Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of surviving veterans of World War II

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. slakr^\ talk / 03:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

List of surviving veterans of World War II[edit]

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This page is not encyclopaedic. Notability is not temporary. An encyclopaedia page that is notable now should, in principle, still be notable in a hundred years. In a hundred years this page will be empty. It is also unmaintainable, there is no easy way to verify that the entries are still alive. It would be better as a category. With a category there is at least a fighting chance that an editor entering a date of death on the person's bio will also update the category. The bio editors may not even know that this list exists.

It is also a magnet for unsourced non-notable entries. I find it morally repulsive to delete non-notables from this list. A better solution is to delete the whole list. Spinning Spark 11:36, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The handling of WWI through Template:Lists of WWI veteran deaths is a much better scheme. Spinning Spark 11:41, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree. Wikipedia contains many articles about current events (list of current ships in the United States Navy for instance). You may find deleting non-notables 'morally repulsive', but that's your opinion. I vote it stays. Czolgolz (talk) 12:31, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but in a hundred years there will probably still be a US and it will probably still have a navy. And if Wikipedia is still there, it will probably still have a page on it. Spinning Spark 20:04, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It is also horribly inaccurate, I personally know a dozen living WWII veterans not on this list. It could never be accurate or be properly maintained. Peacemaker67 (send... over) 14:17, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this list is for notable living veterans, not every veteran. — AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 15:21, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - I have no issue with the fact that these people will eventually die and this page will be blank. This is a living encyclopedia and if this page becomes irrelevant in the future we can delete it then. However, with as long as the list is, it seems like it may be difficult to keep the list accurate. Are people really trolling obit pages to see if any of these folks are still living? Also, does anyone think we should perhaps break it up some? By country or maybe branch of service or some other criteria? It reeeeally long. But the fact that these people will, in the future, not fit the criteria to be in this list does not bother me. With the exception of feeling like some tweaks may benefit the page, this is a keep vote. Bali88 (talk) 15:45, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. There are many thousands of surviving veterans of World War II. If it's only notable veterans then it's mistitled and POV. -- Necrothesp (talk) 16:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying that it's POV because it decides who is is notable and who isn't? Bali88 (talk) 17:16, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:44, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Necrothesp (talk) 16:45, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be entitled List of notable surviving veterans of World War II. — AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 01:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. I agree with Necrothesp; the article is with a couple of exceptions a list of survivores of WW2 who have wikipedia articles. As such it is POV, because the implication is that (given article title) these are the only people worth listing. ( a full list, evem today, would be very long & almost impossible to source properly). Article function would be much better served by a category.TheLongTone (talk) 17:46, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unless the author of the article can give some reasons why this article serves some purpose that a category does not, I don't have any issues with making this a category as opposed to a page. Bali88 (talk) 19:10, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A category that denotes living veterans does not exist. Also, this article is based off of List of surviving veterans of World War I, a list that is no longer in existence, used to be a "good article," although temporary. — AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 01:38, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Efforts were made to include all living veterans that have a Wikipedia article (and their Wikipedia article exists due to their notability). — AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 01:39, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think Bali88 realises that the category does not exist. The suggestion is to create the category. Spinning Spark 01:50, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Creating the category by just adding the category to such individuals can also be done, but such category only lists the person's article name and not their specific service, notability, and categories are more likely to be unsourced. — AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 01:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

*My feeling is that the articles themselves are sourced (or hopefully they are) and a category can be created with sub categories (can't it?) like "Living British WW2 veterans" or "Living WW2 veterans in the Army". I'm not opposed to the page as a source of information. It is notable, but I feel like a category may be more useful in terms of manageability. The list of surviving WW1 veterans article was manageable because enough time had passed that the list of people wasn't terribly long. I can't see this list being actively maintained due to the sheer length. I suspect at least a few of the current entries are already deceased. Bali88 (talk) 07:25, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 00:36, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for a number of reasons:

1. List of surviving veterans of World War I existed (was temporary of course), and such list was even a good article. That is what this article is based on.
2. It is a list of notable veterans. If they are not notable enough for Wikipedia, they shouldn't be on the list, thus it is not intended to be as long as one may think.
3. Current categories do not cover this list. There are categories that list all veterans and there is the category that lists all living people. But not both. Categories also do not list the veteran's military service.
4. This list used to be less sourced than before. Much of the information and references were retrieved from each person's articles. Such a list can help editors focus on each person's WWII service and make sure they are sourced on both the article and the list.
5. Note that while this article may be incomplete and not everything may be sourced yet, that is why Wikipedia is what it is. To have these articles improve over time. There are currently 89 sources. This is still a work-in-progress.
— AMK152 ^{(t • c)} 01:53, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- "List of surviving veterans of World War I existed (was temporary of course), and such list was even a good article. That is what this article is based on." Are you serious? There were a handful of living WWI veterans. There are at this time many thousands of living WWII veterans. At some unspecified point in the future this may be a valid article, but that will be some years yet. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:32, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, but re-work First the nomination rationale of it being "unmaintainable" and a "magnet for unsourced non-notable entries" are not valid rationales for deletion. The other arguement about having it as a category fails, per WP:CLN. Second, this is a list of notable individuals, which can be sourced as needed. AfD is not for cleanup. The real issue here is that in a few years, this list will be empty. A better solution is to mirror the WWI veterans lists and start to create and maintain lists such as List of veterans of World War II who died in 2014, etc. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:33, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- A few years? Given the WWI survival rate, that will actually be closer to about 25 years! Many thousands of WWII veterans will die every year. Do we really need to list them all? You just can't yet compare WWII veterans (in their 80s and 90s) to WWII veterans (who were centenarians). -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:32, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"Do we really need to list them all?" - Do we need any article? Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 08:59, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

A rather silly comment. Listing all the thousands of surviving WWII veterans, even if possible, is effectively an indiscriminate collection of information. It's no more valuable than List of members of the British Army or List of residents of Los Angeles. We list people who are notable, not people who exist. When there are only a few veterans left then the handful of survivors will be notable, as with the WWI veterans, but not until then. -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:56, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Well it was a rather silly question in the first place. These lists are of notable people and pass WP:SAL. Your arguement seems to be based around article size, which isn't a valid reason for deletion. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:03, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe I mentioned article size. I'm referring to article point. This article is basically a list of people with articles on Wikipedia who served in World War II, although its title suggests it is a list of all surviving veterans of World War II, whether they have articles or not. I see no point in that at all. Lists can be very useful (I'm certainly not one of those who believes that categories should supplant lists). But this one isn't. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:29, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

You implied it with "There are many thousands of surviving veterans of World War II." Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:10, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

No, I didn't. I merely meant that since there are still many thousands of surviving veterans the fact they are veterans is not a claim to notability. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:30, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you did. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:47, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep First of all, nominator has WP:NTEMP exactly backwards. "Notability is not temporary" means that if you are notable in a specific timeframe, then you are always notable for WP purposes; not that you have to be notable in every possible time frame. Second, in a hundred years (assuming that WP will still exist, which is doubtful) the page will not be empty: it will be renamed and moved to "List of notable WWII veterans", perhaps the focus changed. Anyway, this is irrelevant when deciding what to do now. Third, to include only notable persons is not only absolutely not POV (what POV is pushed by "being notable for WP"?)but it is exactly the right thing to do to avoid WP:IINFO and to have a reasonable list -if anything, it can be moved to List of notable surviving veterans of World War II. As for I find it morally repulsive to delete non-notables from this list., well, I find instead more morally repulsive to delete notable, sourced and encyclopedic lists from WP. Now what? If you don't want to delete non-notables from the list, don't do it, and someone else will do.--cyclopia ^speak! 17:29, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Cyclopedia. This is obviously passes WP:LIST that I don't understand why deletion is required. Bearian (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and speedy close per Cyclopia - the nomination, while in good-faith, is entirely wrong both on the grounds of NTEMP and on the grounds of there being "a need to remove non-notables"; it is explicitly stated that not only do all the contents of a list not have to be individually notable, but that a list of entirely non-notable-individually things is entirely acceptable; this is "List of surviving veterans of World War II", not "List of surviving notable veterans of World War II". - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 23:52, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@The Bushranger: Sorry, you are wrong on that. I appreciate that notability is not the only selection criteria ever used for lists, but the stated selection criteria for this list is "notable surviving veterans of World War II". A list of all surviving veterans would certainly be unmanagably long and probably could never be successfully completed. There are over a million surviving veterans in the US alone. Such a list would certainly break the suggested 32K limit for comprehensive lists at WP:CSC. Spinning Spark 00:35, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Seriously, this is an article? CNN says there are an estimated 1.7 million U.S. survivors of WWII. And that's only the U.S. For all the reasons already mentioned (article's entries will surely change (i.e., die) on a daily basis; there is no way to keep it accurate and up to date; it's a magnet for spurious entries; it's mistitled; it's too long; it serves no purpose that can't be handled by a category) this article is untenable. In addition, it conflates breathing with notability. It is, when push comes to shove, simply a list of people who are alive. While these individuals may have done something notable to earn them a WP article, being alive is what gets them included in this list. That's not notability. 32.218.33.91 (talk) 01:30, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article is for notable veterans. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 11:26, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The last few survivors of WWI were widely covered in the media, prior to the death of the last a few years ago. When we are down to a few dozen survivors, a list may be appropriate, but wartime military service was far too common to be particularly notable. "notable veterans" means nothing: it merely requires that the person should have a WP article. NN veterans will of course not have articles at all. This is thus merely a ban on redlinks in the article. At one stage a major function of a list in WP was to idnetify missing articles, and encourage them to be written; this is unlikely to apply here. There is however another objection to the article. The article will need regular maintenance. If it is for survivors, then those who die will need to be removed. At present it is presumably a list of those suviving on 14 June 2014. My father served in the war, but died last January. If he had been notable and this was last November, he would have been in it, but someone whould have had to remove him when he died. I am dubious of Anon's 1.7M. This is about people who served in the armed forces, merely not being alive then. WE might allow categories for WWII veterans, split by country and then by army, navy, etc. However even then it would make some enormous categories. I would not encourage a split by regiment, because people were liable to move from one formation to another. Peterkingiron (talk) 08:23, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that people are saying it needs regular maintenance and are using that excuse for deletion fails WP:NEGLECT. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep - I can't be the only one to have personal and moral feelings towards this debate. Regardless of the technical aspects of Wiki pages, keep in mind we're talking about deleting an article (current, unmaintainable, whathaveyou) that is entirely about WWII veterans. Even if this discussion is continued (I think it should be closed), be mindful of the topic at hand. We're here (Wiki) for the sake of preserving knowledge, past, present and future. This list is presently a quick-link to almost all WWII veterans that have a wiki article.

These are living Veterans due amazing respect and talking about the article as if it's a reference to some inconsequential inanimate objects I find exceedingly offensive. 172.242.254.39 (talk) 06:51, 16 June 2014 (UTC)Mashrien[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.