Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of murders

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. Consensus is that the topic is too broad to be usefully presented under the header of one list. This does not preclude recreation with a more manageable scope, such as a list of notable murder cases. The "keep" opinions are mostly very superficial and make little or no argument for why this should be retained. Sandstein 10:33, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

List of murders[edit]

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One of these endless lists with no definable criteria for inclusion, nor it will never confines to our policy of neutral point of view for the rationale of what be considered a murder. Delete Pokerkiller (talk) 01:54, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Keep WP:NOTDUP of Category:Murder. Although it currently sounds more like "List of murder victims" than "List of murder (cases)", the issues appear expectably surmountable, like limiting to cases with articles only. 野狼院ひさし u/t/c 05:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Crime-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 07:10, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Keep I agreee with Hisashiyarouin, the article does however need some improvement. -- Kethrus |talk to me 08:57, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
~~Uncertain, simply because we have so many lists of murders that I wonder if it might not be more useful to divide the cases listed here among the many more specific Category:Death-related lists.~~E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:43, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - list is needed. period.BabbaQ (talk) 16:07, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
- Can you give a policy based rationale for keeping? Pokerkiller (talk) 16:25, 2 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
keep Taking User:BabbaQ's point. Some notable murders do not fit neatly into a sub-category.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:22, 1 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. This is just ridiculous. If anything rename it to "List of notable murders" and require all additions to have their own wiki-article. --Fixuture (talk) 18:07, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete These kind of items are better treated with categories and subcategories instead of an incomplete list. Dimadick (talk) 21:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Uncompletable, amorphous list. Steve Biko and a victim of Jack the Ripper?!? Carrite (talk) 23:24, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, North America¹⁰⁰⁰ 01:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete or rename. There is no way the article could ever be a comprehensive as a list of all murders (which is what the current title seems to promise readers), and in general I think this is better handled through the use of categories. However, I like the idea of a "list of notable murders" that established clear criteria for inclusion.TheBlueCanoe 03:05, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per WP:NOTDUP. Lugnuts ^{Dick Laurent is dead} 09:32, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Rename As said by TheBlueCanoe, there is no possible way that every murder can be listed. I also propose renaming to "List of notable murders". In addition the article's style is hard to read and I would propose creating a table with the killings sorted by date instead of by name, as well as removing the image galleries. Mr.Bob.298 (talk) 18:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Convert to a list of lists, e.g. List of murders committed by serial killers, List of unsolved deaths (which includes murders), List of assassinations, List of murdered popes, etc., and get rid of assassinations and victims without articles. Way too unwieldy as a single list. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:16, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Second time I've seen "convert" today to mean "create a totally different list (of lists rather than of murders) so that we can redirect to it". If we're not using the content or even the title of the article under discussion, the outcome of the AfD is delete or redirect if there's a sensible target. AfD doesn't mandate the creation of a new article. Anyone can just do that and then redirect this title to the new list of lists. Great intentions, but outside the scope of AfD. Also, WP:NOTDUP is a straw man. I don't see anyone arguing that as a reason for deletion. By the same logic we could have List of events because it's not a duplicate of Category:Events. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:12, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear, this is a delete without prejudice to redirecting and/or merging to an appropriate venue. --or even Userfying until such a venue is found to preserve the work. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:14, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

~~I'll probably get around to creating~~ I've created Lists of murders ~~soon~~. In the meantime, the conversion is off. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strong delete. I will preface my comment by saying that I almost always advocate for improvement rather than deletion (per WP:ATD and "don't throw the baby out with the WP:BATHWATER"). However, there are a two reasons why deletion is appropriate here:

There is no reasonably way to limit the scope of this list: According to WP:SALAT, "[l]ists that are too general or too broad in scope have little value." As a matter of policy, Wikipedia should not have lists of cases about a specific crime, infraction, tort, or sin. Wikipedia does not have a list of Clean Water Act violations, a list of burglaries, or a list of arsons. I am sure you could find many notable examples of each, but a comprehensive list of such crimes would be far too broad to be of any use.
The selection criteria for this list are ambiguous and subjective: WP:LSC says that selection criteria for standalone lists must be "unambiguous" and "objective". The legal definition of "murder" varies between jurisdictions, so there are no clear standards for inclusion. Similarly, the definition of "murder" has changed over time and the definition of "murder" varies across different cultures.

Consequently, this list should be deleted. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 07:56, 15 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - per Notecardforfree's excellent analysis. Onel5969 ^{TT me} 14:01, 16 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.