Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Charvet customers

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. L'Aquatique[talk] 19:08, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

List of Charvet customers[edit]

As one of the few fashion editors on wikipedia, normally I'm arguing for inclusion of fashion-related articles here. But this list seems to cross the line into unencyclopedic territory. This is a high-end brand, and obviously it has been worn by thousands upon thousands of individuals in its long history. I cannot see why a list like this is encyclopedic, and I don't think it should be merged into the parent article (which at most needs to mention a few representative names). Allowing this would mean allowing List of Chanel customers, List of Yves Saint Laurent customers, List of Hermes customers, etc etc etc. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:04, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Nomination reeks of WP:WAX. Let's assess the actual article on its own merits. Is it neutral? Yes. Is it factually accurate? It is thoroughly referenced, so yes. Does it contain original research? No. Is it of interest to our readers? I would argue that for most brands, including Chanel and Yves Sain Laurent which are mass-advertised, the answer would be no. However, for this particular brand I suspect the answer might differ. The custom of Charles Haughey, for example, was the subject of significant interest. The question is whether being a Charvet customer is something of note, of distinction. Is it? the skomorokh 19:17, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is a WAX issue. The I realize that the article is neutral, etc, but the question is whether this topic is encyclopedic. I don't see any meaningful distinction between Charvet and other high fashion brands that would justify an article such as this, and I think it is reasonable to ask whether Wikipedia is a place for lists of customers of various companies. (Maybe Chanel haute couture is more closely analogous to Charvet, at least in the bespoke suit department, but really don't see a meaningful distinction between owning a Charvet tie and an Hermes scarf, or something like that. And in any event I don't think it would be appropriate to have a list of wearers of Chanel haute couture. Moreover, many brands are not advertised, e.g. Dries van Noten or Ann Demeulemeester, to name a couple off the top of my head, so I don't think this is a reasonable place to draw the line.) So I guess in sum I don't believe being a Charvet customer is notable enough to require a list of its own. I cannot imagine any clothing brand that would fit this description. Calliopejen1 (talk) 19:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Although the nom might fit WP:WAX, this list definitely fails WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Bsimmons666 (talk) ^Friend? 19:52, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Charvet have been going longer than almost any equivalent store, since 1836, and the list is too long for the article. It is fully referenced, a great rarity in these articles, and I think sufficiently encyclopedic. I think people only buying ties and ready-made shirts should not be included, though - only bespoke customers. Johnbod (talk) 20:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep An alphabetical list is by nature discriminated only by the alphabetical order. Yet, lists have a clear legibility advantage. With reference to WP:INDISCRIMINATE, as a primary author, I have reorganized the article in a more meaningful way, in historical order, by countries and by nature of customers, in order to make it as clear and synthetic as possible, while keeping the list structure. Racconish (talk) 01:07, 17 November 2008 (UTC) Further edited to remove possible OR Racconish (talk) 16:07, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fashion-related deletion discussions. -- Raven1977 (talk) 01:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. -- Raven1977 (talk) 01:10, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Just the sort of hard-to-find information WP is good for. I believe if we're restricting it to customers mentioned in secondary sources, it is not an "indiscriminate" list. Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:39, 18 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete not encyclopedic material. many obscure things are appropriate here, but not everything Are we prepared to expand this into list from every aristocratic tailor and dressmaker,? DGG (talk) 03:25, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. WP:WAX, again, and WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC.This is the first shirtmaker ever, 170 years old, quite a special history: worth an article in Wikipedia, which would not be complete without a development on customers. Thank you for saying "many obscure things are appropriate here". If some other are not appropriate, according to you, this can be surmounted. You are welcome on Talk:List of Charvet customers. Please note the list is precisely not a list of rich or aristocraric customers, these have been kept to the minimum. A "customers" section was in the main article Charvet Place Vendôme. It was forked out of for clarity. This was not my personal preference, but I admit it improves the readability of the main article. The question should rather be: Keep or Merge... or maybe Keep or Rename in view of a recent allergy to lists ;-) ... except that lists have the advantage they help minimize WP:OR. Racconish (talk) 08:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, non-notable and this thing could get freakishly long really fast of people who isn't notable if kept. Tavix (talk) 23:50, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
- Clear WP:JNN and WP:ATA#CRYSTAL. I take it you don't find it freakishly long at this point. Back to the core question, per WP:SS: "The length of a given Wikipedia article tends to grow as people add information to it. This cannot go on forever: very long articles would cause problems. So we must move information out of articles periodically. In general, information should not be removed from Wikipedia: that would defeat the purpose of the contributions. So we must create new articles to hold the excised information." On the other hand, per WP:SIZE:"A relatively trivial fact may be appropriate in the context of the larger article, but inappropriate as the topic of an entire article in itself. In most cases, it is a violation of the neutral point of view to specifically break out a controversial section without leaving an adequate summary. It may also violate the neutral point of view policy to create a new article specifically to contain information that consensus has rejected from the main article." As I wrote earlier, this fork-out is for clarity purpose, hence the first case, not the second. Racconish (talk) 08:12, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so that consensus may be reached.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Spartaz ^Humbug! 18:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. With all due respect, I don't see that the discussion so far lacked thoroughness or participants. It lacked consensus. Per WP:RELIST "relisting a debate should not be a substitute for a no-consensus closure. If closer feels that there has been substantive debate, and disparate opinions supported by policy have been expressed, and it appears that consensus will not be achieved, a no-consensus close may be preferable," with the consequence per WP:NOCONSENSUS to default to keep. This said, in order to ensure constructive discussion, I suggest to take it for granted that, in view of the existence of a "thorough" article on Charvet, we admit some development on Charvet customers are also a legitimate part of Wikipedia. Let's assume also the main article and this development are long enough to consider possible forking out, which does not mean we have to discuss here how long the sub-article should be or what the editing criteria are. The proper AFD question is, according to me: do we prefer to fork out this necessarily minor sub-article or do we prefer to merge it into the main one. As a side note, anybody can check on the history of the main article that it was started out of interest for one of Charvet's customer. Racconish (talk) 19:15, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:LC items 2-4, 7, 8, and 10. Stifle (talk) 19:39, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Ultimately, the list is useful on itself, describing notable people in a well-referenced manner, with a neat organisation clearly showing that a good amount of data can be nicely organised without rambling indiscriminately. The encyclopaedia would suffer as a whole if this were to be deleted or merged back into the main article, which this supports well. Ultimately, the list has to have a certain notability itself, and stand on its own, but with spin-out articles like this, the article is dependant to a certain extent on the main article and its notability. Because the list article does stand on its own, and improves the encyclopaedia, while treating the notable topic of patrons of Charvet, I argue for keep. —Kan8eDie (talk) 20:48, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments on above reference to WP:LC
- Item 2: "is of interest to a very limited number of people". What about WP:IDONTKNOWIT:"Arguments that state that because a subject is unknown or not well known among English readers it should not have an article encourage a systemic bias on Wikipedia. To avoid this systemic bias, Wikipedia should include all notable topics, even if the subject is not notable within the English speaking population or within more populous or Internet-connected nations [...]This argument is not sufficient on its own to be persuasive in deletion discussions."?
- Item 3: "is a violation of Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". This has already been discussed above, but let's assume it was not thorough enough. Let's assume also the criteria involved in re-writing the article (historical orders, countries, nature of customers) are not appropriate. The argument boils down to WP:Overcategorization#Non defining or trivial characteristic: Is it a defining criterion? Yes: almost all customers listed have been disclosing it themselves as a characteristic trait.
- Item 4: "is unverifiable or the underlying concept is non-notable". Unverifiable? No, they are all thoroughly sourced. Non notable? Per WP:NN,in general, reliable independant sources have each time addressed the subject directly. Nevertheless, I am confident some one can always criticize one occurence or another. But not all of them.
- Item 7: "has no content beyond links to other articles, so would be better implemented as a (self-maintaining) category". The fact is all customers listed have an article dedicated to them, kence a link. I considered it was important to cite only notable people, who deserve a page on Wikipedia. Is this bad?
- Item 8: "is unencyclopaedic, i.e. it would not be expected to be included in an encyclopaedia". Cf. above comments on WP:UNENCYCLOPEDIC. Let me rephrase it: in each case, it is - or has in effect been - worth mentioning in a biography of the customer in question.
- Item 10: "determining membership of the list involves original research or synthesis of ideas." Really? Do you mean sources search is WP:OR? Racconish (talk) 22:31, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. To support the 'keep' arguments, I note that the article List of bow tie wearers has just come out its fifth AfD alive, despite the best efforts of some. While this proves nothing (which would be a WP:WAX argument), it does strongly suggest that articles like these have a place on WP, as recognised by repeated failure to find a delete consensus, even after multiple listings. —Kan8eDie (talk) 23:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Personally, I'd like to see this information in a sortable table, but it should survive regardless. It has an intro and clearly defined boundaries. For some their outfit was even a part of their image (Capone) which suggests the topic itself is a notable one. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:58, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can we rename to List of Charvet clients? That seems to be the predominent term used in fashion from what I know. - Mgm|^(talk) 23:59, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. To your point, the following comment received after the above explained change of the list: "I think the list was perhaps better before--now it's looking somewhat like there is a fair amount of original synthesis going on. I might rather just sort it by rough chronology, and within that keep it in alphabetical order." What parameters would you consider for a sortable table? Racconish (talk) 08:43, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Delete Indiscriminate listing, likely to be horrifically long and unmaintainable, and synonymous with particular milieus. Might be appropriate as a category. Definitely not appropriate as a list. RayAYang (talk) 01:33, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is most certainly NOT appropriate as a category - categories are almost never appropriate as a solution at Afd, as the criteria are higher than for items on a list - it is supposed to be "defining" for erach member. "synonymous with particular milieus" also seems a very odd argument for deletion! Johnbod (talk) 01:37, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that categories are capable of accepting indiscriminate and freakishly long lists, whereas lists are properly wikipedia articles, and should not. And by "synonymous with particular milieus" I mean precisely that. Like so many other fashion brands, this shirtmaker has probably gone in and out of periods of extreme popularity. So if there was an era when every aspiring aristocrat in Paris wore one, does that mean we must track down every aristocrat in Paris in that decade? Or just lump in all the ones who already have a wikipedia article? RayAYang (talk) 01:39, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Categories can certainly be large, but are less "indiscriminate" than lists, as described above. Johnbod (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep as an impeccably sourced list best kept separate, for reasons of length, from the parent article. Restricting the list to notable people who also have their specific tailoring detailed in reliable secondary sources keeps this list from being either indiscriminate or "horrifically long". - Dravecky (talk) 17:13, 22 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. In order to help reaching a consensus and after consideration of some constructive aspects of the discussion so far, I have completely redone the page. A number of customers did not fit the new categories, but the page is now focused and objections based on WP:LC3 addressed. I hope this will meet critics issues. I added a note on Al Capone and Lucky Luciano in the main article and listed removed customers on the Talk page to facilitate further work.Racconish (talk) 11:50, 23 November 2008 (UTC) Also implemented sortable tables, moved developments on Haughey and Wall (hence, the image) from the main to the sub. Racconish (talk) 07:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC) At this point in the evolution of the article, I propose, pending the issue of the AFD, to rename it Charvet Place Vendôme (notable clients) for the following reasons: it clarifies the dependancy to the main article and the focus on notability; as mentionned above, clients is a better word; finally, lists or tables are just a mean, not a target. Racconish (talk) 08:34, 24 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Delete. Though fully referenced and well done since the rewrite, it still feels indiscriminate. I am not sure that the intersection notable person-Chauvet is really interesting and telling, but even when it is it should be mentioned in the persons article not in a list of essentially disparate people. Eluchil404 (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2008 (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.