Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Top 100 historical figures

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 but retitle. Several delete arguments were based on the poor quality of the methodology. This might be a matter for comment in-article but does nothing to detract from the subject notability, consequently, such arguments have been discounted. Several contributors suggested merging. This close has no comment on that and leaves it for further discussion on the article talk page SpinningSpark 18:07, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Top 100 historical figures[edit]

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Such a study would have to be covered in secondary sources to be suitable for an article. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:16, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete No secondary sources, as nom said. Also, frankly, the study does not seem all that successful. The fact that Carl Linnaeus developed our system of naming living things, and so is cited in thousands of WP articles, should not make him the number 1 historical figure. Borock (talk) 15:40, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 18:44, 10 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment It does cite a PLOS One article[1] and there is some third-party media coverage[2][3]. So it's not a million miles from notability. However, I wonder if there's a suitable merge target in one of the many articles about Wikipedia on Wikipedia. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:52, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
- The PLOS One article is just the study itself, it's a primary source. You're right that a merge would be more appropriate than keeping this as a separate article, but I'm still not sure even that is warranted; the two secondary sources both point out that the study's methodology is poor. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 15:07, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I am the article's initial author (HarryBoston). I am not philosophically opposed to either (1) improving the article (me or some other author), or (2) merging into an existing article. I am opposed to outright deletion. FYI: I am no way connected to the academic study or any of the articles or references cited.--HarryBoston (talk) 17:27, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete or merge to List of rankings of historical figures, to include The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History and Who's Bigger?. Clarityfiend (talk) 00:01, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I think it can be a rather useful article if the title, of text, points that this is

"Top 100 historical figures of Wikipedia". There are different algorithms used by different research groups based ONLY on Wikipedia content. In this respect this is purely mathematical and statsitical determination of top 100 being of principle difference from the approach used by Hart who used historical and other type arguments but which can be dependent of a researcher. Nevertheless this is overlap of about 43 percent between the list of Hart and other groups. I add other references and links to research and methods of other groups. I vote to keep this article (but may be to make a small addition "of Wikipedia" to distinguish with Hart).--shepelyansky (talk) 19:34, 12 June 2014 (CET)

Re-title. While the content may have value in certain articles, the bold title invokes a subject much broader and open to interpretation than the list generated by Eom et al., and focusing solely on it constitutes significant bias by omission (see WP:POVNAMING and WP:NDESC). There may be well be hundreds of "top 100" lists published throughout history and around the world (e.g. Who's Bigger?, Time 100, and The Best 100): some generated by voting, some by algorithms, some by expert opinion, but all subject to inherent caveats, limitations, and biases (cultural, temporal, etc.), and, unless the collective lists themselves have received significant secondary comparison, simply listing all lists would be banal and tedious. However, this same article re-titled Top 100 historical figures of Wikipedia would provide more appropriate scope, with a more clearly-defined subject per WP:PRECISE, and the two press articles mentioned above may support stand-alone notability.--Animalparty-- (talk) 18:47, 12 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep It got significant coverage, and after the AfD-nomination, the article has improved significantly. The sourcing is OK now. Still, the article got issues, as stated by the users above. That means that these issues must be solved by renaming and/or merging. Therefore I propose keeping it, and making it ready for a next round of editing. Addition: and if the article doesn't improve within a few months, I don't mind for another AfD-nomination.Jeff5102 (talk) 13:37, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, slakr^\ talk / 01:55, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion so a clearer consensus may be reached.

Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, NorthAmerica¹⁰⁰⁰ 05:01, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. There is substantial coverage, including linked New York Times article here. I gather from comments above that i am looking at a substantially improved article. It is now, at least, clearly well supported and the topic is notable. --do ncr am 05:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Delete - Entirely subjective list, thoroughly unecyclopedic. So French researchers have found that Napoleon Bonaparte is the most influential figure in history?!?! What a surprise. Next thing you know, American researchers will come up with a list ranking George Washington number one. Then Russian researchers can come up with a list with V. I. Lenin in the top slot. Then we can edit war!!! Carrite (talk) 17:13, 3 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I agree with your way of reasoning, but in this case, it doesn't fit. It were French researchers, using mathematical and statistical methods from the Wikipedia database. And they came up with a Swedish biologist. So there is no subjectivity issue here. Only a notability issue. Regards,Jeff5102 (talk) 07:20, 4 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Delete. Gives undue weight to a particular method of ranking. From the sources, it is clear that some of the resulting quirks resulted in this study gained plenty of news coverage, but that is short-term coverage only and due to the WP:NOTNEWS policy, insufficient. We would need more long-lasting scholarly attention for this to be notable. (Even then, the title would need to change, this article is more about Wikiedia's coverage of history than it is about historical figures as the title suggests.) Sjakkalle (Check!) 04:15, 10 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Keep but Re-title. The references prove it is notable, but the title is misleading. It was renamed to "Top 100 historical figures of Wikipedia". While it is improved, I am not sure this is a good title either.Frmorrison (talk) 17:53, 10 July 2014 (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.