Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of consorts of X

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. This was a difficult close for a number of reasons, not least the number of articles listed for deletion. At the heart of the deletion discussion was the principle of having articles that are lists of consorts. Our notability guideline is that ”A list topic is considered notable if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources.” Part of the problem in determining that, is that most of the lists were totally unsourced, and those that were sourced, were sourced to information about the title-holders, not their spouses. However, as a general principle, there is an academic and popular interest in consorts, so it is not inconceivable that there will be some source somewhere which refers to the "Duchesses of Longueville" or "Duchesses of Bourbon" for example. That the lists are mainly unsourced is a cause for concern, and some very good points have been raised in the AfD discussion about the reliability and accuracy of the information. However, that is generally seen as a reason for clean up, rather than deletion. Good suggestions were made for merging the consorts with their partners – and it was interesting to note that for those title-holder articles I looked at, the spouses were not listed, though they usefully could be. Pertinent to this AfD is that ” Wikipedia articles are not … Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as … persons – which adds “Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contribute to the list topic.” Much of the lists do indeed contain people who have articles on Wikipedia, and do so precisely because they are consorts of Dukes or Counts. While much of the keep comments were unhelpfully terse, providing the closer with nothing useful, or were simply mistaken; and a few of the delete comments did go into well argued detail; on the whole, the weight of the keeps combined with lack of policy/guideline advice which actually disallows this sort of material (the advice pointed more to keeping), leans toward a keep, though with a strong recommendation to source the material, and to consider merging with the title-holder articles or lists, leaving a redirect in place. SilkTork *^{Tea time} 21:55, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

List of consorts of Elbeuf

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Not notable. Wikipedia is not a genealogical reference and even those only give lists of title-holders, not their spouses. Nothing else really links to this page except a few of the articles given in the list. Opera hat (talk) 12:56, 25 April 2011 (UTC) I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason:[reply]

I've started off with these French articles as their husbands weren't even sovereign rulers, but there are lots and lots more like List of consorts of Baden and List of consorts of Schwarzburg. I thought I'd see how it goes with these first. Opera hat (talk) 13:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mild keep. If a single sentence in some book refers to the Duchess of Elbeuf in 1796, this will tell you who it is (nobody; the source is in error); in 1786, on the other hand, it's the Dowager Duchess, Innocentia Catherine. That information is occasionally useful (to many people, not just genealogists), and is difficult (and may be impossible) to quarry out of the husbands' articles. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)'[reply]
Keep This is historical information and has very little to with genealogy. This is the sort of stuff I typically search for. Dimadick (talk) 21:06, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Useful information in the subject of history and genealogy, especially if certain individuals are not notable enough for their own articles. Nightw 21:45, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete These "consort" articles are unnecessary and redundant because spousal information on every one of the titleholders is included in several places on each individual's article. Moreover, most of these "consorts" also have individual articles -- and no information is supplied on the consorts' articles that is not also contained in the titleholder's (and/or consort's) articles. Those who wish to aggregate info on consorts of noblemen may do so by gathering that information on their spouses' individual articles -- Wikipedia has no reason consistent with our mission to offer articles consisting solely of that information for them, given its redundancy and dubious notability. FactStraight (talk) 21:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. —Agricolae (talk) 03:23, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Usually consorts have some influence upon the rule of their husbands and some consorts are as notable if not more notable their husbands. --Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 03:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge Make the inclusionists happy: rename each List of monarchs of Foo to List of monarchs and consorts of Foo. —Tamfang (talk) 03:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Keep all and reference better. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 04:43, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete There is a small cadre of editors who have been prolific in the construction of these lists, and while I can appreciate their enthusiasm and diligence, I have never been fond of the product. Almost all of the pages are devoid of supporting sourcing, with data made up or copied from husbands' entry on parallel 'List of Monarchs' pages. Many of them violate WP:NOR, assigning to people titles that they themselves never used, all because their husband may have been entitled to a title that they never used either, all based on the compiler's own opinion of what qualifies as legitimacy (for example, find for me a single reference that calls Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen consort of the Isle of Man, or for that matter, anyone on the entire page). The whole concept is a neologism in many cases. At one point I tried to come up with a ridiculous page for comparison, in the form of, "This would be as ridiculous as having a page for Consorts of Foo" but had to abandon the argument because every attempt I made to come up with a ridiculous example met with an existing Consorts of Foo page. Many of the dates are made up: women known only from a single document are assigned dates for their reigns. Some of the tables have entirely mythological 'queens'. In many cases, the ambiguity in the historical record is too complex to display in such tables. There is also an underlying assumption that the wife of any landholder is worthy of listing on the sole basis that they married someone, a clear violation of WP:NOTINHERITED. Along with the pedigrees being attached to all the historical biographies, these tables seem to have been exempted from all standards of reliability and documentation, NOR, RS, etc. Agricolae (talk) 07:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Respone: Church records referred to Adelaide's predeccessor Queen Charlotte and her husband King George III as the Lord and Lady of Mann.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 11:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But not Adelaide and not "consort"? The very use of the term violates NOTINHERITED, as it is simply being used for "the woman married to the guy who held some sort of power in". It could mean Queen or Lady, in the case of Mann it is being used for both, yet even with Queen it is really 'the woman who married the guy calling himself king' of something that for much of the run wasn't a kingdom and just reflects self-glorification. And then there is Lady, which is nothing but a courtesy title, in many cases assumed rather than documented, for the woman married to the so-called Lord of Mann. All that can be said in it's favor is that it doesn't fall victim to invented numbering that plagues the husbands' pages - find a source that calls James Murray, 2nd Duke of Atholl, James III Murray of Mann - I find two in all of Google books, which seems more to reflect a quirky usage of a couple of authors rather than standard nomenclature. That being said, Mann is not at issue, at least right now. Agricolae (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete: not encyclopaedic. These lists are a hobby for interested editors rather than a genuine information resource for readers in general. Alternatively, merge with respective monarch lists per Tamfang. Scolaire (talk) 08:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Merge per Tamfang. Laurel Lodged (talk) 09:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I think the British lists might be the more 'popular' of the lists amongst editors and readers, and that if anything is to be decided, we ought to discuss the fate of the 'main' ones before the more 'obscure' ones. The obscure ones don't stand a chance, but put up the British lists for deletion and I think the discussion here will be a bit more lively. For example the first one the list (List of consorts of Alençon) only got 56 hits in March; however List of British consorts had 5,500. Include all the lists in this AFD, or start with the main or most popular ones first. I think it's a bit sneaky to start off with obscure ones and build up momentum to tackle the more popular ones.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 10:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why would we not want to get rid of any page that 'doesn't stand a chance', at any time? Agricolae (talk) 13:56, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Can't really see a good reason to delete these. Royal consorts are generally considered notable, so lists of them are fine as far as I'm concerned. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:20, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

None of the pages up for deletion are lists of royal consorts. Agricolae (talk) 13:59, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ. Most of these people would have been considered royal, or as good as, at the time. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds a bit POV to me. Agricolae (talk) 14:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You misunderstand the meaning of POV. It's not my POV, but a general POV. These are clearly all or mostly families which are royal or are connected to royalty. How could anyone say the Bourbons or Angevins were not royal families, for instance? In any case, fixating on one word is not useful. Royal or aristocratic, these people are notable. That's a POV, and given that this is an AfD debate not an article, a POV is perfectly acceptable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:29, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can say anything you want, but something consistent with the notability guidelines would probably carry more weight. I probably don't want to get into this, but every aristocrat is automatically notable? Exactly how far down the social scale does this existential notability extend? Every person with a descent from or a connection to royalty is notable? WP:Notability and WP:BIO make it clear that the claim that 'All members of Foo are inherently notable' is invalid. Agricolae (talk) 21:10, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody said they were. However, I do believe these lists are useful and that there is no reason to delete them. Deletion for deletion's sake, which this appears to me to be, is never useful. There's a lot of rubbish on Wikipedia which should be deleted; these articles do not fall into that category. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:47, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In my view these represent listcruft and a misplaced attempt at gender equity that did not apply during their lives or among published sources ever since, an attempt to 'correct' a historical wrong by pretending that the wife of a feudal lord was as important as the lord (or in some cases more important, as we have some Consort pages without corresponding pages for the people who actually ruled). Further, they are disasters waiting to happen, just like the pedigrees that are proliferating. Every empty space just 'has' to be filled, so dates that cannot possibly be known are invented (or copied from someone who did), disputed parentage is being represented unambiguously or as some confused chimera between mutually exclusive options, and the most obscure claims are being used as bases for the creation of yet another page. All of these basically relate to the same issue: no scholar out in the real world has cared enough to compile such information, and thus these pages are being created as WP:OR (via WP:SYNTH) devoid of any WP:RS as an underpinning, or in some cases without an understanding or familiarity with the literature that exists on the subject. I am not saying all such lists lack notability, certainly there has been a lot of work on Queens of England, but outside of Wikipedia, I doubt anyone has compiled a list of Manx consorts. You could argue that is what is so useful about them, but it is what makes them unreferenced original research that is untrustworthy. In treating as equally notable everything from an empire to a kingdom to a title adopted by a monarch for self-glorification without any real distinct land associated with it, to an alternative name for the same kingdom, to administrative subdivisions of a larger crown, to claims to a mythical or long-gone crowns as of equal relevance, these lose all sense of perspective. As such, given all of the inaccurate information, POV and WP:UNDUE weight issues, they do as much a disservice to readers as they are a benefit. It is not deletion for deletion sake, it is improvement of Wikipedia by removing a problem. Agricolae (talk) 00:53, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't be one of those deletionist editors who misuses WP:OR to refer to legitimate compilations of information they don't like. That is not OR, as is quite clearly spelled out in the policy. OR is original research. Compiling accurate, referenced fact, whether it's appeared in that specific form or not, is not original research. Otherwise pretty much everything we published, unless it was a copyvio, would be OR. If it is recorded in a legitimate source that X was the wife of Y then in no way can it be considered OR for us to say so, whether some scholar has previously compiled such a list in this form or not. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As long as we are apparently making requests of each other, please don't be one of those editors who tries to diminish others by calling them names (deletionist) and mischaracterizing their arguments as WP:IDONTLIKEIT (and don't pretend you weren't doing this, even though you presented it in the form of a request not to be that way). I have argued that this is WP:OR by WP:SYNTH, that they almost all lack WP:RS (look at the footnotes - they usually just report other supposed titles held by the same person), and that nobody outside of Wikipedia seems to think these people as a class merit the kind of special attention they are being given, making it WP:UNDUE, lacking in WP:NOTABILITY, and the argument given in support by the compilers is frequently little more than WP:SOAP (if the rulers deserve a page, then their wives do too). To just whitewash all of these complaints as nothing but WP:IDONTLIKEIT is inaccurate and hardly fair, particularly when the only reasons you have given for keeping it is effectively "such people are inherently notable", a violation of WP:INHERITED, one of the WP:ATA (Arguments to avoid). If no scholar or writer has found it of use to deal with "countesses of Foix" as a prosopographical grouping, then it is hardly 'deletionist' to suggest that such a topic is wanting in notability. If no scholar writing in English call the holders of the Castilian crown anything but Kings of Castile or Kings of Leon and Castile then it is hardly 'deletionist' to suggest that creating a page called List of Galician consorts naming their wives is doing more than just compiling accurate (sic) referenced fact (sic), it is original synthesis. You are correct that I don't like them. I don't like them because many of them are sloppy, unreliable, undocumented, giving undue weight to a nonnotable topic. Agricolae (talk) 14:44, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another request. Please read what I actually said before rushing to answer it. I didn't say you were a deletionist or that your argument was IDONTLIKEIT. I said please don't start going down that route. This is clearly not OR and shouldn't be characterised as such. Editors who start claiming things are OR when they clearly aren't are in danger of seeing their arguments diminished. It is a growing tendency on Wikipedia to accuse other editors inaccurately of OR and it is not one to be encouraged. I have never said these people are inherently notable, but that is an argument for individual articles about them, not for lists that mention them, since many of the people on the lists do have articles and clearly are notable. If we only included notable people on lists then our lists would be incomplete. It is enough that many of the people on the list are notable for the list to exist. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:04, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, of course you were accusing me of it. Hiding behind the addition of "please don't be one of those people who . . ." is just playing wordgames to provide the attack with deniability. It's not fooling anyone, which is why I suggested you not waste our time with the semantic exercise, but so much for that. As to OR, to call someone a Queen of Galicia that nobody calls a queen of Galicia, or a Queen of France that nobody calls a queen of France, as these editors have done because they have determined that the woman's husband had some historical claim to Galicia or France or included the title of king of one of these places among a long list of self-glorifying titles when the territory in question didn't exist as a distinct entity, is OR. To include a date for the end of a reign that is nothing but the year when their husband the king died, simply because no death date is known for the woman but most women survive their husbands, is likewise OR, but that has been done in these lists too. To conclude that if a family ever used a coat of arms, that coat was used by all members of the family including at periods long before anyone used heraldry is also Original Research. I could go on - these are not hypotheticals but actual cases from these pages, and they are all examples of WP:OR, plain and simple. The fact that it is badly done and reaches flawed conclusions does not change the fact that they are drawing (wrong) conclusions not reached by any of their sources. Nothing inaccurate about the characterization whatsoever. These tables are magnets for such nonsense. As to Notability, I am not arguing over the notability of individuals, I am saying the topic is non-notable in many cases. It is not enough that many people on a list are notable to justify a list. I could make a List of people with an A as the third letter of their middle name, and that would contain many notable people, but to claim sufficient grounds for such a list to exist based on fulfilling this sole criterion is patently ridiculous. The topic itself has to have some degree of notability. I LIKE IT and "it contains some notable people" are insufficient justifications for a list. Agricolae (talk) 00:13, 28 April 2011 (UTC) Just an added note of clarification. These problems are not unique to the List of consorts of X pages, they are also rife in the List of Xian monarchs pages. One of them compiles a whole list of so-called monarchs with invented regnal numbers for a title that was never more than a new administrative district created from recently conquered lands (while completely ignoring the actual monarchs who had ruled it as an independent state prior to the conquest). Agricolae (talk) 14:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that these consorts' spouses were notable when alive and belonged to notable dynasties -- although the wives of, for example, the Ducs d'Elbeuf -- who were a minor cadet branch of the House of Guise, itself a cadet branch of the Dukes of Lorraine -- cannot be compared to the consorts of the Holy Roman Emperors or to those of kings. The real problem is redundancy: the information for every consort is entirely included on the titleholder's article. And most of these consorts also have their own Wiki articles, which include the same info. The question is the notability of "family of semi-royal consorts" as a stand-alone Wiki article, and in particular, an article for every family that ever reigned or held a large fief. These consorts' notability may be real, but for the vast majority it is entirely derivative, and there are virtually no published sources which group them as do these articles; you'll find few books that treat even the empresses or queens of a dynasty, or of different dynasties, as a group. They should be listed in Wiki categories rather than given individual Wiki articles. FactStraight (talk) 21:45, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep the Irish consorts list & re-name it List of Irish consorts, as we have List of English consorts, List of Scottish consorts & List of British consorts. -- GoodDay (talk) 14:19, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion seems to be losing focus. No page relating to Irish consorts is currently under consideration. Agricolae (talk) 14:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was added (in an incorrect way) at 9:24 today. The article should have its own AfD. GoodDay (talk) 14:28, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that will just muddy the waters. Agricolae (talk) 14:49, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed the Irish consorts list, since the one who added it is not the original nominator, and in fact only voted "merge". Many had voted before it was added, also, so this vote/discussion cannot be considered to include that article in its scope. Srnec (talk) 00:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. —• Gene93k (talk) 17:58, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Delete (but without prejudice). It is not worth trying to keep what is of value in these articles (very little). It is better to throw the rubber duck out with the bath water, once the baby's crapped in it. Who every talks about any "consort of Montpellier"? The terminology is ridiculous, the page formatting is atrocious and if these are just lists of spouses of office-holders the information worth keeping is extraordinarily easy to incorporate into the lists of officeholders themselves, if necessary (as in a few cases it might be). Srnec (talk) 00:30, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- You do realize that the lists include information on 1) the names of each spouse, 2) his/her father and/or House, 3) time of birth, 4) time/date of marriage, 5) time of becoming the consort 6) time of ceasing to be the consort, 7) time of death. How exactly do you add this information on a table about the officeholders themselves? Dimadick (talk) 05:46, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you have to? Why would you want to? If the consorts are notable, then it will be (or should be) on their own page so a simple link to the consort's page will suffice. If non-notable, there is always the husband's page. Most Wikipedia lists are simply finding aids with links to the pages with the actual information. The attempt to make these into high-density data repositories, without the appropriate sourcing, analysis, background, etc., is part of the problem with these pages. Agricolae (talk) 15:09, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you wanted the information at all, you'd do it by adding to the list of officeholders a line saying "married on 29 May 1786 (annulled 9 December 1791) to Hermine Walburga (16 March 1769 – 14 January 1827), daughter of Prince Friedrich Ferdinand of Faffenheim-Munsterburg-Weiningen". All the same info without those great unwieldy tables. Opera hat (talk) 13:11, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. These are not lists of random trivia, but potential resources for studies in prosopography. WP:LISTPEOPLE does not require that all individual members of a list be of sufficient independent notability to sustain an article; it's OK as long as the person on such list would be notable enough to appear in an article, and reliable sources can attest to the person's eligibility for the list. If a list entry is dubious, it should be marked {{cn}}. I've found that if an article meets notability requirements but has only one or two links to it, it just means there are articles that could link to it but don't, so an orphan tag is an invitation to look for links. Cynwolfe (talk) 21:03, 30 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody is arguing that everyone in such a list should be notable, but whether the list itself is notable. The County of Foix is barely notable, let alone Everyone who ever married anyone who ever claimed the County of Foix, which is what some of these lists amount to. Agricolae (talk) 00:41, 1 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia should not be a potential resource for a study in anything. Opera hat (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - The lists of duchesses and countesses are certainly non-indiscriminate lists of notable people, and thus appropriate list subjects. If relevant and appropriate information is missing, it should be added. The lists of consorts also seem largely made up of notable people, and thus appropriate as well. Rlendog (talk) 15:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Marriage to someone who held a notable title is two steps away from inherent notability. —Tamfang (talk) 00:53, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - I'm not convinced that Duchess and Countess are not inherently notable titles. In any case, people such as Duchess of Berry were effectively the first lady of their duchy, which makes them as notable as first ladies of various states on that basis alone. And in any case, many of the people on these lists are themselves notable through GNG if not through inherent notability. Rlendog (talk) 00:48, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Umm, among Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions: Notability is inherited - "Keep - All examples of foo are inherently notable" and "Keep – there are lots of famous people on this list, so it's notable". All such 'First Ladies' have not occupied similar standing in their respective states. Some have fulfilled a formalized ceremonial and political role, others were just the latest chick the count happened to marry, and spent their lives in the boudoir doing needlepoint and in the bedroom producing an heir. One is certainly more likely to be notable than the other. (This even applies to wives of kings - look at Ælfgifu of York and you will see a non-notable royal spouse (or spouses), not that that has prevented the creation of a page to document how much of a historical non-entity she was.) Agricolae (talk) 02:02, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep all. Pretty much what I was expecting. What is wrong with them? Szzuk (talk) 19:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- What is wrong with them has been explained. If you're not going to look at the arguments for deletion, why vote here? Srnec (talk) 04:16, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - Don't assume I had no point. My comment was very pointed. Nominator is wasting our time, it's an obvious keep. I suggest he uses something other than Wikipedia:I just don't like it before bringing a dozen articles to afd. Is that better? Now I have nothing else to say. Szzuk (talk) 19:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    - I make it twenty-five articles, actually. Opera hat (talk) 22:44, 6 May 2011 (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! 15:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These aren't really lists, they are data tables. Wikipedia has data tables, but the expectation is that the data be supported by the citation of reliable sources (either directly or indirectly via links to pages containing such) just like everything else in Wikipedia. Collapsed below is the first section of Countess of Eu, one of the pages up for consideration. As suggested by Cynwolfe, I have marked everything that is lacking a reliable source on Wikipedia (I looked at all of the linked pages to see if a source was given on those pages). You can see the result for yourself. It amounts to every single piece of information. I am not saying it is all wrong, or all unreliable, (I do know that some of the details are just plain made up), but it fails abysmally WP:RS. (I have since deleted the ridiculously anachronistic heraldry from the original page.) Agricolae (talk) 00:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Picture	Name	Father	Birth	Marriage	Became Countess	Ceased to be Countess	Death	Spouse
Geoffrey of Brionne's wife is not mentioned by name.^{[citation needed]}
	Gunnora d'Aunou^{[citation needed]}	-	-	1012^{[citation needed]}	1015^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	1040^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	-	Gilbert of Brionne
^{[citation needed]}	Lesceline of Harcourt^{[citation needed]}	Turquetil of Harcourt, Lord of Tourville^{[citation needed]} (Harcourt)	-	-	1040^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	1057^{[citation needed]} husband's death	26 January 1057/58^{[citation needed]}	William I
^{[citation needed]}	Adela, Countess of Soissons^{[citation needed]}	Renaud, Count of Soissons^{[citation needed]}	1042^{[citation needed]}	1058^{[citation needed]}		1077^{[citation needed]} husband's death	1079 or 1105^{[citation needed]}	William Busac
Vacant (1077–1080)^{[citation needed]}
	Beatrice^{[citation needed]}	-	-	-	1080^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	on April 10, ?^{[citation needed]}		Robert I
^{[citation needed]}	Matilda of Sicily^{[citation needed]}	Roger I of Sicily^{[citation needed]} (Hauteville)	1062^{[citation needed]}	before 1080^{[citation needed]}		before 1080^{[citation needed]} repudiated^{[citation needed]}	before 1094^{[citation needed]}	Robert I
	Beatrice de Builly^{[citation needed]}	-	1064^{[citation needed]}	-	1091^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	-		William II
	Helisende d'Avranches^{[citation needed]}	Richard Goz, Visount of Avranches^{[citation needed]}	-	-		January 1096^{[citation needed]} husband's death	-	William II
	Matilda^{[citation needed]}	-	-	-	January 1096^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	30 Mar 1107 or before^{[citation needed]}		Henry I
	Ermentrude^{[citation needed]}	-	-	-		17/24 April ?^{[citation needed]}		Henry I
^{[citation needed]}	Margaret of Sully^{[citation needed]}	William, Count of Sully^{[citation needed]} (Blois)	1105^{[citation needed]}	about 1122^{[citation needed]}		12 July 1140^{[citation needed]} husband's death	15 December 1145^{[citation needed]}
	Alice d'Aubigny^{[citation needed]}	William d'Aubigny, 1st Earl of Arundel^{[citation needed]}	-	-	12 July 1140^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	26 Jun 1170^{[citation needed]} husband's death	11 September 1188^{[citation needed]}	John I
^{[citation needed]}	Matilda de Warenne^{[citation needed]}	Hamelin de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey^{[citation needed]}	-	-	26 Jun 1170^{[citation needed]} husband's accession	12 or 16/17 July 1190/91^{[citation needed]} husband's death	before 13 December 1228^{[citation needed]}	Henry II

I am constantly offended by everything that spew out of your mouth. Don't accuse me of making things up! I get them off genealogical sites. I am sorry that history isn't crystal clear to your liking, but some information don't exist and historians guess dates when it comes to some dates. No articles on Wikipedia is that cited. You can't cite every date and every name on these articles and have thousands of reference footnotes. It's not the job of these list to be cited. It's the job of the articles themselves to be cited. Examples: List of Governors of Monagas, Lists of monarchs in the British Isles, List of rulers of Provence, List of rulers of Lorraine and List of rulers of Saxony and many and many more.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 01:06, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am not accusing you of making things up. I am stating that some of the material in that table is made up. Just as an example: that Lesceline of Harcourt used a coat of arms with two gold bars on red IS MADE UP. By you, by someone else, it doesn't matter to me. At the time that she lived, nobody in Europe used coats of arms. Nobody! As to citations, no, you don't need to have a separate citation for every single fact, but you do need to have at least one reliable citation from which you derived every single fact. The information in Wikipedia pages is to be derived from reliable sources. This is one of the pillars of Wikipedia. If it all came from the same source, then that's just one cite, but if each datum comes from a different source, well, then yes, each one needs to be cited. (And if any scholar cared about such trivia, you would already have a published reliable list of these people that you could reference with a single citation.) An editor can't just absolve themself of this responsibility by calling the product a "list". If it is just a list of page links (like Lists of monarchs in the British Isles which you mention), then the reader can, must even, go to those pages to find both the data and its source. That is not what is going on with the pages in question here. These pages are directly providing information, a whole lot of information, not found anywhere else on Wikipedia and not likely to be, ever. There is not a single countess in that section of Countess of Eu that will likely ever merit their own page, not one, and to say that you don't have to have a source for the information because it is the responsibility of these non-existent pages just doesn't cut it. Likewise, the fact that you can find some sloppy pages (e.g. List of Governors of Monagas) that give uncited information doesn't mean that this pillar of Wikipedia is no longer operative. There are bad Wikipedia pages, and that is why there are processes to improve them or remove them. If you want to link to pages, link to pages. If you want to 'add value' by giving information not found on a page, that new information is subject to the same standard as new information anywhere else - reliable sourcing. Agricolae (talk) 02:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, did you notice that table has Beatrice, first wife of Robert I, becoming consort in 1080 at her husbands' accession, followed by his second wife, Matilda, who became consort before 1080, and was also repudiated before that date. The second wife was married to him and divorced before the first wife, and before he became count yet is still listed as countess. What's with that? This is what comes of not having reliable sources for the information presented, and it could take hours per each date to track them down and see which are good and which not (it wouldn't surprise me if better than 95% of given birth dates before about 1100 are bogus) - more time than the tables are worth for lists owing their collective importance to inherited notability (i.e. "if Rulers of X are worth listing, then Anyone who Ever Married a Ruler of X are also worth listing"). Agricolae (talk) 22:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You may well have "got them off genealogical sites", but the vast majority of genealogical sites would not be valid under WP:SPS. Many other wikipedia articles are not adequately sourced, yes, but that is not an excuse. Opera hat (talk) 22:51, 6 May 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.