American at one point, the oldest ever person from Texas, and the oldest ever 1878-born. No reason to delete. Brendan (talk, contribs) 01:03, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Saying things like "No reason to delete" about an article with this paucity of reliable sources or notable facts is weak reasoning. The reasons to keep may outweigh the reasons to delete. Or the reasons to delete may outweigh the reasons to keep. I've argued for the latter viewpoint. One can argue for the former viewpoint. But to deny the existence of any reason to delete is to reveal a dangerously blinkered point of view for the editor of a collaboratively written encyclopedia. David in DC (talk) 01:19, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

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.