Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people with the most children

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. I'm sure my closure will leave some editors dissatisfied. But editor Siroxo did a lot of work after the nomination, removing inappropriate content and bringing new sources into the AFD discussion (as did StellarHalo). I twice asked for opinions on these newly located sources and didn't get any response from editors who commented earlier in the discussion. This article clearly needs some work and tending to (and a possible rename) but that can be addressed editorially. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:47, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of people with the most children[edit]

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Very bad sourcing and original research. 71 [citation needed]s on what should be a straightforward objective list article. And the ranking here seems to be entirely original research/synthesis. It is almost certain that there are many men and women who meet the criteria for inclusion here that are not in the list.

This article definitely has many notable people in it, and I think such a topic is notable. But as I see it the article right now does not justify its existence.

I used to think the article was more legitimate back when it had a fraction of the people in it. But with the constant new additions of otherwise non-notable people it is becoming clear that someone can be quite high on this list without being notable in any way whatsoever.

This list behaves more like a sorted list of people with a large number of children than a list of people with **the most** children.

On both the men's and women's sides the top entries have nowhere in the sources saying they were the people with the most children, just the number of children they had. The men's side has a guiness book of world records entry for Moulay https://web.archive.org/web/20100313155522/http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2008/03/080303.aspx but w is not a record keeping organization and not a reliable source, however even if we were to take it as such, it would be the only entry in this list that is not original research.

I tried to fix this page earlier but people have kept adding more and more original research to it. I am convinced that this page should exist someday but only once we have reliable sources backing up substantial portions of the mens and womens lists. Say a top ten list for each would be sufficient. Until then I'm almost certain that there are dozens of missing women with over 20 children and likely hundreds of missing men with over 25 children, even ones in the historical record that have just not made their way onto this list. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment (unsure). I am unable to identify sources either among the sources used or after looking for sources on the internet, which are independent reliable sources that discuss this list topic as a group or set, such that would indicate that this topic meets WP:NLIST. The best candidates seem to be the Guinnes World Records sources (so, not great), but do they really discuss the topic as a group or set? At the same time, it feels very strange to me that this would really not be a notable list topic. —Alalch E. 02:43, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but rename List of people with many children, (and rely on existing limits defined in article) so as not to make the likely OR claim of "most". Any other OR should be removed, I'm willing to take a pass to trim it. If the quantity is or becomes a real problem beyond those issues, we could require either multiple RS or at least one parent or child that is bluelinked. —siro χ o 06:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The list is legitimate, but it needs some fine tuning. I'm not too sure if an accurate list of top 10 is necessary, the list provides a platform for random users to add (despite the vandalism). Deletion is too hasty. Please help the community watching this article in adding and deleting. Cltjames (talk) 06:11, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Cltjames the issue I see is that having it as a “platform to add” is original research. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 14:19, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep I think this is a useful list but it does need some effort. It is a page that will tend towards vandalism and poor editing but that doesn't mean it should be deleted in my opinion. BHC (talk) 08:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I've verified some with references, and removed many unverifiable. There are a few bluelinked in the "Fathers" section that still need verification. —siro χ o 06:59, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Compilation of a list like this is original research, as it implies a ranking of record holders that is not supported by any reliable source. It might be acceptable if it were a list of records reported by reliable sources, but it's not the place of Wikipedia editors to perform this research themselves. pburka (talk) 13:24, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - WP:NOTDATABASE. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. As mentioned above by others, a glance through the sourcing reveals a lot of it does not meet Wikipedia's guidelines on reliable sourcing. — Maile (talk) 16:06, 18 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep We should keep it but improve sources and lock the article so people dont post Bad sources Friendlyhistorian (talk) 12:18, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Extended content

Samples from the list

1) (Claimed by whom?) "it is claimed that Barbara Stratzmann (c. 1448–1503) of Bönnigheim, Germany, gave birth to 53 children"

2) (source is 968 pages, not specific on which page) "Dorothea, an Italian woman who lived at the time of Ambroise Paré, reportedly delivered 20 children in 2 exceptionally large pregnancies."

3) (Source?) Alice Hookes, "According to the inscription on a gravestone in Conwy Church cemetery..."

4) (Then why list it?) Mr and Ms Kirillov, "the truth of these claims has not been established, and is highly improbable."

5) (How many?) Valentina and Feodor Vassilyev, "A Russian woman named Valentina Vassilyeva and her husband Feodor Vassilyev are alleged to hold the record for the most children a couple has produced."

6) (A medal for childbirth?) Wéber Andrásné Szirotek Teréz - "Ms Wéber (b. 30 September 1855) of Csömör, Hungary gave birth to 25 children between 1872 and 1899. She was awarded with a silver medal on 20 August 1930 on the 'Magyar anyák nemzeti ünnepe'"

7) (The Great Stork Derby) - Grace Bagnato and her husband had 23 children; nine of them were conceived in order to compete for a bequest by a Toronto eccentric, in what became known as the Great Stork Derby"

8) (Et tu Guinness?) The Guinness Book of Records - Mabel Murphy "(born 1898) of Lisnaskea, Co. Fermanagh, N. Ireland was reported to have produced 28 children (12 stillborn) in 32 years of marriage by December 1949, but this claim has not been fully substantiated"

9) (Sole source is somebody's family tree) - Griffith and Elizabeth Johnson, the claim is they had 28 children in 31 years.

It would be useful if those advocating to keep might list a few solid sources that treat this list as a group. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:39, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent suggestion. Separate list for polygamous cultures? Do we date back to a time of slavery in America, when the women slaves had no choice? — Maile (talk) 15:18, 19 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66 I think a list for Mormons would be useful too. As far as sperm donors I think only Bertold Paul Wiesner is notable enough to include in something like this. For many of the men there all this is really doing is feeding their egos unencyclopedically.

Also even during this discussion when people were trimming it down @PWHG just added another nobody to the list. I'm really not convinced we can have any encyclopedic list of this form unless we can primarily cite reliable sources on the topic itself. Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 00:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Immanuelle I'm not sure this is workable as is, since itis a natural human thing to want to keep adding with each newly uncovered situation. And a "for instance" would be American farm/ranch wives of the 19th century. It was expected that these wives would have 8, 10, 12 children. Perhaps there is a better solution for this, but I'm at a loss as to what that is. — Maile (talk) 00:46, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66 well I think a rather simple solution that might fix the problem is to substantially up the requirement for inclusion in the list. But I think generally people are more notable within their social contexts as having a lot of children than their absolute number.

List of prolific sperm and egg donors could be one

List of prolific Mormon polygamists - List of Latter Day Saint practitioners of plural marriage

etc Immanuelle ❤️💚💙 (talk to the cutest Wikipedian) 01:14, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. @Rhododendrites and Alalch E.: here are some sources for WP:NLIST [1][2][3][4][5] —siro χ o 08:27, 20 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: Relisting. No consensus exists right now. It would be helpful if editors evaluated sources recently brought into the discussion.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:03, 25 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep: RS tend to discuss people with lot of kids on a case-by-case basis rather than as a group but here are the some "ok" to "solid" sources that do: 1, 2, 3. Now, the people discussed in the first two don't appear on this list but these are to show that RS discuss people with a lot of children as a topic group per WP:NLIST. Also, sourcing problems within articles are not reasons to delete and people with much more children than average are hardly indiscriminate. Many inclusion criteria that are result of user consensus for standalone list articles have always been based somewhat on original research. Maybe, we could move this to "List of people with many children" --StellarHalo (talk) 17:47, 27 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Relisting comment: A second relist after seeing No consensus right now. An evaluation of newly found sources would be welcome.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 03:02, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete I think there is some merit to an article like this, however my main issue is that it is almost impossible to verify a lot of the claims made in the article without WP:OR. As has already been mentioned, a lot of the sourcing does not meet verifiability guidelines. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 06:07, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but rename to List of people claimed to have had the largest number of children. The claims may be unverifiable but it can be verified that they are, indeed, claims. Also, make the cutoffs higher — at least 25 for women and 50 for men. BD2412 T 04:35, 6 October 2023 (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.