Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Hindus (2nd nomination)

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 redirect to Lists of Hindus. Consensus is that at this level of generality only a "list of lists" makes sense. Sandstein 09:55, 18 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

List of Hindus[edit]

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The previous nomination noted that there were over 970 million Hindus. Currently we claim there are over a billion. The only reason why this list isn't bogglingly huge is that (a) nobody is bothering to maintain it, and/or (b) it's difficult to ascertain which of the thousands of Indians we have bios for can be claimed to be Hindus. It's not quite as bad as "List of medieval European Christians" would be, but it's close enough: it's very nearly a "list of all Indians not proven to be not Hindu". Mangoe (talk) 13:50, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Move: to List of famous Hindus. 333 -blue 14:01, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That still has the problem of nearly being "list of famous Indians". It's still nearly indiscriminate. Mangoe (talk) 14:49, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It's already limited to notable Hindus, i.e., those who have articles. It's simply a matter of style preference that we don't include such self-referential criteria as "notable" in the list title. See WP:LISTNAME: "The title is not expected to contain a complete description of the list's subject. Many lists are not intended to contain every possible member, but this does not need to be explained in the title itself. For example, the correct choice is List of people from the Isle of Wight, not List of people who were born on or strongly associated with the Isle of Wight and about whom Wikipedia has an article. Instead, the detailed criteria for inclusion should be described in the lead, and a reasonably concise title should be chosen for the list. Best practice is usually to avoid words like notable, famous, noted, prominent, etc. in the title of a list article. Similarly, avoid titles like List of all Xs." Confusion on this point seems to be at the heart of many list AFDs, as people mistakenly think titling an article "list of Xs" somehow magically compels us to include every X that exists, and then they say we must delete that straw man. postdlf (talk) 16:19, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~Delete~~. This is absolute listcruft and is essentially indiscriminate. A list of people notable for their practice of Hinduism might be narrow enough of a topic. --Non-Dropframe _talk 15:08, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Hinduism-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:10, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 16:10, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The potential size of a list is not a reason to delete because it is our policy that Wikipedia is not paper and so there's no practical limit to the amount of information we can hold. See also List of Christians; List of Muslims; List of Jews; List of Buddhists, &c. It would be absurd to delete one of the world's major religions while keeping the others. Andrew D. (talk) 16:44, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The lists that you've cited are in fact lists of lists (the exception being the Buddhism list which is a list of Buddhists notable within Buddhism). The article in question is a single list of names which, if properly populated, has the potential to be thousands of names long. I could accept an argument for keeping the article and turning it into a list of list like your examples but keeping it in its current form would be nonsensical and a fairly useless resource. --Non-Dropframe _talk 18:12, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Big lists are naturally split across many pages. But we're not here to discuss the exact format or structure; that's ordinary editing. We're to decide whether to delete this list topic in its entirety, i.e. make it a red link. That has not been done in those other cases and so it should not be done in this one either. Andrew D. (talk) 20:52, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Those are WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS problems of their own. You can talk about making a composite of lists (which I personally think is a clumsy thing that we shouldn't be doing) and there is maybe one of interest already (List of converts to Hinduism) but that's really something for a WP:TNT approach: unless someone is going to step up to do that rewrite, now, the list will remain an indiscriminate collection of Indians with bios indefinitely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mangoe (talk • contribs) 21:29, 2 October 2015

They aren't even WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. It's WP:OTHERSTUFFDOESNTEVENEXIST. Andrew linked us to non-existent lists that redirect to lists of lists. We aren't talking about a list of lists here, we're talking about a list. The deletion of this list does not preclude the creation of lists with narrower scope. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 15:52, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Being a big article is not a reason for deletion. This is a list with a clear inclusion criteria of a notable attribute. The issue of there being more than one billion is mis-leading, as the list on WP will be tailored to include only notable individuals (IE those with articles). If the list becomes too large, it can be split, per WP:SIZE. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 18:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Convert to a list of lists, e.g. List of Hindu gurus and saints, List of Hindu soldiers, List of Hindu Nobel laureates, etc. It's absurd to try to put every notable Hindu on a single list. Plus we're not losing much with this miserably inadequate list. It's missing Mahatma Gandhi for gods' sake.Clarityfiend (talk) 20:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. This list is incomplete garbage. I've converted Lists of Hindus from a redirect here to a list of lists, though there are surprising few lists. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:10, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete current list, and then Redirect to Lists of Hindus. The current list fails Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists: Selection criteria (also known as inclusion criteria or membership criteria) should be unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources. The criteria here, notable people who are or were Hindus are not supported by reliable sources. See also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. As to the list of lists mentioned by Non-Dropframe and Clarityfiend, that would be fine, but it is not this list. WP:TNT. --Bejnar (talk) 05:17, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and convert to list of lists per Lugnuts and Andrew D. I honestly don't understand most of the criticism above, which seems to ignore that we almost always limit lists of people to only those who have or merit articles, so the number of Hindus in the world is irrelevant. It's also not credible that who qualifies as "Hindu" is unverifiable, and for this list (and any appropriate sublists) that's all that reliable sources need to support. So keep per WP:LISTPURP and as complementary to Category:Hindus per WP:CLN. Everything else is editing; there are no valid deletion arguments here. postdlf (talk) 00:36, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Postdlf: It is fine to keep the title for a "list of lists", but you will have to wipe the existing content to do so. The reason that this list is "indescriminate information" is the same reason that a list of "notable people" would be indescriminate. There are not enough criteria to use to discriminate in any 'meaningful way. A "list of lists" would be just that, each linked list would have to justify itself according to the criteria at Wikipedia:Stand-alone lists and the policy at WP:NOT. But aside from the title, there is nothing to save here, hence WP:TNT. Articles may be improved during Afd, so if you wanted to wipe the page and do a "list of lists", each having selection criteria that are unambiguous, objective, and supported by reliable sources, as well as narrow enough to meet the challenge of being called indescriminate, then that would be bold. --Bejnar (talk) 15:26, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I'm understanding your comment about what you think is "indiscriminate" here; it seems to just represent a point that has already been responded to (including by me) but I don't see anything in this latest comment that reflects that. Beyond that, I don't think TNT is a constructive approach in most cases. postdlf (talk) 22:13, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are not enough criteria currently in use for the list to discriminate in any meaningful way. That is why a list of lists would work, since there would be additional criteria that would give each list meaning, and greater utlility. That's the difference between indescriminate info and meaningful info. --Bejnar (talk) 07:09, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I can only understand that as you thinking the "list of [notable people who are verifiably] Hindus" is too broad. But given that you think subdivided lists would not be too broad, and there is substantively no difference between subheaders (as the list currently has) and sublists, you do not have a deletion argument, because no matter what we have a viable topic that can be improved through further editing. Which only leaves you with your TNT opinion, for which there is clearly not consensus. postdlf (talk) 23:03, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To get a list of list, you will have to remove all the existing content, and its edit history will not be relevent to the resulting article. That's what I am saying. Normally that is called WP:TNT, if you want to call it something else, be my guest. --Bejnar (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense. To convert this to a list of lists, you would split off the existing content into sublists following WP:SPLIT, thus retaining the history, and then develop each sublist by expanding it. Not every subdivision would merit a separate list, however, and so it would probably make sense to expand first this master list until it got developed to the point where WP:SIZE merited splitting off particular subgroups, to then be replaced within this title by links to those lists, while retaining those subdivisions for which there were few entries. Many of the subcategories in Category:Hindus by nationality have few entries, and so it would not make sense to make separate lists for all of them. Bottom line, deleting this title first helps no one and accomplishes nothing (nor does this discussion for that matter). postdlf (talk) 23:34, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I know it is frustrating, and I empathise. Which means I am not going to convince you that the better way is to put in the existing lists, such as List of Hindu gurus and saints, List of Hindu soldiers, List of Hindu Nobel laureates, List of converts to Hinduism, etc. and then as new lists are developed add them in. --Bejnar (talk) 00:51, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

STRONG CONVERT to a "list of list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahfuzur rahman shourov (talk • contribs) 16:25, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Convert to list of lists. Changing my previous "delete" !vote. Still standing by my previous point that the list as it stands is useless. --Non-Dropframe _talk 22:41, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Swarm ♠ 06:40, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Convert to a list of lists. A complete list of notable Hindus would be impractical. Bharatiya29 (talk) 06:52, 10 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Delete~~ Redirect - Clearly not an appropriate topic for a list. By "convert", it seems people mean "get rid of this article and create a totally new one on a different topic (lists of Hindus rather than Hindus), then redirect this title to that new article". That's not a sensible outcome for AfD. It's the equivalent of "Redirect to a page that will be created later". If you're using neither the content nor even the title of the article we're discussing, the outcome is delete. If there's a redirect target, we could redirect, but it doesn't make sense to close an afd as "create a redirect target and redirect to it". Deletion doesn't preclude the creation of other articles, lists, or lists or lists, and doesn't preclude redirecting this when an appropriate target emerges. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right. I didn't notice that List of Christians actually redirects to Lists of Christians, etc. So, I'm changing my lvote and will convert the redirect Lists of Hindus into a real list. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:10, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for creating the list of lists. Updated my !vote to redirect there like the others. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 23:14, 12 October 2015 (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.