Wikipedia talk:Articles for deletion/List of Roman Catholics (2nd nomination)

message: *Comment. Doc GlasgowDpbsmith's (my bad) reasoning above is a much better argument than the one used by the nominator of this VfD, though still with some holes in it (i.e. the argument is based largely on specific mistakes in the content, even though quality of subject matter, not content, is the only relevant issue here; if we have to redo the list for the ground up, it's still easier not to delete the page history). And I'm afraid I still can't support these VfDs until I get some definite assurance that you guys are going to delete all of the numerous lists like this one on Wikipedia. I'm a thousand times more concerned with consistency than with whether any specific list stays or goes, so such specific VfDs, leaving out so many others, worry me deeply—what we don't want is a patchwork of random lists that noone's gotten around to yet while near-identical lists are long gone! I'd have probably been neutral (or even supportive) if this VfD had nominated every religious list simultaneously, since that would have been a much more structured way to handle this, and would have been a much more honest way to show what's really being nominated for deletion here. So, I will continue to vote "keep" until the following lists are nominated for deletion or until it's absolutely certain that they will be (or if there are specific reasons why anyone thinks any of the following lists shouldn't be deleted, explain the distinction between them and the ones that are VfDed currently): List of Muslims, List of famous Sufis, List of Muslims in arts and literature, List of Muslims in business, List of Muslim athletes, List of Muslim historical figures, List of American Muslims, Western Muslims, List of agnostics, List of atheists, List of Buddhists, List of Bahá'ís, List of Christians, List of Unificationists, List of Christian entertainers, List of Christian scientists, List of Eastern Orthodox Christians, List of evangelical Christians, List of Lutherans, List of Mennonites, List of Quakers, List of Confucianists, List of deists, List of Hindus, List of Jains, List of Jehovah's Witnesses, List of Jews, List of Jewish historians, List of Jewish Members of the National Academy of Engineering, List of Jewish Members of the National Academy of Sciences, List of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, List of Jewish inventors, List of Jews in law, List of Jews in literature and journalism, List of Jews in the military, List of Jews in the performing arts, List of Jewish actors and actresses, List of Jewish musicians, List of Jews in the visual arts, List of Jews in sports, List of Jewish chess players, List of Ashkenazi Jews, List of Jews by country, List of Jews from Sub-Saharan Africa, List of Jews from the Arab World, List of South-East European Jews, List of Austrian Jews, List of Polish Jews, List of Russian Jews, List of British Jews, List of French Jews, List of Iberian Jews, List of Caribbean Jews, List of Jewish Americans, List of Argentine Jews, List of Chilean Jews, List of Hungarian Jews, List of East European Jews, List of North European Jews, List of German Jews, List of Italian Jews, List of West European Jews, List of Latin American Jews, List of Canadian Jews, List of Asian Jews, List of Oceanian Jews, List of Brazilian Jews, List of Mexican Jews, List of converts to Judaism, List of Latter-day Saints, List of pagans, List of Rastafarians, List of Satanists, List of Scientologists, List of Sikhs, List of Taoists, List of transhumanists, List of Unificationists, List of Unitarian Universalists, and List of Zoroastrians, just for starters (I could list hundreds more if this mass-deletion doesn't only apply to religious lists, but also to the countless nationality ones and others). Note also that List of Church of Christ Scientists, currently under VfD, has so far unanimously gotten "keep" votes. Likewise, List of Jewish Fellows of the Royal Society and List of Jewish publishers have gotten some strong opposition to deletion lately. This sort of thing is exactly why I'm opposing this VfD: it's absurd to subdivide this vote into hundreds of different VfDs for every article when it's obvious that some broad policy decision is under dispute, not any one article's validity as a list. The only possible result of running things so inefficiently will be that since completely different groups of people will vote on each list, whether any one list is deleted or not will be more or less random! Unacceptably disorganized. -Silence 18:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Firstly, the argument was not mine but that of Dpbsmith (although I agree with him). Secondly, you argument does not hold up. some of the articles you cite should be deleted IMO, but not all. The number of Zoroastrians or fellows of the Royal Society with a WP article is, I would think, managable for a list, and most of the entries will be at easier possible to verify. Further, as being in one of those categories of people and being notable enough for WP is somewhat rare, the list has some interest. Probably 10-20% (or perhaps more) of Wiki-bios will be somehow associated with R.Catholicism (lapsed, or by bith, or profession) - who will check them all?. The work of verifying this waaay outways any possible utility. List are complex, and although some guidelines have been developed - there is really no escaping a case-by-case examination. Anyway, the argument keep this - or you'd have to delete all of this doesn't really impress me, this article should stand (or preferably) fall on its own merits. --Doc ask? 19:04, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *My argument is not "keep this - or you'd have to delete all of this", it's "either keep this or delete all of this"; I'm not threatening you with a huge workload, I'm trying to clarify and figure out what you guys are suggesting we delete, and what you aren't suggesting we delete. There seems to be far too little perspective and broad observation of Wikipedia's many lists for such a significant, enormous-in-scale deletion drive. If this article is to be deleted because of qualities X, Y, and Z it has, then every other article that has qualities X, Y, and Z should also be deleted (hence my listing a few of them above), unless you can identify some other definite quality that would change such a list from "must be deleted" to "OK, let's keep it". While several Jewish and Roman Catholic lists are now up for VfD, not a single Muslim or Hindu one that I've seen is; are Islam and Hinduism, the two second-largest religions in the world, "unusual" enough that a list of their practitioners is A-OK? Where do you draw the line between when a religion is so common as to be assumed, and when being a member of a religion is unusual enough to merit a list? My problem with the argument "there are too many Roman Catholics to have a list of the most noteworthy Roman Catholics!" is that this whole affair reeks of cultural bias; because of the specific areas most native English-speakers live in, we're used to taking certain religious beliefs for granted, and used to considering other religions "exotic" or "noteworthy" whenever someone believes in them, even though in other parts of the world the opposite situation exists, and it's a Roman Catholic that would be considered highly noteworthy and a Muslim that would be considered so common as to be a meaninglessly large list. I don't see any rhyme or reason in this; why should one significant religion not merit a list of its practitioners, and another significant religion merit such a list? The only difference between the two lists "List of Roman Catholics" and "List of Sikhs" is that one is longer than the other, and length is not a valid reason for deletion! So please explain this a bit better to me; I'm willing to change my vote as soon as anyone provides a consistent explanation, rationale and plan for what lists will and won't be eliminated as a part of this deletion campaign. -Silence 19:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Consistency, foolish, minds, little, hobgoblin of: see Emerson, Ralph Waldo, also WP:IAR. Wikipedia is inherently inconsistent, particularly in borderline areas; it comes with the territory. The case-by-case nomination and deletion of these lists is one of the ways we find out whether there's consensus on them and what that consensus is. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:35, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Please leave out the irrelevant indirect personal attacks right now; I'm trying to have a conversation with you, not with Ralph Waldo Emerson. I oppose arbitrary and meaningless attempts to make articles more consistent with one another when doing so does not benefit the specific articles in question, just as you presumably do; I encourage new experiments with Wikipedia article layout and style, which sometimes provide fruitful and effective results (though failed experiments are certainly fair ground for reversion). But this is not an issue of trivial consistencies, this is an issue of completely arbitrary, almost to the point of profound religious bias, attempts to delete articles without any conception of what to do about all the other articles of an exactly identical nature. Article content may not have to be consistent, but we most certainly should be consistent about what types of articles and lists are to be permitted on Wikipedia!! A large-scale, centralized vote for deletion seems quite clearly to be merited if there's strong support for deleting such a massive number of lists, not a slow, week-after-week or even month-after-month spamming of the VfD page with countless articles that are being argued for and against for the exact same reasons. Since article content is largely irrelevant in determining whether to delete a specific article topic, and only the subject matter is directly relevant, there is absolutely no benefit to stretching out and subdividing a single vote into hundreds of individual, totally unconnected votes. And there are many disadvantages. Again, until I get the rationale and clear plan that I have requested several times now for this elaborate VfD campaign, I will continue to fight for some actual sanity to be injected into this process. -Silence 20:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Wow. Someone who accused someone else of having a weak argument, who turns around 5 minutes later and uses the two weakest, most self-contradictory (and clearly misinterpreted in their above usage) arguments in the history of Wikipedia: "Don't be consistent!" and "Don't follow any rules!" Any two arguments that can be used to counter every reasonable, helpful, and good course of action in the history of Wikipedia are clearly of severely limited value, especially when there is a total failure to explain why a certain rule must be broken and why being consistent would be harmful rather than helpful in this specific case. The point of those two maxims is not to say "never be consistent" or "never follow rules" (if you think Wikipedia lacks any rules or consistency whatsoever, you haven't visited even a single article yet), but to let people who see a harmful attempt to over-fixate on consistency and a harmful misuse or overuse of a rule to further justify his reasoned, explained-out objection to this error. Just using a link and a quote without the required accompanying reasoning is totally ineffective because it's an argument that could be used against almost any conceivable course of action: including against itself (why is consistency consistently foolish? why should I follow a rule that says to ignore all rules?). You might as well just use the classic catch-all pseudoargument and keep things simple: "Because I said so." No need to feign philosophical superiority or rules-adherence just to get that simple nonpoint across. -Silence 21:01, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have put List of agnostics on delete page. It's not showng up yet, but I did. I admit in part that was churlish and one of the rare times I did something nearing bad faith, but to be honest the reasoning I can give is about identical to this one being listed. Many estimates indicate that 100 million to 1 billion people are agnostic so it could have the "too big" issue. Also the verification issue. Although my intent was annoyance it ultimately fits the reasons this was done. (It's only bad faith because I feel the reasoning given here is invalid and so accepting it anyway is de facto invalid. It's also even a bit suspicious as Hinduism or Islam are about as large as Catholicism while List of neo-conservatives is far less verifiable.)--T. Anthony 23:06, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *I'm glad you nominated that article because it's indeed a high-quality, well-described list that could be very useful but has the exact same problem as the Roman Catholic lists. In fact, if anything it's worse than the super-long lists of Christians, because the only reason that it's shorter is because less work has been put into looking for and adding new entries (or it's just more difficult to do so; "agnosticism" has dozens of distinct meanings)! Do keep an eye out for WP:POINT, though, considering that you yourself seem to disagree with the VfD. I think we need to stop rushing to delete everything immediately and actually have a calm, rational discussion on exactly what lists we do and don't plan to delete. -Silence 23:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: *"List of lists" is awkward. If it's kept, consider Lists of Roman Catholics — or consider making it a subsection of List of Christians, if it's only to be a list of lists. -Silence 23:20, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Subset of the List of Christians sounds good by me. Also maybe the surviving Catholic lists can just all be placed in the "Category: Lists of Christians"--T. Anthony 23:53, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

text: I'm still strongly for keep, but if a Category is preferred then it'll be :Category:Lists of Roman Catholics, correct?--T. Anthony 14:11, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

text: (I mean category as in a subcategory of :Category:Lists of Christians of course.--T. Anthony 14:13, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe :Category:Notable Roman Catholics or :Category:Famous Roman Catholics would be preferable names. Just my opinion, however. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 14:35, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay, but that would be a bit silly especially as I was meaning a Category of lists. Anyway :Category:Muslims isn't :Category:Famous Muslims, nor is :Category:Bahá'í individuals isn't :Category:Famous Bahá'í individuals, etc.(Oddly there's isn't a :Category:Hindus, but there is a List of Hindus. Although there is :Category:Musicians by religion, there's also a :Category:Roman Catholic musicians which includes people like Mick Jagger who'd likely not be acceptable on any List of Catholic musicians now. Or for that matter Back when].--T. Anthony 16:18, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Lists of Roman Catholics" would be 80% acceptable. "Famous Roman Catholics" or "Notable Roman Catholics" would be 0% acceptable. Wikipedia Lists and Categories never include "famous" or "notable" or "noteworthy" or "important", because (1) they're value judgments, (2) they're totally unnecessary because all Wikipedia lists, (3) they're cumbersome and almost every list and category on all of Wikipedia would need. Just think about it. We'd have to replace "1835 deaths" with "noteworthy 1835 deaths". How many hundreds of thousands of pages do you think we'd have to rename to include "famous" or "notable" everywhere it implied? Anyway, the only reason I gave Lists of Roman Catholics a "80% acceptable" is because I don't think there are enough such lists to merit a distinct category; those lists would work just as well within :Category:Lists of Christians itself. But it's up to you. -Silence 03:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not strong on it. Even if it were a Category I think it should be as a sub-category of :Category:Lists of Christians. This list, or the lists it contains, being in :Category:Lists of Christians is also okay. Naming Categories "Famous XYZ" strikes me as very silly and unworkable though.--T. Anthony 04:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

message: *For my own edification, the vote count at this time is 23 Delete, 14 Keep and 1 Merge.  RasputinAXP  T C 16:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Vote Count

message: If "listmania" stuff really bothers you(plural) I'm sure there's plenty of things at Wikipedia:List of lists/uncategorized that many of you could categorize or delete to get rid of any list clutter. It's a pretty big backlog. :Category:Lists did not look as cluttered to me as there's a fairly solid hierarchy which this article is in.--T. Anthony 16:50, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Or you can help put things in :Category:Incomplete lists, which is way overcrowded, into subcategories.--T. Anthony 17:04, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: List clutter?

message: I bumped into a list of such but cannot find it  again. I am torn about this  decision here  , thinking that by allowing  faith based info into the open , at least it becomes visible , and trackable . I as editor have been forced  to claim that at least one very active and extremely clever editor  here is a vatican agent. Of course this honest opinion rather conflicts with good faith principles , with obvious result (Arbcom) . I am on record as warning Jimbo that good RC's are under order to subvert the WP , which he kinda has to ignore(I told him  there had to be snag with his WP concept) . So , I really don't know what is the best in this case or in the above I'm locating   . It is rather sad that the church should have need to fear  facts that the WP system filters , and rather  a shock to our supposedly secular modern world , to think that by means of WP email , that such subversion  can prosper . EffK 09:13, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm assuming this is a joke. I don't know of a list, but there is :Category:Roman Catholic Wikipedians. I imagine some Catholic Wikipedians aren't listed there and that some Catholics listed there are quite lapsed. There's also :Category:Quaker Wikipedians, :Category:Born-again Christian Wikipedians, :Category:Pentecostal Wikipedians, :Category:Latter Day Saint Wikipedians, :Category:Scientologist Wikipedians, :Category:Free Zone Wikipedians, :Category:Jain Wikipedians, :Category:Atheist Wikipedians, :Category:Marxist Wikipedians, and so forth. I'm a tad skeptical that all categorized users really are of the category they claim, but yeah it's there. And we don't need a list if we have a category:)--T. Anthony 10:52, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sadly it is not a joke , yes that was what I was looking for. it is also not a joke that TV Euronews reported the vatican spring 2005 conference , in which  a zillion folk were ordered to intervene online to defend the faith from calumny . I refer you to read the edit I made on talk page Ludwig Kaas just now-not at all funny .  Jokes are  banned , too . Thanks EffK 23:47, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. Well this explains some odd things on Wiki, but not the way you mean. I hope that you regain a sense of balance someday and peace to you.--T. Anthony 03:18, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: List of Catholic Wikipedians