Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/List of Bengali actresses

message: From Talk:List of actors from Germany (October 2005):
I do realize that with the creation of List of German actors (from 1895 to the present) (which had been listed at Wikipedia:Pages needing translation into English) we now have two lists of German actors and actresses. I also realize that the recently created one is long and under certain circumstances might fall prey to deletionist efforts ("unmaintainable", "We like our lists short and sweet" etc. — I had such an experience only yesterday with List of song titles phrased as questions).
As I see it, there are various courses of action for the future (deletion is not one of them though):
(1) Maintain the status quo and keep two separate lists. (They are cross-referenced anyway.)
(2) Merge the two lists.
(3) Merge all names which already have articles into one list and keep the rest (all the red links) separately for future reference, as a repository for ideas for future articles.
Any ideas or comments? <KF> 10:50, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (No reply.)
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I think Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Bengali actresses is not the right place to discuss German actors, but that's what User:Agent 86 has requested.
The List of German actors (from 1895 to the present), much more appropriately titled "Liste der Darsteller des deutschsprachigen Films" on the German Wikipedia (User:Austronaut actually suggested renaming the page "List of actors in German movies" or "List of German speaking actors"), was compiled there and then imported. Since then it has been carefully maintained, expanded and updated by a relatively small number of contributors. Now, for some reason I cannot even start to fathom, some people want it deleted. "For consistency", as Agent 86 put it? Is consistency his/her, or Wikipedia's, ultimate goal?
He/She says that "no consideration had been given to the encyclopedic value of these lists." Well, that depends on how we define "encyclopaedic". If the word means "providing information to those who seek it", the list in question certainly is "encyclopaedic". It offers users at a glance a survey of chronologically ordered names, even specifiying whether actors active during the Weimar years later worked in the BDR or the GDR. What is more, it gives potential contributors a chance to see, also at a glance, which articles are still missing (and there are lots and lots!)—something the :Category:German actors can never achieve.
Personally, I don't mind if this particular list is deleted—I've made a copy, so I can access, and use, it any time I want. But I think that's beside the point. I'd want all users, including future and potential ones, to be able to benefit from that list. The simplest argument against deletion would be that it doesn't do any harm, but there is much more to it really, as I've tried to point out.
Also, though I'm not really in favour of slippery slope arguments, I'm afraid more and more lists which do serve a purpose will be nominated for deletion. (Just some months ago, someone even nominated the alphabetical List of people.) Finally—but that's another matter altogether—I'm against the deletion procedure where "Keep"s and "Delete"s are simply counted but no attention is paid to the weight of the arguments presented.
By the way, I had no idea that Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion#How_to_list_multiple_related_pages_for_deletion existed, so thanks for pointing that out to me. So it may not be illegitimate, but I still find it unsuitable: Some voters will want to see all lists deleted, others only some of them. How is this problem going to be dealt with? <KF> 00:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)