Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of British Asian people (3rd nomination)

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. Spartaz ^Humbug! 17:57, 16 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of British Asian people[edit]

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This unsourced list is in violation of WP:BLP. I would remove all unsourced entries, but that would simply leave an empty list. I think that deletion is the best option until someone has the time to rewrite a properly sourced list. Cordless Larry (talk) 13:45, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related page:

Keep: A glance at the linked biographies show that the listed people are indeed of British-Asian origin. If the problem is of sourcing, that isn't too hard to fix. --Ragib (talk) 14:11, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've wavered on several occasions about whether it's a good idea to pigeonhole people by ethnicity on Wikipedia, and I can understand and sympathise with the reasons for this nomination. But I'm not sure I agree with it. It looks like a list version of Category:British people of South Asian descent to me, which would be allowed per WP:CLN. I don't think the full stricture of BLP policy applies because the most rigorous version of BLP is about protecting living people from contentious information about them. In most cases, to call someone "British Asian" is neither contentious nor negative, but simply factual. I don't believe most reasonable people would object to calling, say, Sanjeev Bhaskar or Anita Rani "British Asians". I think the reasons leading to this nomination are fixable, and I think AfD is not for cleanup.—S Marshall T/C 15:14, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm of a similarly wavering opinion on classifying people according to ethnicity. However, this nomination is more about the lack of sources than the classification itself. I think Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality needs to be considered here. Classifying people without sources is the problem in this case. The lists have been tagged as unsourced for some time but nothing has been done to address this. The alternative would be to remove all unsourced entries, but since both lists are completely unsourced, that would leave us with two blank articles. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:35, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Marshall, you say that "I don't think the full stricture of BLP policy applies because the most rigorous version of BLP is about protecting living people from contentious information about them". I agree that this might be true of many people on these lists, but how about Michael Fassbender's inclusion at List of British people with German ancestry? His mother was born in Northern Ireland but sources describe him as Irish, and I think in that context it's a violation of BLP to include him on a list of British people. Cordless Larry (talk) 14:13, 30 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just in case anyone wondered why I've only nominated these two articles, it's because they had previously been up for deletion. I have also proposed that the following be deleted using WP:PROD:

Together, these are all of the completely unsourced lists from Category:Lists of British people by origin. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Am I right in thinking, from your remarks, that if I sourced one or two of these, the whole basis of the nomination would be invalidated?—S Marshall T/C 16:31, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I guess so. Cordless Larry (talk) 16:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No problem then, I sourced ~~one~~ some.—S Marshall T/C 17:52, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of United Kingdom-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:26, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 20:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
delete Isn't this sort of thing better handled by categories? Mangoe (talk) 01:25, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But by that logic, *all* list pages can be replaced by categories ... do you make that claim for all such articles? (including featured lists?) --Ragib (talk) 01:37, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There's a guideline about this, which is at WP:CLN. Basically, it says that the fact that we have categories doesn't mean we shouldn't have lists, even for the same thing.—S Marshall T/C 02:29, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete, what's next, a list of Chinese European people?SharedPlanetType (talk) 03:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And why not, if such a group exists that identifies itself as Chinese Europeans? There is already a List of Chinese Americans. --Ragib (talk) 03:31, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not because most of the time, people included in such a list do not identify themselves as "Chinese European" Bulldog123 22:58, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Kind of stupid, but does not seem to violate any WP policies, including BLP.Borock (talk) 10:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Opinion on the BLP noticeboard seems to be that these type of lists are a BLP issue. Cordless Larry (talk) 11:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 03:54, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree with S Marshall's comment above. Ethnicity (in most cases, at least) should not be viewed as the kind of negative information that BLP was created to deal with. Its original concern was to ensure proper sourcing, and to remove unsourced negative statements, but it seems to be turning into some kind of bureaucratic monster that has leaked into many other areas of content determination as well. It's too often used as a bludgeon in deletion discussions that have nothing to do with sourcing an article statement or negative information. There are a lot of people who simply don't like these kinds of lists regardless of how well sourced they are.
The list is certainly verifiable. It does not (and should not) include anyone who does not already have an article. First step, anyone whose article does not support their inclusion in this list should be removed from this list. Second step, the sources used in those articles to support their status as British Asians should be migrated into this list. I don't agree with the urgent need to delete this when it is fixable, regardless of what has been said on the BLP noticeboard (just another forum). AFDs are useful for testing the local consensuses that develop in such niches against a wider community, so we can see how a broader community really wants to apply policies and guidelines and how to test their consequences. postdlf (talk) 16:21, 8 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Delete per nom. No validation for why any of this information is encyclopedically notable. For 90%+ of the list's entries, this is pure WP:TRIVIA. If anyone wants to make a relevant list of peoples... there's no reason it can't be included in something like British Germans on a small-scale, case-by-case basis, explaining why such a classification is notable to the person. Bulldog123 22:55, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Per comments by Postdlf.--Epeefleche (talk) 23:31, 9 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Since the people are notable, a list of them buy any reasonable characteristic that has any relevance to their notability is appropriate DGG ( talk ) 16:48, 14 January 2011 (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.