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

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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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. I count something like 21d-15k, and serious disagreement. Those who gave no reason or whose reason was paranoia should consider themselves discounted from the debate. -Splashtalk 04:32, 27 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of Roman Catholics[edit]

Previous nomination: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Roman Catholics

Strong Delete So I suppose this is going to list all 1 billion Catholics, yea right. Delete on basis of utterly pointless lists. 65.9.112.108 21:45, 15 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • If you're officially nominating the hundreds and hundreds of lists on Wikipedia just like this one and Europeans, you should probably announce this VfD a bit more broadly so we can properly get the community's consensus. I don't see how this list is any different from every other list on Wikipedia that lists noteworthy members of a certain race, religion, nationality, etc. -Silence 12:03, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This afd nomination was orphaned. Listing now. No opinion. —Cryptic (talk) 14:16, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This list is just a silly list of lists. Pilatus 14:36, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Uh, that's because it's been subdivided into a number of different lists. The purpose of this list is to improve navigation between all of those lists; it makes no more sense to delete this for being a "list of lists" than it would make sense to delete a category that only has categories within it for being a "category of categories"; such pages are very useful tools. -Silence 19:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Some of these lists are (potentially) useful, like the List of Catholic philosophers and theologians, others are pointless, for example the List of Catholic Athletes. I will be doing some weeding and put the more useless lists up for AfD. The List of Catholics is utterly silly. No one is notable for following a religion - the religion a person follows becomes notable when it has had an impact on some aspect of a person's life. Pilatus 00:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, if you want to delete some of the Roman Catholic lists and not others, why not just delete the bad ones and leave this article as a hub for the good ones? What alternative method do you propose we use instead of this page for navigating from one list of Roman Catholics to another? Categories? A template or "see also" list with all the links provided? -Silence 18:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Other bad lists don't justify this one as well. Dottore So 15:49, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course they don't. But it's dishonest to phrase this debate as whether or not a single sect of a single religion's list should be deleted, rather than making it clear that hundreds of lists are on the line with this one vote, not only every religious list (of which there are dozens), but every list that is similarly broad. Personally, I don't see why this couldn't be a perfectly useful list to numerous people, and the existence of the category makes it much easier to maintain, but whether you think this should be deleted or not, the debate should be clarified such that it doesn't look like we're attacking a single religion's list. Why did the nominator nominate "List of Roman Catholics" rather than just nominating List of Christians? -Silence 19:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - way way way too broad. Besides, there's already a category or two covering this. 23skidoo 15:57, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Of course there are. And numerous categories and lists are doubles of each other, because neither a category nor a list is perfect; having both serves as a system of checks and balances, of sorts. Are you aware of the major advantages a list has over a category? If not, I'll gladly enlighten you about the problems with maintaining something like a category that's so much less centralized than a list, that lacks the coherent history file a list does which makes keeping it high-quality so easy. Obviously, categories have their advantages to (like being linked to on every page a member of the category is a part of), but you'd have a hard time arguing that lists don't have some major advantages over categories. Contrary to popular opinion, including both in some cases can actually give the best of both worlds; just something to consider, don't vote blindly because there's also a category of a similar nature. And even if one does, that person should make quite certain to do the same for the countless other articles of the same nature. There's no point having votes like this just to breed inconsistency; let's be straightforward about what is and isn't being voted on, from the onset! -Silence 19:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Keep per Silence, but I could do without. Descendall 16:09, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, enables users to find notable Catholics more easily than the categories do. Kappa 18:11, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per 23skidoo listcruft --Jaranda(watz sup) 18:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep--HistoricalPisces 18:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Useful, verifiable. Youngamerican 19:05, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Verifiable? How, pray tell, exactly does one verify this list? Nandesuka 05:14, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are ways you can verify baptismal records, church attendance, and what they've said in autobiographies or interviews about their faith. For example on trying to fix List of Catholic musicians I went to Moya Brennan's site and it stated one of the important points of her autobiography was to give people a sense of her Catholicism. You can't prove what's in peoples hearts, but that's true of any belief issue. In that sense that'd even be true of List of Communists as an example.--T. Anthony 21:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete listcruft. Nandesuka 20:00, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Silence and Kappa. Lists are only supposed to contain links to people who have a chance at getting a Wikipedia article. And "listcruft" is not a valid reason to delete. List have other functions than categories and they should be able to exist side by side. - Mgm|(talk) 20:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Or at least rename to something more specific. As it stands it's a daft, unmaintainable and overly general list. Marcus22 20:47, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; no basis for deletion identified. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:50, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete this is not an encyclopedia article - no way. --Doc ask? 23:41, 16 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per above 65.10.7.150 00:41, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep — No valid reason for deletion identified. It's a valid list of lists. — RJH 01:11, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. This is what categories are for. Furthermore, there are such serious quality problems with these lists that it is very questionable whether they are "valid" at all. Cleaning them up would be about as much work as rebuilding them from scratch. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
1) Not one of them says how they were made, what sources were used, or what objective criteria were used for inclusion. If they said "List of composers whose Wikipedia articles identify them as Roman Catholics" that would be OK, but they don't. It would just as much work to check them one name at at time as it is to rebuild the list from scratch.
2) This article purports to be a "list of Roman Catholics." But it is comprised of lists that say simply that they are lists of "Catholics." Are these lists restricted to Roman Catholics or not? There is no way to tell—other than to check every entry individually.
3) What are we to make of the section of List of Catholic composers that says simply "The great majority of composers listed on the following pages: The great majority of composers listed on the following pages: Renaissance composers, Italian composers, French composers ?" Plausible, but I hope we're shooting higher than "plausible." Whoever wrote that couldn't possibly know it is true unless he counted them, which would require knowing which were Catholic (or Roman Catholic), in which case they could and should have been listed. Conversely, knowing that "the great majority" of Italian composers about as useful as knowing that a stopped clock is right twice a day. It doesn't tell you anything useful unless you know which are Catholic, just as the clock doesn't tell you anything useful unless you know when it is right. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:21, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
P. S. OK, I just checked a couple at random. Maurice Ravel is included in List of Catholic composers, but our article on Ravel not only does not identify him as Roman Catholic, it says "Ravel was not religious and was probably an atheist." Shoddy. Perhaps someone hazarded a guess that the "great majority" of French composers are Roman Catholic and figured, hey, that's close enough for Wikipedia work. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:27, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most spot-on posts I have read for a long time. I want to vote delete all over again. But I'll settle for shouting 'hear, hear' --Doc ask? 01:34, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
P. P. S. The very entry for Agnieszka Holland in "List of Catholic directors and producers" says she is "now roughly an agnostic." How does "roughly an agnostic" = "Roman Catholic?" The article on Agnieszka Holland says she "was born to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, and was raised a Catholic." So, are these supposed to be "lists of people who were raised as Catholics, regardless of their parents' religious affiliation or those of their parents?" No, because the same list includes "Lars von Trier, convert." Once again, though, our article on Lars von Trier happens to say exactly nothing about the religious affiliations of himself, as child or adult, or his parents.
I suggest voting "Move to List of people whom some Wikipedians are almost sure they read somewhere were some kind of Catholic sometime in their life but don't happen to remember exactly where and can't be bothered to check, then delete. Dpbsmith (talk) 01:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, lists are inherently about notable individuals and should include the information as verified from an article. If the article doesn't say they're catholic, they can't be listed as such. - Mgm|(talk) 09:23, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nomination. Jtmichcock 02:30, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. While I generally support lists, this one is just entirely too broad. If only notable people are supposed to be on it, use a category instead. And even then, restrict to people whose religion is somehow inherently important to their story. Turnstep 03:41, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per the as-always convincing Dpbsmith. Denni ☯ 05:15, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per Dpbsmith. u p p l a n d 05:43, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Changing to abstain. The problem is actually rather with some of the sublists; lists of Catholics should be limited to manageable things, such as Catholic priests, religious writers etc, and perhaps notable Carholics in countries where they are a very small minority. Listing Catholic artists, politicians etc, in general and according to a loose definition of who is a Catholic, will be like combining almost every person from all lists by nationality for French, Italian, Spanish etc. people of that occupation in one list. I think everyone can realize that this is silly and unmaintainable. u p p l a n d 15:13, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Dpbsmith. The Wikimedia Foundation could not afford the server space to make this list comprehensive. Anville 11:05, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete ditto. — Haeleth Talk 13:52, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as overly-broad listcruft that's already covered by cats anyhow. Marskell 15:12, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep Listophobia madness. Okay some of you hate lists. That's fine. I don't much care for having to read in multiple columns all the time. Categories are necessary, but having lists should be acceptable. Otherwise much of my work here has been wasting my time at this place.--T. Anthony 17:24, 17 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete What's next, list of people?. Ejrrjs | [[User talk:Ejrrjs|What?]] 07:22, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • If a list of nouns was within the scope of the Wikipedia project (like a list of people by their religious beliefs is), we would have a list of nouns. We do, however, have a category of nouns, at Wiktionary. We also do, however, have a Category:Words, and Category:Lists of words. :) -Silence 03:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This List of thing is a very wrong way of building a database. Pity that wikipedia doesn't have a database server. Oh! wait! wikipedia DO have a db server...but there is no proper wikisoftware to use it as a database. At least the categories are a step in the right direction so let's use them but let's get rid of these meaningless lists. User:Ejrrjs says What? 01:14, 26 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Silence, I think you are largely right. In fact the only place I disagree with you is in the fundamental (and fair) assumption you make that Wikipedia should not be so ad hoc. In my view, why change this? Let's delete the lists as and when they arise. Or not. According to who votes which way on any given day. Sure it leads to muddle &c. Does it matter? It seems to me there are plenty of rules and regulations in the world outside Wiki which were no doubt designed to make things "work" better and, well, they're not exactly making the world a better place to be... Marcus22 14:35, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • This whole deletion vote is invalid! People who are not logged in registered users have no standing vote and therefore they cannot nominate articles or categories for deletion! Dwain 17:04, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As it happens, that is absolutely not true. See Wikipedia:Guide to deletion#Nomination. The statement that anonymous users can make afd nominations has been in the guide since its very first revision, and no doubt was present in the pages that it was merged from (though I haven't looked). The biggest reason we don't see more anon nominations is afd's ridiculous instruction creep. —Cryptic (talk) 23:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. This is no different than any other list. The initial objection relates to content. This discussion belongs on Wikipedia talk:Lists regarding what compromises a useful list. This AfD is just a singling-out of a particular list subject - Catholics in this case. --Elliskev 17:59, 18 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed that and it's setting pretty bad with me. The arguments given "Catholics are common", "Let's replace every list with a Category" don't quite work. There are far more Christians then just Catholics yet List of Christian entertainers is untouched. Even though it defines "entertainer" so broadly it includes everything from NFL coaches to Pulitzer Prize winners. Islam is by most estimates larger then Catholicism today, but List of Muslims has been given a warning instead of going straight for the jugular. I don't think there's necessarily an agenda here, but it doesn't feel right.--T. Anthony 13:13, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Preaky 06:52, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete Lists like these just don't make sense - there's no way you can name so many people. 65.10.44.158 22:50, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'VERY STRONG KEEP It is pure Catholic hatred going on here folks! Plank 23:27, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Be very careful. Many people voting delete have given their reasons. Your allegation that they are motivated by bigotry amounts to an unsubstantiated personal attack. Incidently, you have given no rationale for your own keep vote. --Doc ask? 00:09, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I might've inspired that, sorry. I do think it seems like Catholic and Jewish lists were targeted disproportionately. That did strike me as slightly strange. There may have been too many of both kinds of lists, but I think it would've "set off flags" less if it had been more limited or gone solely after the marginal cases like List of Catholic American Actors or List of Jewish superheroes. In the Catholic case two or even three Catholic lists were put on the same delete vote which caused me massive confusion because there'd be one that struck me as valid while the other two sounded like potential nonsense or redundant.
That said I think the main issue isn't any specific prejudice as even List of agnostics got close to deletion even though I did it out of annoyance. I think that things in List of people by belief make many Wikipedians very uncomfortable. I can find versions of these lists in some encyclopedias as a Wikipedia article is in some ways comparable to a single Encyclopedia page. Still I want to respect that discomfort now that I'm aware of it, but at the same time I don't agree with it. I think in some cases you can know a person's belief and that belief makes them as much part of a "group" as nationality does, maybe moreso in some cases. Well in least you can know it as well as you can know anything. I mean many here act like religion is too iffy, but that nationality is not. They should check the old debates on Talk:Marie Curie to realize sometimes nothing is clearcut. I mean is she French or Polish or both or neither? I think you have to accept a bit of uncertainy or even Categories and everything else would fall apart some degree.--T. Anthony 06:29, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. This is just as important as a list of all the Muslims. JG of Borg 00:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per the extensive, cogent, and well-written arguments presented by Dbsmith. → Ξxtreme Unction {yakłblah} 12:59, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep for this particular list, pending a much needed and much wider discussion regarding the hundreds of similar lists as per Silence. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 16:40, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This list should be kept, it is a legitimate and valuable list. It is just silly nonsense to suggest that a billion Catholics will be on the list, that is stupid! There are more Muslims in the world than Catholics does 65.9.112.108 also want lists of Muslims to be erased? People listed should either be well known individuals or people included in Wikipedia. I would also like to comment that people voting one way or the other should not have to explain their votes! That is unethical and by pointing out that so-and-so voted without including his reasoning is a personal attack. So stop it! Digby 03:11, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • You were doing great until you got to "I would also like to comment". It's true that people voting on VfDs don't have to explain their votes, but they certainly should explain their votes on such, if doing so isn't too terrible of an inconvenience. And asking people to explain votes is absolutely acceptable conduct. Pointing out that someone voting without explaining his reasoning is as much a personal attack as taping a frog to a doughnut is. That is, not at all. "Personal attack" would be saying "This person voted without explaining his vote. What a fucking idiot!" Remove the italicized bit and you're in the green, baby. Though even if it was, somehow, a personal attack, I don't see how disobeying a Wikipedia policy could, on its own, be considered "unethical"... That's a bit much, don't you think? -Silence 03:22, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. Per all keep arguments such as Silence. Also oppose anon noms for this type of list. --JJay 05:38, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete Nobody gains any encyclopedic information with a list of catholics. There are no lists of any other sort of religion. Similar lists should also be deleted. DaGizza Chat (c) 08:10, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete. WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information. Add a Category for this and let's take care of this Listmania, please. Since we're now getting a warning as to page size, I've moved what discussion I could to the Talk page.  RasputinAXP  T C 16:21, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

From WP:NOT-"Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic." I've kind of worn myself too much in doing that, but keeping in that can be done. That said, I will put these lists in Category:Lists of Christians in case.--T. Anthony 18:46, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete 72.144.71.234 04:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per keep arguments such as those by Silence. I also think that anons should not be allowed to vote! David
  • Rename. In its current form its basically a umbrella page leading to other lists that make more sense (e.g. list of converts), but it should not be called "list of Catholics" - such a page wouldn't make much sense, as others have stated above. Str1977 11:41, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. If I may opine, it is absurd that we now dispute the second deletion nomination for this article. Speaking personally, I can sympathise with the contributors, who have undoubtedly devoted much time to the page (I know I have). And practically speaking, this list provides a valuable and convenient resource; objecting to organisation and similar questions is a matter of legitimate debate, and certainly the organisation is imperfect. But the elimination of the entire article is simply unwise.--Thomas Aquinas 22:15, 25 November 2005 (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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