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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 on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was NO CONSENSUS, which defaults to KEEP Paul August ☎ 03:40, 1 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of vegetarians[edit]

Someone's true practice of vegetarianism cannot, in most cases, possibly be verified with certainty by historical means. As a result, this article is hopelessly un-encyclopedic and PoV, a potential edit war zone over definitions, allegations and even implied moral judgements. Wyss 11:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delete as above. Wyss 13:40, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. All it needs is the {{Unreferenced}} template. --Viriditas | Talk 12:16, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I think it should be renamed List of famous vegetarians, or List of notable vegetarians, but it seems reasonable enough to me. It can never be completed, but that's true of many Wikipedia lists. It's unlikely that many names will end up on the list unless that person's vegetarianism is a matter of record.... what would be the point in making false claims? The section about Hitler (which I found quite interesting) shows how to deal with people who are erroneously claimed to be / have been "vegetarian". There may be disputes, of course, but that's equally true of any other article.... if that's a reason for deletion, we may as well just delete Wikipedia in its entirety. I fail to see how a simple list can be made to serve a moral agenda, but any attempt to subvert the article to this purpose should be removed, of course. TheMadBaron 12:29, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete Count Duckula?! Princess Daisy from Mario Bros?!?! An enormous list with zero--count 'em, zero references. An alternative to deletion would be to slap an {{Unreferenced}} tag on it and remove any entries without references within a reasonable timeframe (say, two weeks or so) with fair warning given on the talk page. However, I also have concerns that this list could be too broad to be maintainable (for example, every practicing Hindu who has ever lived could theoretically be included). Andrew Lenahan - Starblind 13:13, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong meat-free delete for a multitude of reasons:
    • 1) Would be better as a category, anyway
    • 2) Inherently POV (as many 'vegetarians' consider eating fish/seafood ok, many do not, and call the other kind 'non-vegetarians', or people who will/will not eat products containing gelatine and other animal-derived products etc, and will end to countless edit wars, never mind the vegans chipping in).
    • 3) Unmaintainable, as a massive number of notable people are vegetarian, and many people become veggie (or stop being veggie) all the time.
    • 4) Difficult to research, as it is not always easy to find a verifiable source confirming a person is (or is not) a vegetarian. Potential for original research abuse. And thet {{unreferenced}} tag is ass. If an article cannot be referenced, it shouldn't exist.
    • 5) Did I mention it should be a category?
  • Proto t c 13:30, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per referer. --Ghirlandajo 13:44, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete and concur with Proto, this is category material. KillerChihuahua 14:21, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep, vegetarians are always interested in learning about what famous people are/were vegetarian. They should be able to come to Wikipedia for the answers. Of course we can't verify that particular individuals never ate meat, all we can do is verify that they claimed to be vegetarian and were considered by others to be vegetarian. Babajobu 14:25, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    The article doesn't say they claimed it, it lists them as being so. Wyss 15:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Per the above, something like Category:Vegetarians would be equally easy to browse and far more easily maintained. Oh, look! It's already there. — Lomn | Talk / RfC 15:49, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Then why doesn't Isaac Bashevis Singer show up in the category:vegetarians page, even though his own article is so tagged. The whole thing's rotten to the core. Babajobu 16:01, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That does look like one for the developers, but software issues are no reason to keep an unencyclopedic, hopelessly PoV article. Wyss 16:38, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Not a bug -- just use the next 200 link, he's the first one on page 2! — Lomn | Talk / RfC 17:58, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
:) Wyss 18:14, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
How does one verify if a person was truly a vegetarian? Are there time limits or requirements? If so, how are dates confirmed? What definition is used for vegetarian? Wyss 19:54, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's silly...that essentially means we could never describe someone as a vegetarian. The same would go for calling someone, say, a Muslim. How can we be certain they didn't practice Shinto in private? What if they converted at the age of 30? Can we still say "so-and-so was a Muslim?" These issues don't prevent us from describing or categorizing people according to other labels, why should we be so prohibitively concerned about such things when discussing or listing vegetarians? Babajobu 22:34, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, it means an encyclopedia can't successfully describe a docking list of people as vegetarian out of context and by the bye lots of these WP labels, IMHO, are unhelpful to understanding. Wyss 12:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For anyone who's listed as vegetarian I presume that the link to their main article will elaborate or provide context. But in order to know who was a vegetarian in particular fields or areas of society, only a list will do. And I don't think it's "unhelpful" to describe, say, Orrin Hatch as a Mormon, Kirk Gibson as an American, or Peter Singer as a vegetarian. Babajobu 12:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as creeping listcruft. --MCB 19:02, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete as list - IMHO a category would work better. Of course, there definitional issues but if it's important enough to an article to add the category it presumably is important enough to discuss these issues in the article (e.g. "He was a lapsed vegan with macrobiotic leanings, according to some scholars") Dlyons493 20:38, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Category or just leave in each article Amcfreely 20:57, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete, it shouldn't be a category either. If it's important enough to the person, it should be in the article itself. -- Kjkolb 22:26, 22 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep, and possibly rename as per TheMadBaron. This is a well-edited list, smartly sorted and interesting to go through. The existing category (Category:Vegetarians) is a very poor substitute for this. Owen× ☎ 00:15, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep if all entries are verified. Very useful list. User:Zoe|(talk) 03:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep, now start putting those references in there. Andrew Levine 04:21, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Maybe it should be retitled to "famous vegetarians" but this list is useful enough to stay in. Crypticfirefly 04:58, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Not a useful list in any sense. Cannot ever hope to be comprehensive. I'm a vegetarian and I'm not even on it! Grace Note 07:02, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Would you change to Keep if the title was List of notable vegetarians? (Yes, we all know you, but your User page doesn't claim notability...) Owen× ☎ 12:32, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • No, I'm afraid I wouldn't, for two reasons: I don't like the concept of "notability" because I don't see why a truly broad encyclopaedia wouldn't consider anything and anybody verifiable "notable" -- I simply haven't ever seen a good reason for making Wikipedia restrictive in that way; and I have a general principle that I oppose lists that cannot be sourced on the basis that they represent original research and should not be built. It's not a strongly held principle, so I don't go around trying to get lists deleted, and I rarely even bother to vote against them, so had it been "List of notable vegetarians", I probably wouldn't have bothered, although I might have urged that it only carry the names of people who have publicly stated that they are vegetarian, with each claim sourced in footnotes. Grace Note 00:26, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I would have thought that, by virtue of being in an encyclopedia, the list clearly only refers to notable vegetarians. But if the lack of explicit mention of this is causing problems and delete votes, then by all means lets change the name to "list of notable vegetarians". Babajobu
I thought I'd mention that to me anyway, it wouldn't seem to make much difference if the title of the article was changed. Wyss 15:51, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]


  • Keep, References and a title-change are needed, but lists like this are one of the best things about wikipedia... I don't think there's a better place from which to jumpstart into a real topic of study...say, if I want to do a report on vegetarians, anarchists, Irish politicians, Nazis, golfers, directors, scientists, or pretty much anything else. It's a great resource, we just need to start citing. Hell, people are citing in the talk pages, they just need to start doing it on the main page.
  • Weak Keep, harmless and interesting. I would have voted for a plain keep but for the presence of the category. If delete wins, I hope someone will make sure that every entry here is reflected in the category. Tintin 19:04, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
With that vote, it's now in the refrigerator. Eggs are coolin', jello's getting hard. There's no way there will be a consensus for delete. Babajobu 19:07, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
These votes, at least, have helped me understand how people think about this list.... thanks! :) (at most a slim majority, not nearly a consensus, would seem to be happy to see it gone) Wyss 21:13, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, the issues raised here have given me (and I'm sure others) real food for thought. It's clear to me now that criteria for admission to the list must be better clarified. It can't simply be allowed to be a list of "people who vegetarians are proud to call vegetarian." And I'm a vegetarian who's interested in lists of vegetarians. Babajobu 21:43, 23 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, if this had been called Famous people claiming to be vegetarians I wouldn't have nominated it, since that's so easy to cite from the public record. Wyss 00:36, 24 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as category ··gracefool |☺ 07:26, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as per above, seems to be relevant for Vegetarianism, however should be renamed as Famous Vegetarians. Piecraft 14:52, 26 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep but check each entry carefully. Maybe have a Vegan section too. --TimPope 18:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep - The main thing is that these people professed to be vegetarians, and so that is interesting, even if we cannot "prove" that they were 100 per cent vegetarian. It's a perfectly interesting page. Davidgauntlett 19:33, 27 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. Hardly encyclopaedic, just as "list of one-armed, blind lathe workers" would be. --Daveb 12:22, 28 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong keep-It is quite interesting. User:HistoricalPisces
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 an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.
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