Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of suicides (3rd 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 keep‎. While there's some back and forth on what the ideal representation of this information may be (whether as a category, split into other lists, or left to another Wikimedia project), editors agree that in the absence of existing alternatives, this meets WP:LISTN and can stand as-is. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 13:51, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

List of suicides[edit]

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Articles for deletion/List of suicides

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“Dynamic” list. Any useful purpose is better served by a category. Last nomination was in 2008. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Lists of people, and Lists. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete According to PetScan, there are over 27,000 articles in Category:Suicides and its subcategories. Most are biographies, though I am not certain how many of those are about people who committed suicide. This page, at time of writing, is nearly 500 KB of wikitext, with 1,170 entries. –LaundryPizza03 (d c̄) 12:47, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The length of the page is how it came to my attention, in fact. Always worth checking out Special:LongPages for anomalies (e.g. Tartan). RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 13:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep The rules are quite clear, you shouldn't try to delete a list because you prefer a category. The list has information about every entry so is far more useful than a category is. All entries have their own Wikipedia article. 1365 references in the article also. The length of an article is not a valid reason to delete it. If it ever got too long, then you can split it off into separate list as is already done in Category:Suicides. Dream Focus 13:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I’m concerned that the difficulty of ever making a complete list (of all notable people with their own articles who committed suicide) limits the usefulness of the list. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 08:24, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No article has to be complete. An article doesn't have to be WP:useful, although 144,103 people have viewed this article in the past 90 days. Dream Focus 01:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Yes this list is unwieldy, but at best it can be split up. Ajf773 (talk) 20:08, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am honestly not sure how you could split a list like this and keep it (or its splits) manageable. There are over three-quarters of a million suicides a year. There are tens of thousands of people who die by their own hands and (arguably) meet WP:N every year. What possible value would such a list serve? You might as well have an article list all left-handed people or all notable people who have took A-levels. I have to pick Delete on this one. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 14:01, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There are over three-quarters of a million suicides a year. How many of these have Wikipedia articles? There are tens of thousands of people who die by their own hands and (arguably) meet WP:N every year. A person only notable for committing suicide, and nothing else, would normally not qualify for an article per WP:BLP1E, so they would never make it to this list. StonyBrook _babble 14:32, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Globally, suicide accounts for somewhere between 1% and 2% of all deaths. It is a very common cause of death, more common than homicide (sensu lato, including warfare and capital punishment). If the proportion among people who have Wikipedia articles is even remotely similar, this is bound to be an extremely lengthy list if it is ever going to even approach being exhaustive. TompaDompa (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume split into alphabetical sub-articles, ordered by surname. Ajf773 (talk) 10:47, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think a potential breakup by date would be more helpful than by name. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 07:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I’m not against splitting up (perhaps by date) but as it stands the article is as much an incomplete monstrosity as the Ryugyong Hotel. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 07:46, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just a procedural keep as I originated the article and don't like things I originated to "go to waste". But I will also like to add that there should be a limit to the number of nominations for deletion articles can get because otherwise, 15 years from now, we will be talking about the same topic. Antonio The Best sucka of all them Martin (dimelooooo!) 18:56, 3 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Per WP:SPLITLIST and WP:PRESERVE, there are ways to address the length of an article, if needed—which I'm not even sure this one does. StonyBrook _babble 05:58, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- I daresay the potential length of this article, should it ever come close to including all the notable people who qualify, absolutely needs to be addressed. See my comment above. TompaDompa (talk) 18:29, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  - Hence my Delete !vote. I just don't see a way that such an article is maintainable or ever would be. It is a literally endless list. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 18:33, 4 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    What StonyBrook said, Keep.
    
    @Last1in There are a many lists on wikipedia that are more "literally endless", just one example: Lists of African Americans. Neozoen (talk) 21:45, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    Why do we need these things? Dronebogus (talk) 23:51, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    
    Neozoen, if those other endless lists appear in an AfD, I'll !vote the same way. They add nothing to the encyclopaedia but noise; are impossible to maintain; and are inherently controversial (which people to include and why). In fact, the very nature of suicide will make this a magnet for contention since whether a particular death was self-induced is often uncertain or disputed. In answer to Dronebogus: We don't. Cheers, Last1in (talk) 14:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Delete more as a protest vote because we don’t need huge lists of extremely common things with thousands and thousands and thousands of entries that provide no real information, probably aren’t actually used all that much for navigation, are poorly maintained, and largely just exist to crash slower computers. Dronebogus (talk) 23:59, 5 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] 144,103 page views of this article in the last 90 days. Some people do use it. My computer is slow and old and cheap and it never crashes. I got it nine and half years ago for 300 dollars and no problems with this article. Internet is faster these days, servers more powerful, so I doubt anyone had a problem. Dream Focus 01:28, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, this page has obvious utility. With nearly fifty-thousand page-views per month there can be no doubt that it is used by a great number of people (not that there is any kind of policy-based requirement that a page be frequently viewed in order to be kept, anyway). The page is not too long; Wikipedia is an electronic encyclopedia, and as such any claim that an article can be 'too long' is questionable to begin with. If the page were 'too long' for some technical reason, which does not appear to be the case here based off what some other editors have said, then the page should be split, not deleted. Anyone arguing that this list can never be complete, and should therefore be deleted, should be made aware of the fact that Wikipedia creates and maintains many dynamic lists which, by definition, can never be complete. This is not a reason for deletion, either. Joe (talk) 11:04, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep and split when necessary. I agree that a list with thousands of entries would be too big. Thankfully, it's easy to split. A good example of what Wikidata could probably do better than Wikipedia, but for the time being it's certainly going to meet WP:NLIST, contains more information than a category, doesn't duplicate it, and seems like there are many ways to split it up. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 13:54, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Would it be possible for you the “and split” part? RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:43, 11 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Keep as WP:VALUABLE at least for quick keyword searches of suicide cases. Suitskvarts (talk) 09:56, 11 August 2023 (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.