Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of redheads (3rd nomination)

This discussion was subject to a deletion review on 2013 February 4.
For an explanation of the process, see Wikipedia:Deletion review.

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 keep.

While some view hair colour as common, red hair has been the subject of reliable publications such as TIME Magazine. The delete camp largely cites WP:INDISCRIMINATE as the reason for deletion, while the keep camp cites there being enough reliable sources making it not applicable. The deciding factor here that keeps this AfD out of 'no consensus' is the clause "To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources" which is not addressed in the merge/delete arguments. Also, the argument "what's next", list x and list y (even if it's a red link) is a fundamental argument to avoid because articles are looked at separately. If such lists were properly sourced (no matter how unlikely) they would technically meet WikiPolicy. This AfD should not be a means to prevent other articles from being created; creation of a guideline would be though. (A bold non-admin closure) Mkdw ^talk 08:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of redheads[edit]

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I don't see why a list of people with red hair is relevant to an encyclopedia. This probably doesn't even list anywhere near the actual amount of notable redheads. And how exactly is the "Encyclopedia of Hair", a source that almost every listing relies on, a reliable source? H. W. Calhoun (talk) 00:30, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. 00:32, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Keep Though this is of zero interest to me, we debated this less than ten weeks ago, and the consensus was to keep the article. Why go through the debate again? Let's allow consensus to stand. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 00:53, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't actually see the second listing, I only saw the one from 2006. I still think it should be deleted. There were better reasons to delete it than keep it last nomination anyway. H. W. Calhoun (talk) 01:05, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Keep Various sources are cited which have listed notable persons born with the rarest natural haircolor . "It is silly" is just another way of saying "IDONTLIKEIT" and is not an effective reason for deletion. Edison (talk)
Merge to red hair per WP:NOTDIR. About 2% of the population has red hair. A comparable percentage of people have type II diabetes or green eyes. Given that we have over 1 million biography articles, if this list were complete, it would contain around 20,000 names. Any list that long becomes an WP:INDISCRIMINATE collection of information. Also troubling are the inclusion of historical figures that are "traditionally portrayed with red hair". Gobōnobō ⁺ ^c 05:29, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Anyone can change their hair colour, bust size or what-have-you any time they want (and public figures often do) Exit2DOS ^{• Ctrl • Alt • Del} 21:14, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - wholly indiscriminate and not really defining - and the tip of a potentially very silly iceberg. List of blondes? List of people with a mole over the right edge of their lip? - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 10:18, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep The topic satisfies WP:LISTN as there are multiple good sources which have listed notable redheads as a group. This is a significant attribute as many of the individuals listed here were so famous as redheads that they were named accordingly, e.g. William Rufus, Eric the Red or Frederick Barbarossa. The claims that the list is too large to be manageable are false as it is currently just a modest 11K and there has been no great rush of additions. We have many larger lists of people such as List of swimmers, List of writers, List of scientists, List of bow tie wearers, &c. All that is needed when such a list becomes large is a split by some suitable sub-category such as decade or country so we can cross that bridge as and when we come to it. To delete the article for such a hypothetical and unproven reason would be contrary to our editing policy. Warden (talk) 13:55, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep They get coverage for being redheads. Type in any of the names on the list and "redhead" OR "red hair" and you get results. When reliable sources talk about them, they mention this aspect of them. Dream Focus 15:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC), since we're just doing the same exact AFD as we did two months ago, I'll just copy and paste my post from then. Dream Focus 14:38, 28 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - WP:INDISCRIMINATE. what next List of brown haired people, List of lefthanded redheads. LibStar (talk) 04:25, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
- Might as well. No real reason why not...--143.105.49.234 (talk) 15:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Keep due to discriminate nature of list, clearly list is specifically about redheads. --143.105.49.234 (talk) 15:43, 29 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Speedy Keep per the recent AfD. As the sources in the article show, red heads are often listed in sources and given in depth coverage as a group. This interesting and encyclopedic topic easily passes even the strictest reading of WP:LISTN. FeydHuxtable (talk) 19:48, 31 January 2013 (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.