Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of verified oldest military veterans

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 merge anything verifiable to Oldest military veterans and List of last living war veterans. As pointed out repeatedly here, this is redundant when those two articles exist. Black Kite (t) (c) 13:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

List of verified oldest military veterans

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

I thought about it for a while after this deletion discussion and finally decided to nominate this page and Oldest military veterans, although I figured that they were different enough to warrant separate deletion debates. My reason for deletion is essentially the same as "List of oldest military veterans who died in XXXX": it's really just a collection of original research. There are three big problems as I see it.

There's no definition of "oldest". This is the obvious problem because there's no set criteria for inclusion.
The above problem could easily be rectified, say, by making the cutoff point 100 or 105 or whatever, but then the question remains, why is any one numerical definition of "oldest" any less arbitrary than another? What makes a veteran who died at the age of 100 any different than one who died at 99 or 95? It's a trivial intersection no matter what number you pick.
Although it claims to list the "oldest military veterans", it really lists the "oldest military veterans that we could find". It cites no foundtation and is merely a collection of random news articles about old military people, most of whom are from World War I. Obviously Wikipedia is a work in progress and a complete list would be probably be impossible, but these selections have obviously been chosen from within a small frame of reference.

Furthermore, we're only talking about "verified" veterans here, but what about them is "verified"? Is it their age? No, because there's nobody that validates people under the age of 110. Is their military service? Well okay, maybe, but if that's the case, where are the people from the non-"Western" nations and born prior to the 1800s? Is one person from Turkey the entirey of non-American, non-European "oldest military veterans"? Again, I acknowledge that it will always be an incomplete list, but it simply shows that this list has no strong base.

So to summarize: the list a) is original research b) has no defined set of inclusion criteria and c) any inclusion criteria would be arbitrary and/or trivial. Canadian Paul 02:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete i can find no flaws in canadianpauls argument above. i voted delete on the related afd mentioned above. The most generous position i could take is to userfy (along with the related article up for afd now) and completely rewrite them to define it as military veteran centenarians, living or deceased, verified only, limited to people with articles only. its really a trivial intersection, the only argument that it could be rescued would be that centenarians usually are notable for that fact alone, and will obviously have their military history mentioned in news articles about them, but the two are still not directly linked.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:23, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Canadian Paul's argument above says it all really. To be "useful", there would need to be such a precise intersection (as Mercurywoodrose points out), and I can't see any way in which this would be found suitable for inclusion on Wikipedia -- PhantomSteve/talk|contribs\ 06:42, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This AfD nomination was incomplete (missing step 3). It is listed now. DumbBOT (talk) 11:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. —Polarpanda (talk) 12:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Although the topic is notable, it's totally unsourced. I don't subscribe to the "click on the blue link if you want to know the source" school of thought. I can find all sorts of flaws with parts (b) and (c) of the nominator's argument but part (a)-- that this is OR unless it's sourced-- is reasonable. My suggestion to User:Anthony Winward is to take this to his user page, since he has evidently put in a good deal of work on it, and then to add footnotes to the info about the person's military service. Mandsford (talk) 13:44, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete I have to agree with the points Canadian Paul made and the subsequent points made by Mercurywoodrose & Phantomsteve: I doubt if it can be refashioned into an article suitable for inclusion. Jarkeld (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Newspapers (and nations, for that matter) have long given significant coverage to the oldest and last survivors of wars. This Associated Press article discusses the age at death of the last veteran of 6 American wars before World War 1, and gives the number of survivors of each subsequent war: [1]. If the topic is notable to newspapers, the military and congress, and the governments of other nations, the fact that some Wikipedia editor does not see it worthy of an article or does not like it is irrelevant. They get ostentatious honors on birthdays and anniversaries of significant battles or war ends. Their impending death receives significant coverage [2]. They get funeral honors more typical of noted generals. "Verified" is important because many people have falsely made claims to be such honored old veterans. The last survivors of the American Civil War died in the late 1950's and received widespread and extensive coverage, and were noted by the Army and by Congress, as well as newspapers.More recently, it is WW1 whose last survivors are noted. Reliable sources are clearly available, and no original research is needed. There are usually some disputes over who is truly the "last survivor" or what his actual age was, since modern birth certificates did not always exist in the 19th century and before. We do not delete articles because they are incomplete, so the absence of old Turkish soldiers from the article is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Edison (talk) 17:12, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That was my first reaction, but List of last living war veterans already exists. What's the point of articles that organize them by age? They aren't primarily notable just for being old. As it stands this article basically duplicates the articles on World War I veterans, with the addition of a few World War II veterans who aren't that notable (since there's an awful lot of younger veterans who are still alive). 140.247.241.57 (talk) 13:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge to Oldest military veterans, where it's already partially duplicated. I agree with Edison; they're clearly notable. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 16:51, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge to Oldest military veterans. Age sets them apart as notable because many are last survivors of earlier conflicts. Canals86966 (talk) 20:56, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article Oldest military veterans has also been nominated for deletion, so there may be nothing to merge to. Mandsford (talk) 13:38, 9 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Indiscriminate, unsourced OR, and highly anachronistic besides (current German and Russian flags for men who served under the Nazis and Romanovs, respectively; claim that there was a Turkish, rather than Ottoman, army in WWI, etc.) Heather (talk) 22:14, 8 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep In line with other lists of "oldest" and "oldest living" this list can coexist with the "oldest living" list. The entrys has to have a reliable source, thus the lack of non western and pre 1800 entrys. As more non westeners get computers and learn to speak english, more non western entrys for inclusion (with references) will come, I'm sure Hepcat65 (talk) 14:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Perfectly valid and useful list that meets the guidelines of Wikipedia:Lists. Kugao (talk) 17:32, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, moɳo 03:34, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge or Redirect to appropriate target. There are at least two listed above. This subject largely duplicates either of them --Jayron32 03:53, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep simply because the logic behind the nomination is faulty. Cutoff point complaint is basically a variation of the paradox of the heap; were it valid, we would not have a single list of superlatives. Same with the complaint about incompleteness; were it valid, we would not have a single incomplete list. GregorB (talk) 11:49, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Merge or Keep to Oldest military veterans, notice I said merge or keep instead of delete. Longevitydude (talk) 21:39, 17 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep or Merge. This article may require cleanup, but it would not be fair to delete it for that reason.76.17.118.157 (talk) 02:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as per Edison. Clearly notable and sources clearly exist. Edward321 (talk) 12:45, 21 May 2010 (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.