Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Family tree of Confucius in the main line of descent

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 no consensus. No consensus to delete, but most agree that cleanup is strongly needed. Sandstein 07:17, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Family tree of Confucius in the main line of descent[edit]

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Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary#Wikipedia is not a genealogical dictionary - Prisencolin (talk) 00:53, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Automated comment: This AfD was not correctly transcluded to the log (step 3). I have transcluded it to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Log/2017 July 29. —^{cyberbot I}_{Talk to my owner:Online} 01:10, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This is a perfectly good encyclopedia entry. genealogy is not dictionary related. If you think it is like a dictionary entry it could be because it is basically a list stub. rather than deleting it, it could be linked to the actual people mentioned in it, most of which are notable (in China). A Guy into Books (talk) 15:01, 29 July 2017 (UTC) Im going to expand on this in light of the person below complaining about the fact this is about China. The fact that some people cant read the sources which are Chinese is exactly why this article should be here for people who cant read Chinese and who wouldn't otherwise know the information presented in this article. this article is similar to others like Genealogy of the British royal family or Genealogy of the Rothschild family etc. it could be improved, to be more like House of Tudor or House of Stuart. A Guy into Books (talk) 19:32, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Religion-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of China-related deletion discussions. Shawn in Montreal (talk) 17:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete this is cruft. The references are mostly in Chinese; many are trivial or are links to the Chinese wikipedia and have no weight at all; some are biographies from sources that I can't determine the reliability of. There are enough gaps in the descent (that have no WikiLinks/sources) that I see no reason to keep this article. A specific list of notable people claiming direct descent from Confucius might be notable, but this page doesn't have sourcing/data to allow for creation of that. Power~enwiki (talk) 04:54, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
~~Weak k~~ Keep. This is a terrible article, but it could be turned into a good one. At the moment, it is too focused on genealogical information and undoubtedly fails WP:NOT. However, if you read the relevant section of the Confucius article, you will see multiple RSs making clear that Confucius' family line is notable (not merely that his descendants are notable, but the actual family tree is notable) and discussed in multiple RSs (as per WP:GNG). I remember seeing coverage of the publication of the last edition of the genealogy on a CCTV national news bulletin. There's also a RS suggesting that a Republic of China (Taiwan) sinecure follows this family tree. All the information is verifiable (and pace Power~enwiki, we don't require sources to be in English).

IIRC my old paper Longman Encyclopedia had appendices, such as a list of UN member states and a list of English/British kings and queens. Once upon a time, we used to allow subpages of main articles, and this is the kind of topic that would have fitted well as a subpage of the Confucius article. Since WP doesn't have appendices or subpages (see WP:SPINOFF), then we should probably keep this for the stand-alone article that it could become. EDIT: Changed !vote, see comment below. Matt's talk 12:17, 31 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Delete This article is indeed terrible. It would possibly be more suited for the Chinese Wikipedia where the sources can be verified and validated or deleted. It is going to be almost impossible for the English Wikipedia to do anything with this except throw up our hands.Wjhonson (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The subject itself is notable, as already pointed above. It can be seen as a family tree of a Chinese nobility member. We already have a lots of family trees of the nobility, and this is more important than the most of the family trees from here. Again as above "we don't require sources to be in English" and another aspect is that it is difficult to find in english the informations already provided. That's why I consider that the article shouldn't be deleted, but improved.
Regarding the WP:NOT we have hundreds (maybe more) ahnentafeln and family trees scattered across articles and even a WikiProject. That is a outdated rule that should be abolished.
Update: At most we could merge it with the Descendants section of "Confucius" article --Daduxing (talk) 10:01, 4 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, L3X1 (distænt write) )evidence( 01:45, 6 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I am not sure this is a well named article, and it seems to combine many things at once, but the fact that there are living people who have standing because of their direct descent from Confucius, and we have an article on one, justifies this very large chart. Sources do not have to be in English. The English-language Wikipedia is not meant to be focused on topics sourced to English sources, or of interest to English speakers. It is only meant to be written in English. This article is, so that requirement is fulfilled. This may seem overly long to westerners who think it grand that they can trace their ancestry back before the year 1600, and none of whome can trace their ancestry before AD 400 reliably, by for the Chinese things are different, and this is a perfectly legitimate chart.John Pack Lambert (talk) 03:34, 8 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. WP:NOTGENEALOGY - "Genealogical entries. Family histories should be presented only where appropriate to support the reader's understanding of a notable topic". There is no topic here, just a genealogy.
Extra Comment This family tree is in itself a topic, its like saying the lineage of the British royal family is a topic, it has in itself intrinsic encyclopedia value since without this there is no context to the current descendants. This article also gives context to the (many) notable people it links too. This article would never be deleted from the Chinese Wikipedia and I see no reason other than lack of understanding of the subject why anyone would want it removed. A Guy into Books (talk) 09:22, 10 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

A Fmaily tree can be a topic, but is only notable as a topic if the tree itself (not the family) has received significant coverage. Nothing in the article indicates this is the case - it is just a bare tree. Agricolae (talk) 01:30, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

it has significant coverage in china. A Guy into Books (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is certainly the heart of the issue, and I agree that nothing in the article indicates that the family tree is notable. However, the notability is clear from the citations in Confucius and it's easy for find more significant coverage in RSs. A BBC News report uses the words "Confucian family tree" in the headline . A Xinhua report last year was headlined "Korean Confucius descendants trace back to ancestor of family tree". A 2009 New York Times report tries to answer the question "Just how did a gentle scholar who is said to have had only three children come to preside over the world’s largest documented family tree?" That's significant coverage in multiple RSs - and there would be much more in Chinese languages (and perhaps Korean too, going by the Xinhua article). Matt's talk 15:02, 11 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Agree with above editors characterising this article as terrible, but I can attest that the family tree of Confucius is in se notable. I've removed the legendary line of descent from the Shang kings through the dukes of Song, which accords with our Chinese article on this topic. Of course Confucius's lineage traditionally is traced to legendary figures but we don't need to be so credulous of traditional sources. (As an aside, I would characterise our Confucius article as pretty credulous.)

The section List of prominent members of the family not shown on the tree is a place of horror. There were literally cites to facebook in there, and for some descendants it seems like earlier editors threw each and every mention they could find into a footnote rather than discerning between sources and depth of coverage.

Disagree that we on enwiki can do naught but "throw up our hands", but I agree that checking those 130 sources or whatever is going to be a serious pain in the ass. Looking through the actual historical references (listed under References) might actually be worse, since they're only narrowed down by chapter, but I do have access to almost all of those sources.

I think the article coverage should focus more on the compilation, retention, and signifigance of the tree itself and the social capital that comes from being in the main line of descent from Confucius. The prominent members section should be pruned and the article reorganised, but we have space for this topic in our encyclopaedia. Snuge purveyor (talk) 03:58, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I !voted delete earlier, but I also support a consensus rename to any title starting "List of". As an editing opinion, the "Family Tree" section should be removed, but that's not a topic for AfD. Power~enwiki (talk) 04:23, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is a big deal in China. And in terms of it's total length, it is quite remarkable anywhere. Wikipedia is full of information about the genealogies of European identities who are not particularly notable. So why is this different ? Nobody is forcing you to read it. There are thousands of entries about fourth-rate football players who will be forgotten in a few years, but if they are not inaccurate, and people have gone to the trouble to write them, and the only "cost" is a few kilobytes on the server, then why go picking arguments about other peoples' interests ? That's my view.Lathamibird (talk) 06:14, 14 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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.