Category talk:Possibly living people

message: We ought to split this into two categories : one for people who are actually still missing (whether presumed dead or not), and the other for people who we merely don't have the information on - but could find out with further research.  The two Nazis currently in the category fall into the latter - the others are all actual people where the historical record hasn't yet got a year of death.  Morwen - Talk 22:25, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: This lack of clarity no longer exists; :Category:Living people is for people definitely known to be alive; :Category:Dead people's subcategories (by year, :Category:Year of death missing, :Category:Year of death unknown) are for those known to be deceased; :Category:Possibly living people is for people for whom we have no death date and who may still be living; :Category:Disappeared people is a subset of the former, for missing persons who may still be living. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Actually, i think :Category:Possibly living people, :Category:Disappeared people, and :Category:Year of death missing cover that, though with a lot of overlap. --Phroziac . o º O (♥♥♥♥ chocolate!) 16:35, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: No more overlap; see each category for their clarified criteria; they are all mutually exclusive now. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: But year of death missing is for dead people who we don't know the year of death for, and disappered people includes historical disappeared people who we can be pretty certain have died. (e.g the Princes in the Tower).  Morwen - Talk 16:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Update: :Category:Disappeared people (and :Category:Possibly living people for that matter) no longer include people we can be certain are dead; see :Category:Living people for the criteria. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

text: It is 100% certain the Princes in the Tower are dead; no-one born in the 15th century is alive. It is only the details of their deaths that is not known, such as the date and cause. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 14:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Split?

message: [No actual question was posed.]
:Assuming someone meant to ask a question here, the answer is that :Category:Disappeared people exists for such cases (after enough time has elapsed that they could not possibly be alive, they go in :Category:Year of death unknown (because it will probably never be known), as opposed to memebers of :Category:Possibly living people, who at that point go into :Category:Year of death missing since their date can probably be found. See :Category:Living people for the cut-off dates. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing? 

message: I've noticed... perhaps a fair share of them wouldn't pass WP:N. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by HisSpaceResearch (talk • contribs) 23:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see that this raises any point related to this category.  That stubs are categorized and someone might disagree with one such categorization is matter for that stub's talk page. Whether something might not survive WP:AFD on notability grounds does not mean it should not be properly categorized until such time that it is AfD'd. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]  ‹(-¿-)› 14:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But if there's not sufficient information to determine whether a person is even alive or not, then there is a good chance that there's not sufficient information for us to have an article about them at all. Many of these people are notable for one thing or one event in their lives only, failing WP:BLP1E, WP:PSEUDO and possibly WP:COATRACK, and we should also remember that Wikipedia is not a directory of people or of anything else - it is an encyclopedia.--h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 16:34, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point, treat this category as a useful starting point as patrolling for biographies which fail the notability test and should be put up for deletion. PatGallacher (talk) 21:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  So many of the articles in the possibly living people category are stubs, and/or unreferenced 

message: People who were kidnapped, such as Jacob Wetterling, do they belong only in this category, only in :Category:Disappeared people or in both? I figured I might as well ask, rather than get into a revert war. Canadian Paul 08:06, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't actually know. Look at other articles in the disappeared people category on people who are young enough to still possibly be alive, and see if this category is included on those articles. I recognise you from deathlist.net by the way...-h i s   s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 13:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: To be perfectly clear...

message: You could use findmypast.com or ancestry.co.uk to look in the England and Wales Death Records 1984-2005 for some of these people, especially if they are from England or Wales. 79.69.81.14 (talk) 15:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Could be worthwhile

message: I suggest that it might be worth lowering the age limit for this category at both ends.  If you look at Oldest people you will see that there are currently only 2 people in the world confirmed to have been born in 1893, and even if you add in disputed claims it doesn't get much earlier than this.  There are only 80 confirmed supercentenarians (110+).  Surely we can move to "Year of death unknown" people born, at the very least, earlier than the alleged oldest living person.  The current limit appears to be based on Jeanne Calment who lived to 122, unlikely to be repeated very often.
People are supposed to be moved to this category at 90.  We have some people who would be in their 80s if alive but nothing has been heard of for years, particularly some athletes who had some notable achievements in their 20s but nothing since then.  Can we move them here?
There is also issues with younger people where there is some, but not conclusive, grounds for suspecting they may be dead e.g. Osama bin Laden.  Should they be included here? PatGallacher (talk) 21:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding of Possibly living people is that it is only applicable in three cases:
# People over 90 for whom no evidence of being alive has been provided within a reasonable number of years. Once a person hits 100, it is not unreasonable to expect a yearly update I would think.
# People whose living status is unknown to the world, regardless of age, in the sense that no amount of research would be able to determine if they were alive or not, such as people MIA, kidnapped victims etc. etc.
# People who have made a concerted effort to disappear, such as performers who performed under a pseudonym and then vanished, or for whom there is a reliable source questioning whether or not that person is alive, regardless of age
Per WP:BLP, everyone under the age of 90 should be listed as alive, regardless of whether or not they've been heard of years. Having said that, as I have been going through this category, I have tended not to change people born in 1918 or 1919 to "living people", as I believe it to be a valid use of WP:IAR. If there are grounds for suspecting that someone is deceased, such as bin Laden, then it's up to consensus to determine what category they belong in. Silly abuses of the category, such as placing in Elvis Presley in it, should be avoided I would think.
As for people over the age of 110, I, as well as others, have generally assumed that if someone notable reached the age of 110, there would be at least a news story or two about them, and I have therefore moved them to date of death unknown. It has happened in the past, however, that people have been discovered alive older than that (Silas Simmons, although he did not have a Wiki page before his discovery), so I don't mind if I'm reverted in this. For this reason, occasionally and for very obscure people such as Rosemary Beresford, I have kept them in PLP, although I'm indifferent if they are moved to DOD unknown. Cheers, CP 22:47, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

text: Per :Category:Living people: Individuals of advanced age (over 90) for whom no documentation has existed for a reasonable number of years, may be removed from this category and transferred to Category:Possibly living people. You're right about category #2 and I hope that you can successfully enact that, but don't be surprised if you get reverted a lot (that's what happened when I tried to enforce it; maybe you'll have more luck). As far as the "upper bound" goes, I at least am not going to revert you if you switch categories at 110+ even, but others may disagree (or they may not, I don't know), so be prepared for that. Cheers, CP 04:24, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

text: There is no legitimate reason to have a lower limit at 90. Anyone born 123 years ago or more should be assumed dead, as there is no evidence anyone has ever lived that long (122 year old Jeanne Calment holds the all-time human longevity record). Anyone born within the last 123 years for whom it cannot be established whether they are alive or dead should be in this category regardless of whether they were born 100, 90, 80, 70, 60 or 50 years ago. It is not a BLP vio to put someone into this cat when their status cannot be established. If evidence later comes to light proving them either dead or alive then they can be moved to the appropriate category. With a limit at 90, what would you do with, for example, a sportsperson born in 1930 who quit competing in the late 1950s and about whom no sources can be found since 1960? You can't put him in Living people as he might be dead; you can't assume him dead because he might be alive. Hence this cat would be the only sensible choice, along with 1930 births. Lkjhgfdsa 0 (talk) 14:00, 16 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree, the average life expectency is 67.2 years (see Life expectancy). This means that any one who would be older than 68, of whom no documentation exists for the past ten years, would, statistically speaking, have a greater than 50% chance of being dead. According to Wiki Answers (not sure how reliable that is) only 2% of people live to be 90. Even if that number is off by a little, I can't imagine that a double digit percentage of people make it past 90, so people (not documented for the past ten years) over 90 are not exactly possibly living, they're probably dead. Maybe a poll should be conducted about the criteria for qualifying as possibly living.Givememoney17 (talk) 15:47, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

text: For people who do not have a definite year of birth (like Anthony Reed Herbert), use common sense and work out the latest reasonable date at which they could have been born. In Herbert's case, he stood for election to the British Parliament in 1974, when the minimum age for candidates was 21; so assume he was born in 1953. Now, it's extremely likely he was born earlier than that (and quite likely that he is in fact dead), but it seems sensible to generally presume someone is alive for as long as it is remotely plausible. Robofish (talk) 00:42, 6 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Anthony Reed Herbert was at school at Rugby with Salman Rushdie, so he was probably born in the late 1940s. The article about him is curious because it has no information later than 1982 when he'd have been in his mid 30s. He has disappeared from public life. Pascalulu88 (talk) 03:22, 13 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title: Age limits

message: Granted if its something like someone who was in a film I can imagine 1920 being possibly living, but I have found some in this cat like one person that said something like "Played soccer in 1920", shouldn't they go under year of death missing you think?
(I've moved a few people here from living and even year of death missing, I even found one that I knew sounded off that had years active for working on a film as the 60s to the 90s and found they were indeed alive but were listed as dead)
On the flipside I found some actress on here that has a picture from the 1960s who looked like she was in her 30s at the oldest that is listed here. But I guess since no info since the 60s that is understandable.
Wgolf (talk) 23:00, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  How far back should years active be allowed for? 

message: Seems like https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikisense/CategoryIntersect.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&basecat=1900s+births&basedeep=2&mode=cs&tagcat=Living+people&tagdeep=1&go=Scan&userlang=en this tool is gone. Wgolf (talk) 02:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay for anyone looking for a tool as that one has been out of service for a while now-this is what most of us have been using for a while: https://petscan.wmflabs.org/ Wgolf (talk) 16:34, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  The tool to search for people no longer works 

message: Should this page include missing people or not? The current situation doesn't seem to be consistent e.g. Disappearance of Tammy Belanger is included while Disappearance of Lars Mittank is not. Roughly speaking the question is: does this category contain people that no one knows if they're alive? Or it's just for people whose status (alive or dead) is an information not yet available to wikipedia editors? Ago (talk) 22:20, 28 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  A vexed question