Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of virgin births

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 of the debate was NO CONSENSUS. — JIP | Talk 09:56, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] List of virgin births

• The list is filled with people who may or may not have existed in the first place. Mythological figures hardly deserve mention in a list such as this. Anakin Skywalker on this list is actually quite humorous. This should be deleted. A click to many of the people on the list makes no mention of any virgin birth. Pepsidrinka 02:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Note that the list has been moved to the talk page.

• Delete as silly. Hedley 02:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• keep We have pages on lord xenu, so why not this?
• Delete per WP:V unverfiyable --Pboyd04 02:49, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Comment This article should not exist in its present form (a list of names without any citations). Therefore, I have removed all the unsourced entries (that is to say, all of them) from the article and placed them in Talk:List of virgin births. I have edited the introductory paragraph to read "This article is about virgin births of any figures other than Jesus, accompanied by a verifiable reference to a source describing them as such." I have added an explanation on the Talk page. Naturally, there is no requirement that any of these characters be proved actually to have been the result of virgin births. Verifiability does not mean the fact must be proven, it means the source must be verifiable. The reason I dislike lists is that they tend to attract lazy insertions of unchecked, unsourced, unverified entries based on what people think they remember reading, etc. If people are willing to put in the work of creating a list that conforms to Wikipedia's policies on verifiability and source citations, I have no objection to it.

Those interested in keeping the article might begin by seeing which of our own articles on the already include a suitable citation that could be checked, then used in this article. The first couple I checked at random—Buddha, Prometheus—say nothing about a virgin birth, but Deganawidah does and it has a reference that checks out, so I'll do the first one. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

P. S. A separate issue, but if the list is kept it might not be a bad idea to move it to "List of virgin birth traditions". Or something like that. The existence of a virgin birth tradition is an easily demonstrated fact; the truth of an actual virgin birth is not. Dpbsmith (talk) 03:13, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

• Rename and keep as List of virgin birth traditions as per comment above; that's an excellent idea, for that results in a verifiable list. Antandrus (talk) 03:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep or merge with List of virgins. -- JJay 03:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Comment: a virgin is not the same thing as a virgin birth. -- Kjkolb 07:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
    • ...or merge with List of legends and myths...happy? -- JJay 07:32, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
      • Comment: I wasn't unhappy, just pointing it out as it seemed very odd. :-) Kjkolb 15:42, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nomination. Saberwyn - The Zoids Expansion Project 05:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete as per Pepsidrinka. -- Kjkolb 07:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep this article could be potentially useful for people lookig for this similarity. Jesus, etc. Even if you dont believe that these people were actually born to virgin's, the phenomenon of virgin births in mythology and the bible is more than notable. Savidan 07:58, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete. One entry isn't going to cut it. --Apostrophe 12:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and rename as List of virgin birth traditions or, even better, Virgin birth traditions. The latter article could provide some background for the supposed phenomenon, and discuss what some allege are links between virgin birth stories around the world and the story of Jesus's birth. The list alone would be valuble, but it would be so much more encyclopedic in the context of a fleshed-out article. - squibix 13:50, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Rename to virgin birth (now redirects here) and merge relevant content from elsewhere. It's obviously pertinent to various mythologies and analysing the overlap and difference would be a truly encyclopedic effort. JFW | T@lk 14:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Move to Virgin birth per Jfdwolf. KillerChihuahua^?!? 17:29, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete unless renamed to List of mythical virgin births or List of legendary virgin births. --Revolución (talk) 20:09, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
• Delete, Pavel Vozenilek 23:09, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
• Weak keep, as JFW suggested, mythology is relevant, but rename to List of mythical virgin births, as per Revolución. --Fenice 07:29, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. - Liontamer 22:00, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
• keep Good topic, and hopefully someone will do a more scholarly treatment, e.g., along the lines of http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/virgin_birth.html Jacksonpe 19:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
• Merge, Virgin Birth. or better it's parent article Reports of unusual religious childbirths--Samuel J. Howard 02:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
• Keep and rename - definitely encyclopedic (but would be better if expanded and presented other than as a list). Adambisset 19:03, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

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.