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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 Keep. Walton Need some help? 18:57, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of Charles Whitman's victims

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List of Charles Whitman's victims (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log)

This article fails WP:NOT. Notably, Wikipedia is not a memorial. Moreover, the victims are not notable; their names are simply not notable, and it has been well established that dying violently does not make you notable. Additionally, there is already a list of the victims' names in the main article.

  • Delete, as per nomination. Titanium Dragon 19:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep, WP:NOT shows that we should not have separate articles for each victim. However, a single list detailing how each victim was killed is entirely different. It's not a memorial going "omg, he was a family man who loved his daughters and was tragically murdered", it's just providing context and a timeline of who was shot where/when. The Charles Whitman article is too bulky, so the list of victims was moved to a separate articlespace, and we're thinking of moving the list of cultural references, as well. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 20:44, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Er, isn't it just that? It is basically what memorial pages are; it contains a lot of frankly unimportant information, and these people aren't important ultimately - dying doesn't make you notable. Titanium Dragon 23:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How do they meet notability guidelines? The only reason their names are even known is they were killed, and even then, we don’t care who they were unless they were otherwise important. They lack wide name recognition, biographies, significant awards and honors, a lasting contribution, or endorsing a product commercially. Multiple features in credible news media? I’m not seeing those at all. Of the four “references”, two don’t even work and the other two are to random websites which don’t appear to have any credentials. There is no evidence to suggest they’re important, and a lot of evidence to suggest that they’re the exact opposite. Most of the information isn’t even cited. I’m failing to see how this article is meeting notability guidelines; really, it seems like a memorial to me, which Wikipedia is not. There's absolutely no reason to make this list. Titanium Dragon 23:55, 18 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment' - because ultimately saying "Che Guevara was responsible for kililng 11 political opponents during his career" is a weasel term on its own, if they can't be named. Naming victims lends credibility and verifiability to a story, and is a good idea in any instance. For example, Abeer Qassim Hamza is "not notable" in any way, she's just some Iraqi girl that got raped and killed in front of her family...but just saying "There was a girl who was raped and killed back during the Iraq War" thirty years from now won't mean much if you can't point to actual specifics, give a name, a date of birth, allow people to verify that these names and dates actually line up with actual people. That is the point of having a single cohesive list of the names of people killed, so that David Irving can't come along in fifty years and go "Who's to say Whitman really killed 17 people? I don't see any record of that, all I see are a bunch of articles that appear to have randomly agreed upon the number 17". Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 04:00, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Its not a weasel term. Its not like we list all six million Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. This entire argument is farcical. The reason Abeer Quassim Hamza has an article is because of the incident, and the article is basically about the incident, not about her, much as Charles Whitman's article is mostly about the shooting. The primary sources and government records have the names on them. Wikipedia is all about verifiability; we aren't creators of knowledge. Titanium Dragon 05:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Until after the Virginia Tech shooting hype dies down? Titanium Dragon 05:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep or Merge. For the following reasons:
  1. Per WP:NOT, "Memorials. Wikipedia is not the place to honor departed friends and relatives. Subjects of encyclopedia articles must be notable besides being fondly remembered." Whitman's victims are notable as a group for having been the victims of the one of the largest single-shooter mass shootings in U.S. history. That they were coincidentally fondly remembered by their friends/family does not detract from that. Nor does this article include any of those "fond remembrances." Arguing for deletion on the basis of WP:NOT is a spurious argument for deletion.
  2. Per WP:NOTE, "Notability guidelines determine whether a topic is sufficiently notable to be included as a separate article in Wikipedia. These guidelines do not specifically regulate the content of articles, which is governed by Wikipedia's guidelines on the reliability of sources and trivia" (emphasis added). The topic of this article is all the victims of Whitman's shooting as a group, not any one of them as an individual. Hence, an argument for deletion based upon each victim's individual non-notability is a spurious argument. Nobody is arguing here that each of them is notable enough to warrant their own article -- because in that case yes, WP:NOTE would apply.
  3. A list of Whitman's victims and their manners of death is pertinent detail about a notable historic event.
  4. The only question left is whether to keep this as a separate article, or to merge it. Based on the size of the main article, it seems possible to merge the information here that doesn't already appear in the main article into the main article. But under no circumstances should this information merely be deleted based upon the spurious dependence on WP:NOT or WP:NOTE, which have no relevance on the information presented here.
Besides that, I oppose the current ideological campaign that seems to have started with List of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre and continued to this and other articles including List of victims of the Columbine High School massacre based on the same spurious reasoning. --Yksin 06:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Its not spurious; several Wikipedia editors noticed that it was an issue and decided to do something about it. Basically, they realized that it wasn't notable or encyclopedic, and was nothing but a memorial list. Its worth reading WP:RECENT. It isn't notable, really, who he killed because none of the people he killed were notable. What was notable was that he did kill people. The only purpose of listing their names is to memorialize them. Titanium Dragon 00:30, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we should keep this article, possibly merge if main article can fit it. Abeg92We are all Hokies! 10:31, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete or merge. Can be easily incorporated into the main article.--Sleepvivid 11:12, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge with list on main article, taking a few details (like age, order of death, place of death) but cutting down main biographies. Then redirect, so the information is still accessible via the history for future use.--Jackyd101 12:42, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • KEEP This information will be utilized by students in years to come. It makes sense to keep it --Corcoranp 13:39, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep how is it a memorial again? --Witchinghour 19:11, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, not a memorial, a summary of notable (that is, noted in in the news) information about people of interest, even if that interest is morbid and the information a bit sparse. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:10, 19 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak keep I have voted delete at the AFDs for the lists of victims at the Virginia Tech and Columbine High School massacres, but this is different. Rather than being a memorial, this appears to describe the event itself. It probably should be moved to something like Charles Whitman shooting timeline and be cleaned up to focus more on the events themselves.--FreeKresge 02:59, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, this is a textbook WP:NOT#PAPER situation, since the information is factual and verifiable, and it enhances our coverage of the topic. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 13:34, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • STRONG DELETE, "How is this a memorial again?" Because his victims aren't notable and this list doesn't help anyone further understand the event. Some of the entries in this list do NOTHING to further help understand the person killed (i.e. margaret whitman's entry that she was killed in her apartment . . . we already knew that from the article, and nothing else is listed about her), and besides, the only reason anyone would come to read this article is to find out more about Charles Whitman, who IS notable. His victims are not notable except for having been killed by him, which is not sufficient for inclusion into wikipedia, unlike some of the professors in the VT tragedy whom ARE notable. I do NOT think that deleting a list of their names is appropriate either, necessarily, but I definitely do not see the additional value from listing anything other than names, as has been done in this case. And, sure, the information contained in the list is factual and verifiable -- but encyclopedias are not intended to hold EVERY SINGLE fact about every single event and person that has ever existed, but merely to provide the framework for understanding in a general context. No one here can become a biologist by reading the wikipedia entry on "Biology" -- there's more information there than can be included. Same with this article -- it's merely a starting point for additional research if one feels so inclined. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by JJEagleHawk (talk • contribs) 17:08, 22 April 2007 (UTC).[reply]
  • Keep, I think these details are important for the historical record. Believe it or not, some readers are interested in the victims as well as the murderer. Last year (before this debate), I consulted this list because one of the victims taught me calculus a few years before he was shot in Texas. (Yes, this means that I am older than most of you). Dirac66 19:28, 22 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't particularly surprise me, especially given your username could well imply you are 66 years old or graduated from college in 1966. However, the problem is that this is kind of my point; names aren't meaningful unless you personally knew them, and every year fewer and fewer people did. Fundamentally, its just a list of stuff that no one in a hundred years would care about, because they're entirely mundane. It isn't really notable or meaningful, and Wikipedia is not designed to be a repository of all information ever; it is supposed to be an online encyclopedia. It isn't meant as a slight against them, I just don't see why it is notable at all. Titanium Dragon 09:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge to list on main page unless any were notable for reasons other than being a victim of this person, in which case those ones should have invidual articles. A1octopus 12:58, 23 April 2007 (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.
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