Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tall men

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 delete. The arguments to keep are very poor in comparison with those for deletion. Nobody has succesfully refuted the chief reason for deletion - that the list is subjective and there is no accepted single definition of what to be 'tall' means. Note I have discounted (and noted) a few arguments lower dowen the AFD, as they are based on no arguments applicable to Wikipedia policy or guideline. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

List of tall men

List of tall men (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) - (View log)

• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of famous tall men, Oct 2005 (no consensus)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of famous tall men (2nd nomination), Sep 2006 (bundled nomination, all closed no consensus)
• Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of famous tall women, 5 Dec 2006 (bundled nomination, all closed no consensus)

I just know this is going to end in tears, but... The definition of "tall" is completely arbitrary (where is the reliable secondary source for 6'3" 6'4" 6'5" as being "tall"? - seems to me we just plucked a figure out of the air; originally it was 6'3", then 6'4", then 6'5", then a bit of an edit war). Add to that the fact that the list is completly overwhelmed by basketball players, unsurprisingly, and you have an essentially useless list. You can't find the people who are genuinely notable as having been unsually tall. Tall-for-today is different from tall-for-the-12th-Century; Edward I of England (Edward Longshanks, no less) was renowned for his height, but these days 6'2" would be unremarkable. It's also crammed full of external links (great for SEO spammers, not so useful for us). Would support retention as a list of people considered unusually tall for their time and/or context, with reliable sources for that, but a 6'5" basketball player is pretty unremarkable, whereas a 6'5" actor is unusual. I could go on but you get the idea: this is essentially a combination of a list of pretty muah all basketball players, a list of men over an arbitrarily selected height (based more on trying to get the numbers down than any realistic external definition), and a very few entries who are genuinely notable for exceptional height, such as Robert Wadlow. Guy (Help!) 11:17, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Addendum, with apologies: a valid point is made below which I failed to take account of. Whatever value we were to come up with as an nth percentile of population height, the values proposed thus far are or appear to be specific to the United States. Here is a list of average heights by country:

Australia: 5' 10", 178cm

Brazil: 5' 6.9", 170cm

China: 5' 6", 168cm

France: 5' 7.7", 171.9cm

Germany: 5' 8.2", 173cm

Holland: 6' 1", 185cm

Italy: 5' 8.0", 172.8cm

Japan: 5' 6", 168cm

Sri Lanka: 5' 4.5", 163.9cm

Sweden: 5' 8.5", 174cm

United Kingdom: 5' 10", 178cm

United States: 5' 10", 178cm

Vietnam: 5' 3", 160cm

So: a 6ft Japanese is unusually tall, a 6ft American is completely unremarkable. 6'5" is quite normal for a Dutchman, noticably above average for a Briton (and even there, the average height varies between London and Liverpool or Yorkshire). An average height Dutchman would be a giant in Vietnam. Any list based on any absolute value of height is irredeemably flawed. Guy (Help!) 15:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yet this list of tall men in on the English wiki, and the people noted on it are almost all from the English speaking world, primarilt the USA and the UK. So it is more of atall man list for these two nations. However we could have many lists, one for each nation, if the criteria for each nation differs.Halbared 16:06, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The English language wikipedia is not primarily for the USA and the UK or for English native speakers. English is the leading global international language, making the English wikipedia the de facto primary global wikipedia. Bwithh 16:22, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

So a way forward would be to get information for height across the world as a whole or to fragmentHalbared 16:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

No, a way forward would be to stop using subjective and country / ethnicity specific selection criteria for lists. Guy (Help!) 16:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

If we could find the 99th percentile of height for the nation with the tallest average height, than limit the list to that, I think we'd be limiting to men who are tall by any standard. That they might be taller by the standard of the Japanese shouldn't be too much of a problem. Anyway I've made a crude attempt at that in the current version, what do you think of it?--T. Anthony 00:53, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

You're seriously suggesting that this topic is so important that it warrants an article for every country? If that doesn't get people arguing to delete I don't know what will. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Actually I think the only way it can be fixed is by making it a list of men who have been reliably identified by multiple sources as being exceptionally tall for their occupation, time or country, and where their height forms a significant part of their claim to fame. So we might have the tallest basketball player, Robert Wadlow, Edward I, maybe Andersen. Then all we have to do is show that the selection criteria (men, and being identified as tall) are not arbitrary. Which they are, I guess... Guy (Help!) 12:01, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

---

Note If you average all those average heights around the world as above average hieght is about 5ft 9. Now I don't know what world everyone is in if you are solid 6 ft 4 inch man walking down a street anyway in the world you will be notably above average. I noticed that in medical books and everything height-weight chart goes up to 6ft 4. However trivial the lists are (beleive me there are more trivial lists on wikipedia( but again a matter of opinion) they do provide statistics. SOurced and everything they look fine as it was before but only limit basketball players to the very fmaous. If you are not interested in the page then just don't visit it -wikipedia caters for thousands of different interests. If you want to be stricter why not change it to List of men over 2 metres? 6f6.5 starting point? Ernst Stavro Blofeld 17:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Your passion swayed me, as did the fact I had doubts about further restriction from the get go, so I put back those 6 ft 5 to 6 ft 7. The 6 ft 4 people had been removed awhile back as the list was getting too long. The stricter basketball section is getting some complaints though, if not by you perhaps, and I'd considered lowering it to 7 ft and over. The problem is I could find no justification for that. The 221 cm figure was at least based on a site about tallest basketball players. I'd also considered dumping it as an independent section, but I'm not feeling up to that as it'd be a good deal of work. I really shouldn't be here considering I only slept four hours and feel ill. (I moved this post here, I hope that's okay)--T. Anthony 21:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

---

• Keep Verging on speedy as this has been nominated three previous times in the last 4 months. Sometimes you don't get what you want at AfD. I remember wanting List of fictional left-handed characters to be deleted, but it didn't happen. When you can't give up totally, you can at least give up for say two months.--T. Anthony 11:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Twice, actually - the other time was in 2005. And one was a bundled nomination, so it has only really been properly considered once in 2006, back in September. And I don't think you adressed the substantive point either: where is the reliable secondary source for 6'5" being considered tall; what do we do about people who are considered tall by reliable sources but don't meet the 6'5" criterion; what do we do about people who are over 6'5" but not considered remarkably tall as a result (e.g. basketball players)? I see a lot of WP:ILIKEIT and WP:INTERESTING in past AfDs but the fundamental issue remains unresolved. At the very least the definition of tall=6'5" appears to be original research. Guy (Help!) 11:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• And of course any other definition would also be original research. The very premise of these articles is hopeless from the start. — coelacan talk — 11:59, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• It was a bundle with other heighth lists so it was essentially the same. Anyway I don't think I needed to address the substantive point again as I did it the other times. You only can repeat yourself so many times. Still you go by percentile and in every nation I'm aware of 6'5" would be well above Average adult male height and in the "upper percentile" of human male height in each. Would you rather it be scaled more strictly still? Like 2 meters and above?--T. Anthony 11:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• You're missing the point about WP:NOR here. It doesn't matter where you or any other editor thinks the right cutoff is (I only argued for 6'5" to reduce the size of the list; my arguments were still completely arbitrary). The fact is that without multiple reliable third-party sources specifically saying "196 cm equals tall", any decision made by Wikipedia editors is original research and thus inadmissible. Doesn't matter how scientific we try to be, doesn't matter what statistical algorithms we use, it's all original research. — coelacan talk — 12:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Very well change it to List of men over 2 meters tall in height, remove those under that height, and call it a day. That's an exact figure, rare enough to be notable, and the specific name of the list isn't much interest to me. What does interest me is this urge to renominate lists until a person can get what they want.--T. Anthony 12:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Are you familiar with our policies on WP:NOR and WP:RS? Can you please show me the reliable sources that define "tall" as "2 meters and up"? You're just pulling this out of a hat, the same as 6'3", 6'4", and 6'5" were pulled out. It's original research. It doesn't matter what "argument" you make for any one number. There's no reliable source for that particular number. We could take it up to 3 meters and the problem would still be the same: who says this is tall and why and are they a reliable source? — coelacan talk — 12:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well the FAA.gov on anthropometrics of 1967 has almost no listing on USAF recruits above 78 inches or 2 meters. Height has increased since then, but I know of no nation where 2 meters is within standard range anthropometrically speaking. Do you wish me to look for other sites on anthropometrics and human height variation?--T. Anthony 12:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Replied below.[1] — coelacan talk — 13:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Listcruft; it adopts an arbitrary definition of "tall" (and no non-arbitrary definition seems possible: I'm tall in countries like Greece, medium height in England; I bang my head on mediæval door-lintels and ceiling-beams, and have no problem in modern buildings), and a complete list would be impossible and non-verifiable. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, exactly per Guy. These lists are completely non-informative, but they provide a wonderful petri dish for the statistics-obsessed to play in. A lot of time and energy gets expended by users who'd rather be non-involved but who want what articles we have to at least be sourced. Everyone who's on this list who's otherwise notable can have their height mentioned on their own article page, and everyone who's notable only for being tall can probably be linked to from gigantism, or a list of people with gigantism can be created if absolutely necessary. With all that considered, it's clear that the encyclopedia loses nothing but a millstone by deleting these articles. The information here can be placed in more relevant articles; the lists themselves are unencyclopedic. — coelacan talk — 11:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. It is true that tall is a relative term, so the article avoids that by objectively listing, with sources, known notable people who have heights in the top of the top percentile. It happens that a lot of basketball players are tall - so what? That's to be expected. The nom's points can be mentioned as controversy in the lead, and you can add a section that lists notable people widely considered to be tall in their respective eras. How likely is it that an SEO spammer has a credible site that contains reliable information about tall men? List of the most obese humans is in poorer condition. Pomte 12:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Please provide the [{WP:RS|reliable sources]] that definitively establish 6'5" or any other height as "tall", beneath which a person is "not tall". And the poor state of other articles has nothing to do with this particular nomination. — coelacan talk — 12:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• I linked to a government study on anthropometrics above. In another section indicates 75.2 inches is the 99th percentile for American male height. The current standard is 1.8 inches or around 4 cm above that. This is necessitated by other nations having taller populations and changes in human height over the years. Still 196 cm is likely in a high percentile of human male height, I will look for the 99th percentile of current human male height later. I'm hoping to be off until Wednesday.--T. Anthony 12:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Your link doesn't establish that any particular percentile is considered "tall". Why that percentile and not another? I'm not asking for you to set the limit as high as you think is reasonable. I'm pointing out that you can't set the limit. You are just choosing arbitrary numbers. Why is the 99th percentile better than the 98th or the 95th or the 64th for example? Who says any one of these particular choices are "tall" and whatever's below is "not tall"? I'm not even asking "why should we believe them" yet, I'm just asking "who says"? That is the very beginning of sourcing "tall" and we're not even at the first step yet. — coelacan talk — 13:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• And you're wrong. As the 99th percentile is the highest percentile listed, in most things, it is a logical upper-limit to human height. I did not put this as the highest percentile, it is not my notion. In fact using it could bring back anyone 75.2 inches or over, but that could be okay I guess. Anyway I'm not going to debate anymore on what adjectives mean or whether we can ever make comparisons of any kind.--T. Anthony 13:23, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• And you're missing the point. We can use adjectives and make comparisons. But we need reliable sources, per WP:RS, to actually establish what we're talking about. Where is the reliable source saying "this height is tall and this height is not"? That's what you need. Not endless claims of "well this seems tall enough". I don't care what you consider a "logical upper limit", I care about Wikipedia policy, specifically WP:NOR and WP:RS. Keep completely ignoring them, if you like, but your argument is going nowhere. — coelacan talk — 13:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Talking to you never seems to benefit either of us, I won't do it again.--T. Anthony 13:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete, subjective. No authoritative definition and thank JzG for nominating this one. — Nearly Headless Nick 13:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete as completely POV and subjective. Otto4711 13:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep but rename the page "List of very tall men". RCS 13:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  Please provide a WP:Reliable source for what height, precisely, constitutes "very tall". Read all my replies above to T. Anthony if you don't understand what I'm asking. — coelacan talk — 13:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  I did read it. As i wrote on the talk page, "very tall" is "tall even by Clint Eastwood's standards". One is always somebody else's dwarf, apart from some genuine freaks. RCS 14:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  [After two edit conflicts.] I don't see how the change of name affects any of the arguments. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:04, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  Okay, RCS, please provide a WP:Reliable source that "very tall" is defined as "taller than Clint Eastwood". This sounds like your WP:Original research, but I'm willing to hear the scholarly sources from Clinteastwoodological journals. — coelacan talk — 14:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  Hahaha. I could have said Steven Seagal instead, but i don't like him, or Hans Hotter, but you wouldn't have known him. Of course, all that list is highly subjective, and its principle is ill-fated. But saying "very tall" is putting a psychological limit to people who'd tend to include anybody and their grand-dad in it, and 6ft 5in seems a minimum on that level. You know, i have gone into fighting like mad for this list for no other reason than stubborness, and i really regret having gone to these lengths. But now that some interesting people (=artists) have gone into it, i'd dislike to see it gone. I wouldn' cry for it, though. RCS 15:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  We talked about this on the article talk page, and I understand and appreciate your motivation in wanting the extra adjectives to limit inclusion in the list. And "very tall" would be a psychological deterrent to some otherwise zealous editors. But it's not something that we could actually uphold with any of the policies on Wikipedia. Such an approach would easily be cast aside by the first eager editor who wanted to add their favorite footballer and knew the ins and outs of WP:NOR. So it's unfortunately unsustainable. I think that Guy's nomination, to simply delete the article, will solve all the problems. And as I said above, the heights of all these people can be noted on their article pages, so that the raw information itself is not lost from Wikipedia. — coelacan talk — 15:11, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Halbared 13:48, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Arguments to avoid in deletion discussions#Just a vote — coelacan talk — 13:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

6 ft 4 in seems to be statistically putside of governmental planning. Which would seem to indicate a place to state what is tall.http://www.heightsite.com/4_tallest/4_what-is-tall.htmHalbared 14:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Which government? And why does their arbitrary division make for a notable subject for an article? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:33, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Governments don't make arbitrary decisions, they pull it from statistics. If ppl of this height are not catreted for, it means they are so tall as to fall outside of the normHalbared 14:41, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Halbared, the site you linked to says: "Judging by government safety regulations and industry's standardized sizing, everyone 6ft4 and over is considered statistically irrelevant. When allocating space for car, bus, train and plane passengers, and considering life-jackets or other emergency equipment, people over 6ft4 are ignored completely." Now, I do not see any external citation of this actually being true, so I'm not going to grant 6' 4" just from this link to a "tall people" website. But, it's a good idea to consider your argument in the abstract. If not 6' 4", there is surely some height that is statistically ignored by government and industry regulators, one can safely expect. However, I do not believe that this hypothetical height is of any use to us in deciphering what "tall" shall mean. Regulators are bound to an economic trade-off. There is a certain height that they will consider economically infeasible to build for, however, this is a market-imposed limitation and it is clear that there is a conflict of interest involved; they could set it higher and take the safety of more people into consideration, but they feel that they can "get away with" writing off these few people and saving a few bucks. I'd be much more receptive to arguments from disinterested scientists who do not have to take profit factoring into account. See where WP:RS#Non-scholarly sources warns against "Bias of the originator about the subject—If an author has some reason to be biased, or admits to being biased, this should be taken into account when reporting his or her opinion." I'm afraid that industry regulation sources cannot be considered reliable sources for our purposes here. — coelacan talk — 14:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Mel, that is an exceptionally good point. Even if we were to apply the nth percentile, that will vary from nation to nation; how do we work out the proportional ethnicity to see if a 6'4" half-Japanese Sumo is unusually tall? Or do we simply build in a criterion that gives an immediate advantage to the Dutch at the expense of the Japanese? Guy (Help!) 15:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It's not "giving an advantage." Being on the list shouldn't be a source of pride, shame, or anything for any nation. If the Dutch have more people in the highest brackett of human height that's just how the statistics break down. However I'm not convinced that's even true. There are far more Japanese people than there are Dutch people in the world and therefore it's probable they have had a greater number of people with gigantism or unusual growth. I found two Japanese people over 6 foot 9 since I started and there are likely more that can be added. Yasutaka Okayama is, I believe, taller than any Dutch man on the list. Now a nation like Singapore, much lower population and low average height, may not be represented but I don't think it's represented in List of short men either.--T. Anthony 04:14, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Or a list by nation.Halbared 16:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Contidional Keep. If you compare the lists at the time of the last deletion to now, you'll see that the requirements to get on the list have beome tightened, and the people on said lists are ore obviously tall/short now. If the problem's a lack of citations on people's height I could add those in, and it doesn't look like listcruft to me.--Wizardman 14:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  "obviously tall/short"? Meaning? You have read the objections above? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  • "Tall" is a term of comparison. If a person is in the highest bracket available, the 99th percentile, then they are in the highest percentile of "tall" measured. Still if you'd like the standard could be raised further. The Italian Wikipedias version of the list has 201 centimeters while the Dutch has 229 cm. These are perhaps overly strict, but I did not find a deletion history for either so they apparently work by being so. Although I'll grant that might be because they are newer.--T. Anthony 14:37, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• We don't do wiki precedent, see WP:CCC. And remember that 99th percentile is not special; there is also 99.5th percentile, 99.9th percentile, etc. For that matter, why would we use the 99th percentile instead of the 98th percentile? Or the 97th? Where's the reliable source saying "99th percentile is tall, 98.9th percentile is not tall"? — coelacan talk — 14:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Wizardman, please provide a WP:Reliable source for how "tall" should be defined. Read all my replies above to T. Anthony if you don't understand what I'm asking. This isn't simply a question of where to set the bar. I myself have argued for 6'5" at the minimum, but that was a completely arbitrary argument. The question is how can we set the bar anywhere at all? Any particular choice, on our parts alone, is WP:Original Research and impermissible here. — coelacan talk — 14:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

That's mainly what i'm trying to get at. If we can reach a consensus on what constitutes tall using confirmed percentile data, then this shouldn't be a problem. Granted it's acquiring said information that will be difficult. It feels like everyone's just attacking this list as arbitrary instead of trying to improve it. If I can find a reliable source on what is "tall" on a world scale, than I'll throw it in. I'll look for one and if it appears to be impossible to fidn I'll withdraw my keep vote. --Wizardman 15:53, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Aye, and there's the rub. See my addendum above. Guy (Help!) 15:57, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Nice find. I can't vote keep seeing that. I'd 'like' for it to remain, but it's clearly too arbitrary to remain. (Most "tall men" would jut be basketball players and pro wrestlers anyway, no?). Leaning towards delete now.--Wizardman 17:10, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. We don't keep lists where the standards for inclusion amount to original research and personal opinion or that would be too large and diffuse if populated accordingly. This one is highly subjective: it includes retired basketball player Charles Barkley but not currently active Kobe Bryant and actually would extend to include a large percentage of basketball players in all professional leagues and Olympic teams, past and present. It would also encompass large numbers of American football players, sumo wrestlers, and competitors from various other sports. Potentially that would mean thousands of WP:BIO-worthy entries just in the field of athletics. Complicating this is the fairly common practice of exaggerating heights and weights in official team publications, which leads to contradictory data. Although we don't delete for edit wars the months-long dispute at this page is symptomatic of these insoluble dilemmas. I tried to help the editors work through these problems a while back; I no longer believe that is feasible. Durova^Charge! 14:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete - potentially enormous, unmaintainable, and I'll be very surprised if anyone comes up with an NPOV way of defining tall. WP:NOT#INDISCRMINATE. Moreschi ^Deletion! 17:07, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, per inability to determine the parameters of the set without resorting to OR and POV. (I'm 4.8 standard deviations above the average height for an American female, by the way.) -- Merope 17:24, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. One paper defines "tall stature" as 2+ standard deviations above the population mean. [2] (In this case, the population would presumably be the global population.) Additionally, I question whether the standard being set for lists here is reasonable; User:Coelacan asks for sources that "definitively establish" the definition of tall, but requiring lists to have a definitively established scope would eliminate many very useful and necessary lists, including many of our featured lists. In this particular case, however, the list does not appear to be of great value. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete This is still arbitrary and trivial. People who are famous for being tall is maybe encyclopaedic, but examples are better given in the articles about such things. People who simply happen to be tall is just trivia. And what Coelacan said. GassyGuy 19:34, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep As a sourced and encyclopedic list. But 99th percentile is a silly limit, since if there are about 3 billion men in world 1% or 30,000,000 would be eligible for the list. Some people have had stub articles created just so they are "notable" and could go on the list. I would say keep it, but raise the bar to perhaps 2 meters = 6feet6.5 inches. An American man at 6'3" or 6'5" would never stand out in a crowd. Common as dirt. And there is no reason to have a different standard for each country. People from countries where people are short are, well, short. Edison 20:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Or perhaps people from countries where people are tall are just all just tall. Ethnocentrism? GassyGuy 20:29, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep - although I have reservations about the article as it currently stands (incomplete, insufficiently documented, etc.), the reasons for proposing deletion do not convince me.

1. At least twice, it is claimed that the article violates WP:NOR. Of the seven actions listed there that qualify as original research, the fourth--"It provides or presumes new definitions of pre-existing terms"--is relevant to this discussion. However, equating 6'3", 6'5", 6'7", etc. with tall is surely not an original idea--it has been done before, it will be done in the future. Any given cut-off point for tall is not original research; it is simply arbitrary. For a person, tall is defined as "having a vertical extent greater than average". So, if the average height in the United States is 5'10", then someone who is 5'11" is tall (when considered at the level of the United States). Since Wikipedia should not be biased toward any particular nation(s), it seems to make sense to define "tall" in terms of the average global height.
2. However, a definition of tall that includes 50% - 1 of the population of the world (same applies if it's just a country, city, village, etc.) would make the list useless (or, at the least, VERY incomplete). For that reason, it makes sense to use a high percentile, like 99% or 99.5% or 99.9%. Yes, it is arbitrary! No, it's not original research! In many of the social sciences, results are considered statistically significant at a 95% confidence level. It's an arbitrary choice, but one that is used by consensus. Just because a cut-off point is arbitrary, does not mean it is not useful. I think this could work if the first line of the article specifies something of the sort: "This is a list of men who, in terms of their height, are in the 99th (or some other number) percentile globally".
3. Finally, and this strays from this AfD somewhat, if the list is kept, perhaps it should include only individuals who currently have articles on WP. Again, it's an arbitrary inclusion criteria, but I don't see anything wrong with that as long as that criterion is reached through consensus. Also, this would address the concern raised in the comment above by User:Edison

I originally had no particular interest in this article or its AfD, but felt compelled to write this lengthy comment after seeing the reasons for the proposed deletion. To any inclusion criterion, there is (almost) always an alternative. Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies is only one of many that could exist. However, it specifies an objective criterion for inclusion ("primary subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the person.") and has consensus support. I think this issue should be discussed in the article's talk page. Black Falcon 20:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, refangle, source with reliable sources describing the people as "tall" (then it's both accurate and varifiable). Perhaps rename to "List of notable people above the 99th percentile of height" or "List of notable people who have been described as tall" or somesuch cludgy name if the name is the key objection. This may be "arbitrary", but is also a potentially useful list so WP:IAR. There should at least be a list describing "talling living people"-type-people. Oh, and before anyone shouts at me for using my IP, registering is not a requirement and this is a discussion. Thanks. -137.222.10.67 20:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete: arbitrary criteria for inclusion. --Carnildo 22:44, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak Keep: I will support a keep if the list is put into numerical order (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.). Right now it is in a desperate need of clean up. --ASDFGHJKL=Greatest Person Ever+Coolest Person Ever 00:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

  That would do no good whatsoever, and would be just as arbitrary. Where would you stop? Maybe 100 people? But why stop at that arbitrary number? It's still completely subjective. Someone wanting their favorite footballer included will inevitably whinge for the expansion to 200 people. And what could the legitimate argument possibly be to oppose such an expansion? There's no end. — coelacan talk — 11:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete per the nom's excellent reasoning -Doc^g 00:43, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - especially useful for sociological research re accomplishments or demography or both, of people with exaggerated height, just maybe clean up as suggested above. (By the way, where is Hans Christien Andersen? I'd like to know his height since it contributed to his sense of being an 'ugly duckling' and resulted in creating a classic children's story, I believe.) Julia Rossi 00:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• An article on unusual extremes of height might indeed be interesting. If we changed the arbitrary height to allow Andersen then we'd have ever basketball player instead of only most of them. Guy (Help!) 09:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Hans Christien Andersen and anyone else should have their height noted on their article page. That's the way to do it without wiolating WP:OR. The problem with your argument is that the article has to be more than interesting or potentially useful. It has to be reliably sourced (see WP:RS), and we have no reliable sourcing to support any particular cutoff height as "tall" and any below as "not tall". So it's simply impossible to ever conclusively decide where to limit the list, and so the list is doomed to perpetual edit warring. — coelacan talk — 11:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- SkierRMH 02:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: Can we just say list of tall'''est''' men/women? - Penwhale | Blast the Penwhale 04:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

  Can we? What exactly do you mean? This is not that article. — coelacan talk — 11:22, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete. Arbitrary, particularly useless criteria. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 05:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. Ludicrously relative list, per JzG (Signed, Tall Where I Live Now, Average Back in the Homeland) --Calton | Talk 07:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: As some of the people are considered notable enough for their height alone to have an article on them, having them collected in a list doesn’t seem to be such a terrible idea. Maybe the current format, article title and sourcing are far from ideal, but can’t we convert it into a oldest people kind of style article? Maybe merging it with List of tall women and call it list of tallest people in the world? --Van helsing 09:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC) "I like it"... Guinness Book of World Records, not a good reason to keep, I know

  There is no reason why we couldn't have a "people who were the tallest living person during their lives" sort of article, like oldest people. That, however, is a completely different article than this one. We could also have a "list of people with gigantism", also a different article. Both of those are objective topics, and my vote of deletion here is without prejudice toward either of those hypothetical articles. I recommend anyone else feeling that way vote "delete" here and consider drafting one of those objective articles instead. — coelacan talk — 11:20, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

So, this article is not considered a good “base” to start such a hypothetical article up from? No (not for a "tallest living person during their lives"-article, took me a while, but see that now) Moving to a neutral title and thorough cleaning would be easier than start from scratch I think. --Van helsing 11:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC) PS. What about List of short men & List of short women, same story?

No, it's not a good start point, because it's historically been a list of men over an arbitrarily selected height, so it omits many notable for their height but still under that threshold and includes many over that height even if their height is not especially remarkable in context (basketball players). Guy (Help!) 12:04, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Delete This list and related ones (List of [tall/short] [men/women] - strike as applicable) are totally subjective. That these people were tall or short is as irrelevant as whether they had ginger hair, beards or a limp. Chategorises people by physical by physical characteristics is pure trivia. I would not oppose lists of people famous for being tall or short, but the present list serves no purpose that I can discern. The inclusion criteria is also problematic, as pointed out above, as what is tall or short varies considerably from one geographic are to another.WJBscribe ^{-WJB talk-} 12:44, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Nominated three times without being deleted - incidentally, with MASSIVE improvement since the first one. If that's not what you want, repeatingly nominating it for AfD just makes a mockery of the whole process. SteveLamacq43 16:23, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• closer's comment - discounted. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - The most common reason for deletion I'm seeing is that any inclusion criterion for the article would be "arbitrary". However, all you really mean by that is that there are a great many alternatives. So what?!?! In that sense, every WP policy and guideline is arbitrary, as there are many possible alternatives to them. For example, instead of not allowing original research, WP could allow it. There is nothing wrong with an arbitrary criterion for inclusion, as long as it is reached by consensus on the article's talk page. So far, such a discussion (to establish consensus) has not taken place. Also, my original vote/comment is about 10-12 votes above. Black Falcon 17:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Er, yes there is something wrong wiht an arbitrary criterion, reached by consensus or not. What we are saying here is that 6'7" (today - it was 6'3" before) is "tall". It does not matter how many editors get together to define tall, unless they do it from reliable sources it's still original research. Guy (Help!) 18:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Anything over 6 ft 3 I think could work going by the percentile method. I went with 6 ft 7 per the Italian version and because at 6 ft 7 we start having "the tallest X." For example Peter the Great is probably the tallest Tsar ever and Peter Crouch seems to be the tallest footballer in England.--T. Anthony 21:28, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• But Edward Longshanks, a famously tall English king, was only 6 ft 2. --Carnildo 00:25, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• He could be added to the historical/legendary section at the end. Harald III of Norway is there as well as a few others. We don't specify height in that section, but that shouldn't be a problem.--T. Anthony 00:38, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per precedent. Whilst consunsus can change, I would say that repeat nominations over a short period are probably not warranted, and may get to a point when it gets disruptive. I tend to agree that the height set may be arbitrary, and I don't think 6ft 7in is really that tall - considering there are/have been people who exceeded 8ft, but then it's not a huge list by any means, and the current height barrier can be moved upwards if too many start appearing on the list. Ohconfucius 05:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

There's maybe a dozen men in history who were over 8 feet tall. I thought of changing the limit to 7 ft 6 to match the Dutch version, but it still might not have enough names to be worth doing.--T. Anthony 05:26, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Encyclopedic subject, this is an encyclopedia. Therefore it must stay. -- TrojanMan 00:24, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• closer's comment - discounted. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep; this is certainly an encyclopedic list, and qualifies for inclusion in Wikipedia. --Mhking 03:42, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• closer's comment - discounted. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, but adjust the list's name to List of notable tall men. I am impressed with the sources and organization. Height is a relative quality, but being among the tallest individuals ever is a historic feat, and worthy of inclusion in a list. - Gilliam 04:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Trim out anyone who just happens to be tall and leave only those forwhom we have independant sources stating that they are/were considered notably tall in their day. If that can't be done, then delete. Regards, Ben Aveling 08:18, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
• Delete, no matter what "keep" rationales are provided, the fact remains that this is a subjective list, and thus is unsuitable for inclusion as its very existence requires original research. Seraphimblade 12:15, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

  I don't understand arguments like this. Average height is verifiable. So is everyone's height in this article. Original research was not involved. The act of carefully and continously re-evaluating whether or not include a piece of information in an article (in this case debating a cut-off height) is very different from what we know as "original research." Using discretion and building consensus and particiapting in the gradual evolution of what each article should and should not cover is a good thing. What you call "subjectivity" is the stuff of building a good article. The article only becomes inappropriate if we start filling it with POV statements; unsourced, unverified or libelous material and idle speculation.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 15:01, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Keep as it was before' As the page is now delete I can't believe you all wasting your life debating something which doesn't really matter. Who cares if a Vietnamese guy thinks 6 ft 2 is a giant and a Dutchman thinks it is a midget? I don't know what world you are in but if you walk down the street in any country at 6 ft 4 inches you are going to be way above average height. You are all missing the point. The list as it is now is rubbish who cares about the basketball players? . If the list stays as it is now delete. It was absolutely fine before! 6 ft 4 is a clear starting point in any place even average height in Holand is about 6'1. The list was intended to note the people in the public eye well renowned who are notable for being tall. Forget most basketball players unless they are well over 7 feet. All I know is that a lot of people have put a lot of time into it and found citations and it does provide information.Ernst Stavro Blofeld 13:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I thought the changes I made helped make it more certain that the people listed have a tallness that is significant to their fame or notability. It also is the standard at Italian Wikis version, but still lower than the Dutch standard, so I thought that could give some consistency. If the current standard is objectionable it can be reverted fairly easily. You just go back to the version of 03:36, 22 January 2007.--T. Anthony 16:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Deletion nominators are relentless. This is a problematic but still salvageable article; it's way too soon for another afd; isn't this inappropriate?--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 14:41, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• closer's comment - discounted. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I wish to draw a parallel between this frequently maligned list and the magnificent article List of unusual deaths, another frequent target for casually destructive deletion hawks. I would sound ridiculous if I were to enter an afd debate for the deaths article shouting in a condescending tone, "but what does unusual really mean? Isn't that subjective? I know all you idiots find this article interesting (please refer to the set-in-stone policy WP:ILIKEIT), but unfortunately, what one group of people might consider unusual might appear ordinary to another. This article has to go, no matter how well sourced it becomes." In cases like this, whining that a certain adjective must have a precise, independetly verified definition arrived at through scientific rigor is a fruitless semantic exercise, inimical to the subjective nature of language itself. NOR applies to "new definitions of pre-existing terms;" it does not preclude the variable, reasonable interpretation of very common adjectives. Trust people to build consensus; they'll decide what tall means, and the meaning will fluctuate from time to time, as well it should.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 15:40, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of tall women. The List of tall women has survived and gotten "keep" rather than "no concensus."--T. Anthony 16:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I don't know
• Keep. Almost a model list since it sets rational parameters and requires references for inclusion. The nom calls this list "useless", but then goes on to make numerous suggestions for improving the content and/or approach. His ideas on the subject should have been proposed on the article talk page - the proper place to hash out editorial issues. Instead, here we are examining the same article for the fourth time. Since even the nom admits that the subject is valid (but apparently doesn't like basketball players), there is no good policy reason to delete and none has been suggested in the nomination. AfD is not clean-up and "I don't like it" is not a valid argument for deletion. --JJay 03:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep stop making counter productive deletion suggestions. Chensiyuan 01:56, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
• closer's comment - discounted. Proto::► 10:39, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

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.