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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. — JIP | Talk 11:06, 29 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of people widely considered eccentric[edit]

Before anyone asks, yes, this is this articles 4th visit to VFD/AFD, which I assume is a record. the second trip can be found here, the third trip here, and apparently the first occurred before Wikipedia even had archiving for delete debates!. So, needless to say, this article has been around the block a few timesdue in large part to a few reasons. Despite this record, this article also probably is close to the record for the most reverts and the most NPOV notices (excluding George W. Bush, who's in a league of his own), corrected below, thanks Trollderella Karmafist 19:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Who defines eccentricity? What is considered eccentric? And by who's authority and viewpoint? The closest I've known anyone ever coming to this would be in the DSM IV, but even those definitions are fairly generalized and subjective, which leads me to my next point.
  • Unlike most articles, this one could eventually become a breeding ground for WP:NPA violations. One user might consider another user "eccentric" or "wierd" and place them on there.
  • What defines "widely"? That's another fairly subjective term, "widely" to one person can be entirely different than "widely" to someone else. If anyone has a precedent on what that actually is (I have a viewpoint on my user page, but that's just a viewpoint and not binding towards anything other than that), please let me know.

At the very least, this article needs to be renamed, and drastically cleaned up, perhaps to the point of where it would need to become a Collaboration of the Week for it to be fixed. Otherwise, it'll probably be back here again and again, like it has in the past. I say let's Delete this, like many other unwiedly lists have been recently on AFD. Karmafist 15:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unverifiable and unmaintainable list —Wahoofive (talk) 16:14, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete inherently POV listcruft.--Isotope23 16:15, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep the subject seems notable and it survived three times already - this one should be no different. Possible cleanup because this article is capable of being here. Also, articles that should have been deleted a long time ago can be seen here (which I think is an embarassment). Why can't this article stay, and grow, and mature to add notable names at long last? I think this somewhat akeep with a possible cleanup Molotov (talk)
    16:16, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Quality of the list is impressive and undermines the arguments for deletion. Honbicot 16:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. POV. And it violates WP:WEASEL. Flowerparty■ 16:31, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - like the lists of best and worst films, the criteria on this list have evolved, and will continue to. It is actively maintained, and is a useful list. Trollderella 16:31, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. What can I say? Surely they are notable.Voice of All @|Esperanza|E M 16:41, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete cleaning this up to the standards of, say, the best and worst films lists would require everything to be sourced. This is really no more encyclopedic than, say, an article listing ugly people or stupid people. The truly legendarily eccentic ones should be merged into Eccentricity (behavior) Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 16:52, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, eccentricity is subjective. Heck, Jesus could be considered an eccentric for his time. Andrew Levine 16:54, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, he could have been, if any significant groups had tried to paint his unusual activities as "eccentric" rather than either "holy and righteous" or "dangerously subversive". But since none did, he doesn't belong on the "list of people widely considered eccentric". This list is not about people who are eccentric, it's about people who have been considered eccentric. Hence even if Jesus shares some traits with people on this list, it doesn't matter as long as few, if any, would associate him with eccentricity. This page is as much about popular opinion as about the people listed themselves; it would even be appropriate to list someone who a smear campaign tried to label as "eccentric", as long as that view has become a very dominant one. -Silence 19:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Necessarily POV. As noted, if you can source everything perhaps it would make more sense but as it stands there is no standard by which we can measure who does and doesn't belong. Genius and fame are often based in part on eccentricity. This is far to open-ended. Marskell 17:08, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete inherently POV and culturally subjective. You can make the case that just about anyone is "widely considered eccentric", or that no one is, depending on what you make the context. Unmaintainable list. --W.marsh 17:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per nom and Starblind. Request if appropriate to retain contents in talk page archive of Eccentricity (behavior). It is a nice list, despite warrenting deletion. (oops ∴ here…♠ 18:37, 21 October 2005 (UTC))[reply]
  • Delete as per nom. Inherently PoV, and unsourced so ti isn't even a recoprd of verifiable opnion elsewhere. Unmaintainable list. DES (talk) 17:53, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Look, I am widely considered eccentric, and you don't see me putting a bullet point for "Wikipedia User Anville" in this list, do you? 18.51.5.139 19:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC) Anville 19:28, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • You could say the same thing about almost hundreds of perfectly good lists on Wikipedia. Almost all Wikipedia lists have as an unstated policy that only people who are already noteworthy enough to have their own article on Wikipedia merit inclusion on the list. And as if that wasn't enough, you could easily interpret "widely considered" to partially indicate that the person needs to be widely known of before being widely considered. -Silence 19:40, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as per nominator; list is inherently subjective. Hall Monitor 19:26, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Like my vote in the 3rd nomination POV --JAranda | watz sup 19:44, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Inherently POV. Time for this baby to go to sleep. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 20:10, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as unmaintainable, perpetually-POV list. --Carnildo 22:11, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - POV, unsourced, weaselly worded. Qwghlm 23:12, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • keep interesting and useful list. The fact that it's been voted on three times before and kept every time should be some indication. Grutness...wha? 23:59, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Delete I believe this is listcruft, and that the three prior decisions to keep were all erroneous. Let us now rectify that error. The Literate Engineer 00:34, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as arbitrary, inherently POV, preposterous listcruft. MCB 01:39, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete' as POV, arbitrary list. How has this survived so long? - A Man In Black (conspire | past ops) 02:03, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep However radically change it or essentially start over. Limit it to people primarily known for their eccentricity rather than other things.--T. Anthony 10:30, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, not encyclopedic. -- Kjkolb 05:58, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - in spite of being somewhat subjective, a list of eccentrics would be very useful, especially those who are self-identified or play on it. --MacRusgail 15:47, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - The list may have some POV entrees in its currently, but that does not imply that the list is inherently POV, and if it's at all fixable, even if it would require months of work, it doesn't fit the standards for deletion. If you don't feel like putting the effort in to try to clean up the article and bring it up to standards, then don't bother; but don't prevent others from working on improving it by voting to delete it, unless you truly think that it's totally unsalvagable. The fact that a topic is disputable does not imply that it is impossible to write about; just because different people have conceptions of what is or isn't eccentric doesn't mean that there aren't people who are widely considered eccentric. Additionally, "eccentric" is hardly comparable to "list of fat people" or "list of stupid people", as it's a very specific term, is certainly not strictly pejorative, and, even if it isn't universally conceived of in a singular, exact way, it's still certainly very widely conceived of as having a certain set of noteworthy traits. -Silence 19:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Also, merging this article into eccentricity (behavior), even in the smallest of ways, also isn't a good idea, as the list would either dominate a very small article, or be trimmed down enormously without us having had time to discuss any changes—instead, let's trim this article down by removing all people on the list who aren't widely considered eccentric, and myabe someday, a few years down the line, when the list is at a managable level and the "eccentric behavior" article is several pages long, the two can be merged. Whether we shorten it or keep it at the same size, merging it into that eccentric behavior article would just make the page less useful for everyone. The fact that many people on the list specifically say in their article that they are widely considered eccentric, some even mentioning it in the opening paragraph(!), shows that claims of the term's total subjectivity are inconsistent with its usage throughout Wikipedia. -Silence 19:00, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Reply can be found here.
  • Keep - Seeing as how the list tells WHY they are considered eccentric, this page may not have complete NPOV, but still allows the reader to make up thier own minds. As it is, it is an interesting list and I for one found many interesting people in this list due to its existance. No harm in keeping it, but we lose something if we don't. Comic 19:06, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Fix it, don't delete it. Andre (talk) 22:14, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per Silence and Andre. This article is definitely worthy of a fixing, but deletion would eliminate a valid article. Rarr 00:16, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I disagree entirely with Rarr's description of this as a "valid article", Comic's statement that there is "no harm in keeping it, but we lose something if we don't," and it has nothing to do with the POV red herring. No one has yet said anything about why this list ever should have been started to begin with, and I do believe that list writers have to meet a burden of proof to show that. What purpose does putting ~150 people's names into a list serve? How can this list expand anyone's understanding of the concept of eccentricity, or expand someone's knowledge about any of the listed people? I contend that it cannot, and as such, the list makes no positive contribution to Wikipedia and two negative ones: it wastes server space and adds clutter, and worse, it furthers the false and detrimental attitude that vapid, unproductive, lists are permissible. I believe that this is a vapid, unproductive list, and will continue to do so until someone convinces me not that we can build an objective list of eccentrics, but that we should build such a list. Until such time, I strongly urge all editors to join me in calling for this entry's deletion. The Literate Engineer 01:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There are several figures in history who are mostly noted for being eccentric. Several books and documentaries of eccentric people have been done. A list allows you to easily get to articles concerning such people without the same kind of groping a category or nothing would do. Now the list as it currently stands is poor, but you can strongly urge something without being right. If it is to be deleted I hope there is in least a category for eccentrics to replace it unless there is such a category already.--T. Anthony 02:28, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As you've noticed, there is a Category:Notable eccentrics. However, don't rush off to add people to that category quite yet: if this deletion succeeds, that one will inevitably follow very quickly, as there's even more of a case for deleting the category than the article (i.e. the category is genuinely POV because it specifically says that the people listed are "eccentrics"; the page is not inherently POV, because it says "people widely considered eccentric": it's about POVs, it's not POVed itself). Personally, I'd support keeping both the category (though rename the category to "People widely considered eccentric"; the "noteworthy" is unnecessary, both because it's POV and because anyone noteworthy enough to be on Wikipedia is already noteworthy enough to be in the category, hence redundant) and the list. Or, if I had to choose one or the other, I'd probably choose: the list. Why? Consider:
  1. Lists are maintained on a single page that anyone can easily monitor and check on the validity of each new addition to the page, while also ensuring that noone who belongs on the page gets removed. Categories, being based on edits to hundreds of distinct articles, are next to impossible to keep clean of bogus additions, especially when they get large. The easiest way to maintain the category would be to have both the category and the list, and simply once in a while go through the category with the list in hand and check to see if there's anyone on the list who's not on the category, or vice versa; then investigate why the discrepency exists, and correct it (either by removing the person from one or adding the person to the other).
  2. With a list, it's possible to list explanations next to each person to specify why they're considered eccentric. Even if you think that the current way the LoPWCE handles descriptions is poor (I certainly do), it's improvable and could eventually be quite valuable, whereas with a category there will never be an efficient way to explain why each person is on the list; it's nothing but a big alphabetized list of names, no more useful to someone not familiar with the individuals than if the page was total gibberish. If we had both the list and the category, the category could be the quick, easy, shorthand version of the list, providing the brief alphabetized archive, whereas the list would be more expansive and informative, providing further subdivisions to make exploration easier—whereas the category makes it easier to find a single person who you already know of and are looking for, which I'd say is less important than the list's role, because if you already know the guy's name you can just do a Search for him anyway. Descriptions, on the other hand, highlight perceived eccentric behavior, occupation, nationality, etc. and give people much more to work with.
  3. Criticize the current list if you want for not being cited (I added a NOR tag to it, incidentally, so we can get started on the long-term mission of adding sources for all the claims eventually), but keep in mind that it's at least eventually possible to have a fully-cited, expansive, high-quality article named "List of people widely considered eccentric", even if that's not a practical likelihood (though I think it is!). Categories make citation impossible; we just have to accept the people included as gospel, and centralizing debate over which people to include and which not to include will be nightmarish without an article page, as much of the discussion of who is and isn't "widely considered eccentric" will end up centering on the pages of the individual people described, making consistency a huge issue! Having both list and category gives us the best of both worlds, tying everything into a single article but also involving each individual article in the article by putting the category at the bottom of their pages. Win-win.
Anyway, sorry for the length of that. It's not like this article is a pet project of mine; I only recently stumbled onto it, and had just barely begun to make changes to it at all, when the AfD notice abruptly appeared after my first edit. Very disheartening, but the last few votes have given me a little hope that people are willing to give this article a fourth chance, and see what can be made of it. -Silence 03:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted item
And how is that relevant to how people should vote here? Whether a category, a list, or both should be used must be determined on a case-by-case basis, just as VfDs must. -Silence 05:15, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't, I probably should've put that on my talk page. I deleted it now.--T. Anthony 05:38, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Er, I was just trying to make a point about the voting to keep things in perspective, not saying you had to delete it. But OK. -Silence 05:59, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Definitely an enclopedia-appropriate reference for those specifically looking for eccentric characters, as this list, however fluid, has been very helpful to me in doing. Can anyone doubt that John Mytton or Stephen Tennant were not notable eccentrics (as in a person of "odd or unconventional behavior" [1])? And, fundamentally, I wouldn't have known of such delightful characters of history had it not been for this list! --Clapaucius* 07:49, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, must be my fourth keep vote on this article; for reasons, see previous VfDs. David | Talk 11:21, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per User:Silence. αγδεε (ε τ c) 09:32, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This had a potential to be quite weaselly, but right at the outset there is a good, clear paragraph about what "eccentric" means in this context. Well done, and frankly more careful and thorough than many other lists. If there are problems with a person or two on the list, well then fix the article; don't throw it away. --Jacquelyn Marie 02:50, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Please don't delete comments or links to them. My goal with that statement was to move lengthy commentaries such as the ones above to a separate area where people who wish to get "the jist" of the conversation can see it without wading through an overflow of information. I was in the middle of writing the response, I was doing several other things, only to find that the link was gone. Karmafist 04:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't delete any comments or links to them, because the link wasn't going to a comment yet (and it wasn't clear that it was going to). You're the one who seemed to be about to delete my comment, by transfering it to another page where it would few people would read it and see the objections. I'm glad you didn't go ahead with that, and will certainly continue this discussion on the Talk page. The main reason for my edit was to restore the : and remove the
, though, to make it clearer what order the comments came in. I apologize for deleting the link before waiting to see what your plans were for it. Of course, speaking of comments that belong on the talk page.. why do these two have to be here? Oy. -Silence 04:33, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep and possibly rename. The current name arose from the second deletion debate back in December 2004. A number of users have brought up concerns about the term "widely", and I agree. In the second debate. the original proposed name was "List of individuals who are famous for being widely considered to be eccentric". I cut it down to "List of people widely considered to be eccentric", and soon another user moved it to its current title, without the "to be" (which was a big Elements of Style blunder on my part :-) ). Looking back on the original title, I think the "famous" part was more important than the now-disputed "widely" part, mostly because I think it's a good idea to keep this to people famous for their eccentricity, perhaps among other things. So, how about this for a new title: List of people famous for being considered eccentric. Anyway, now I'll try to get off that tangent... We'll never agree on an absolute place to draw the line between "eccentric" and "normal", but I think most of the people on this list do belong here. Who would argue that, say, Howard Hughes isn't enough of a weirdo for this list? How about Norton I of the United States? Another important point: we're not asserting that the people on this list are eccentric, only that they're perceived as such. But isn't such a judgment unverifiable and subject to bias and original research? Not necessarily. How much dispute can there be, from contemporary accounts and elsewhere, that a lot of people think it's really, really weird to build a house for 38 years to confuse the spirits or spend years doing nothing but lying around in bed? sɪzlæk [ +t, +c, +m, +e ] 09:44, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not a bad idea, but I think that would cause new problems with many of the people on the list. For example, could we keep Albert Einstein on the list? He's famous for being eccentric, but only because he's already much for famous for other, unrelated things. Furthermore, it doesn't do anything at all to solve the main problem people have had with the current wording: that there's no solid, definite line to draw between "widely considered" and "not widely considered". I don't see a big problem with this myself, since I expect that only a few cases will have disputes over whether or not they're "widely considered" enough, and the rest will be pretty obvious one way or the other, but for those who do object on these grounds, adding "famous" has the exact same problem: where do you draw the line between "famous" and "not famous"? How "famous" do you have to be, and how "eccentric", and how "widely considered"? Personally, I think the ideal way to implement the concept of "people who are famous for being widely considered eccentric" vs. "famous people who are widely considered eccentric" is to keep the list where it is, but have some extra marker, like an asterisk, to denote people who are famous chiefly or entirely because of their eccentricity (as many on the list are), vs. famous historical figures who happen to also be widely considered eccentric. Of course, this line isn't the easiest one to draw in some situations either, since there are a lot of "kind of noteworthy" people who might have a Wikipedia article without their bizarre quirk, but are enormously more noteworthy for it. So.. tricky. -Silence 10:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • But what's the point? Yes, Sarah Winchester, Brian Wilson, Norton I, and Howard Hughes may well all be widely considered eccentrics, or famous for their eccentricity, or widely notable people who are or have been regarded as eccentric by a proportionally significant percentage of the population, or whatever you want to call the list. What I don't understand is what reason there is for putting all those people together in a list. Is it just for the amusement of people like Clapaucius? Or the convenience of his hypothetical researcher? Or Silence's claims that it's better than a category? Those aren't good enough for me. Besides, eccentricity is an encyclopedic concept, but that only justifies eccentricity. The listed people may be encyclopedic, but that only justifies their individual articles. Neither justifies the list. As far as I can tell, there is no reason that this list, in any form, by any title, with any inclusionary criteria, should remain on Wikipedia as an independent entry. The Literate Engineer 14:54, 27 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did not base my "keep" vote on the fact that it's better than a category; that argument came later, in response to T. Anthony finding that category and assuming that it would be used if this list was deleted we would simply switch to the category, when I believe that ideally we should use both. While I disagree with the people who have voted to delete this page, I at least understand those who have voted to delete it on the basis that it's unsalvageably biased (though it's not inherently biased, contrary to some votes above) or who think that it should be cut down to only a handful of people and merged into the eccentric behavior article. However, if you base your "strong delete" vote (the only one on the whole page so far) on the fact that you personally simply aren't interested in the topic (which your latest comments have led me to believe; do correct me if I am mistaken) and hence it's "listcruft" to you, I'd take issue with that (though of course you have the right to vote as you wish). The fact that you would never use a page like this doesn't mean that noone else would have a legitimate reason to research noteworthy people who have been considered eccentric throughout history. Additionally, the fact is, while perhaps most of the people on the list of eccentric people currently are also famous for something other than their perceived eccentricity, a large number aren't really noteworthy for anything (or much) other than their unusual, eccentric behavior or qualities. Those sorts of people would not be listed anywhere else on Wikipedia where a person would find their articles while casually browsing, and thus many high-quality, interesting, informative, useful articles on significant topics would almost never be read, even by people with a special interest in eccentrics. Lists and categories like this, disputable and hard to maintain though they may be, are beyond a shadow of a doubt useful to many people, as there are many people who are very interested in and study people throughout history who have defied social norms and established themselves as "eccentrics". And that is the purpose of this page. -Silence 10:36, 28 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and merge with eccentricity(behavior)

— Preceding unsigned comment added by HistoricalPisces (talk • contribs) 18:50, 26 October 2005

  • Keep. The criteria are imprecise and the subject POV-breeding, but that's much outweighed by usefulness to those looking for a concise guide to eccentrics. Surely the problems are not a reason to delete. -R. S. Shaw 04:36, 28 October 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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