Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of virgins/2005-11-18

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 keep. → Ξxtreme Unction {^yakł_blah} 22:50, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] List of virgins

Despite working on it I did think from the beginning this list is very hard to verify and possibly absurd. As I recall several of these people were married. Granted there are celibate marriages, but I think that's generally not the way to bet it. Also T'is the season.--T. Anthony 03:24, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• keep mainly because I see absolutely no reason to delete! UkPaolo 14:06, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• This afd nomination was orphaned. Listing now. —Crypticbot (operator) 16:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete per nomination. -- Grande 17:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Whether individuals listed actually did have sex is not verifiable; but the list description is clear that people are listed on the basis that part of their reason for noteriety is their reputation as virginal. That reputation is verifiable (writers make the claim, etc).
• Iffy, but I'll vote keep as there are enough famous persons out there such as Newton whose virginity is of historical interest. Recommend renaming the article to List of famous virgins, however, otherwise it just opens the door to pranksters listing the class nerd. (Looks like such a redirect is already in place; it just needs to be reversed.)23skidoo 19:00, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• agree with the need to rename to List of famous virgins per 23skidoo. _└^UkPaolo/_TALK^┐ 19:49, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

• • I'd be okay with a rename, but whether something is interesting or not isn't necessarily important. A List of people who never tried coffeee could also be interesting to someone, but issues of verifiability would still be hard. Also there are people whose religion was of historical interest, but there seems to be little problem deleting those.(So I guess this was bad faith, sorry. Although this does strike me as silly)--T. Anthony 23:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. If this article is useful in something, is to propose some grat people as paradigms when others criticise your mature virginity and show that sexual life is not always 'the standard'. Ok, sounds funny, but I really find this article informative. Pictureuploader 19:13, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and rename as per 23skidoo. Just don't give us List of Jewish virgins, please — or even worse, List of Catholic virgins. Anville 20:37, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep as above. No need to rename, we don't need to change List of actors to List of famous actors, or Lists of people to Lists of famous people. There's no need. Trollderella 20:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep and rename per 23 skidoo. Youngamerican 21:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Isn't there a policy agreement not to name things the way that you are proposing? We don't do this in any other list. Trollderella 21:07, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Please cite such a policy if there is one. As it stands now, and this is a problem I have with many lists, the criteria based upon the name is too vast. 23skidoo 00:59, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Lists. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:09, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks MGM - "Lists Convention: Put a list of Xs as list of Xs, rather than Xs, famous Xs, listing of important Xs, list of noted Xs, list of all Xs, etc. See wikipedia:list. Consider making a category instead of a list: categories are easier to maintain (but less flexible)." Trollderella 21:44, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep — kind of interesting. Needs a verification tag, not an AfD. — RJH 23:10, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: Any people listed will automatically be famous/prominent or otherwise important, or they wouldn't warrant an encyclopedia entry. A list is a collection of entries and thus there's no need to explicitly state the people in it are famous. It's implied already and would make the title unneccesarily long. - Mgm|^(talk) 17:03, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. Just restored the AfD tag, removed by an anonymous user about 6 hours ago. Please keep an eye on the page. Turnstep 03:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. Seems to be a fairly good criteria prominently stated at the top of the page: "who have been famous for their virginity". Turnstep 03:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
• Keep. The reason that this is not the usual cruft of List of XYZ is that the list is of people who are in fact, notable for being XYZ. MCB 07:21, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

In some cases yes. However except for a few saints and maybe pop singers whose notability comes even partly from being a virgin? Many of these people are noted as eccentrics, but not specifically as virgins. Plus not doing something is not all that much of an accomplishment. We do have List of teetotalers, which is an oldfashiony name for "List of non-alcohol drinkers", but in least there's some kind of political or historical justification. Possibly, in line with the eccentric one, it could be renamed ""List of people known for being virgins" as that's a bit more ambiguous.(You can be known for it without it necessarily being true) Or the most appropriate names could be put in the article on Virginity.--T. Anthony 12:47, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

BTW-I am aware there is also a List of people who claimed never to sleep, but I haven't checked it out for months. It seemed interesting as an idea at first, but it seems to be going nowhere. I don't really want to put it on delete, I'll avoid that after this as I rarely do deletes right, but if it were I don't think I'd vote to keep it either. Although in least it does modify it. If it claimed these people really never slept because of their "powers" that'd just be weird.--T. Anthony 13:03, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Just plain silly. If this was a list of people who are primarily known for their virginity, I might buy it, but that would be a pretty short list (The Virgin Mary. Period.) As it is, just about every significant religious leader, monk, nun etc could go on this list. How about a List of people who pretended to be virgins but got a bit on the side? That would be much more interesting and useful. --Lee Hunter 02:55, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Seems useful... Given the pressures towards intercourse, its an interesting tidbit, and good for citing in arguments. Besides, I did come looking for it. ^_^(Though trim the religious figures a bit, just a one-line mention should do it for virgin priests, they're supposed to be. --Birdboy2000 05:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep ¿No namespace overlapping, what's the harm?--Ewok Slayer 17:07, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. --JJay 18:35, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep article seems good to me. Alf ^melmac 08:45, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

WP:NOT#1.7 Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information says they have to be noted for it or made contributions to it. How many of these people do you think are even secondarily noted as virgins? I'd never heard that Newton was a virgin before this and frankly I still kind of doubt it. Some people just don't talk about their sex lives, it doesn't mean they don't have one. In other cases it's even more out there. In least it seems like it could be renamed "alleged virgins" or "considered virgins" and then limited to people noted for it.--T. Anthony 15:51, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Where does it say that? I couldn't find it. Trollderella 16:05, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

At 1.7 then 2. It's kind of been significant in culling several lists.--T. Anthony 16:58, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry - I really can't find it - does it actually say that, or is that an interpretation? Could you quote it for me? Thank you! Trollderella 17:59, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Okay. On the litany of what they aren't, "Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as quotations, aphorisms or persons. If you want to enter lists of quotations, put them into our sister project Wikiquote. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic. Wikipedia also includes reference tables and tabular information for quick reference." Now did Tesla significantly contribute to virginity? Was he some sort of activists for it? Likewise if it turned out Newton fathered a bunch of illegitimate kids would it effect his role in history much or at all? The only cases where I see this matter is where they were advocates for virginity, like religious figures, or they were in a famous legal case showing they were a virgin(like Ruskin), or in cases where it lead to unproven allegations of homosexuality.(Which in the nineteenth century and earlier could be dangerous) If it could be whittled down to such people I could maybe see it. As for the Virgin Mary I think the dispute there is that in many Protestant faiths it is believed she was a virgin when she had Jesus, but not afterward. That Jesus had siblings and that these came through the union of Mary and Joseph. Orthodoxy I think teaches the "brothers" mentioned in the Bible are children from an earlier marriage of Joseph. Catholicism states they were cousins. I don't think Islam is concerned with the issue, but I believe it does state Mary was ever virgin until death. Still in the English speaking world the Protestant view is quite important and their concerns couldn't be dismissed without getting POV.(Although a better word then "disputed" might be used. Maybe "not universally accepted" or something)--T. Anthony 13:23, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment: Its funny how the virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is disputed, but not that of Britney Spears, to cite two eminent figures on this list. I guess I forgot that part in the bible when Our Lady got drunk and married her childhood friend in Sodom. Of course, the list may provide a valuable service in case the Catholic Church ever seeks new virginal candidates for veneration. What a crock. -- JJay 17:44, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

• I don't even know why Britney Spears is on the list. I think she was on it a while ago, and then someone removed her, and apparently someone's put her back on? Silliness. And I have no problem with putting "disputed" tags on everyone listed, but what we should do is have a link next to each "disputed" leading to a source that has actually disputed it, and do the same for the opposite side: require noteworthy sources to include any contentious individual on the list. -Silence 19:57, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• Luckily, the Bible is not an infallible source of divine information; something is not so because it says it is so. The day it is, we'll put you in charge of lists so we can straighten this whole thing out easily. -Silence 07:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment: I'd rather you were in charge of it since you already know that the Bible is not an infallible source of divine information. I just find it amusing that the list adds a warning for Mary but not Britney. Of course, there should be a disputed tag on most everyone on the list. -- JJay 18:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure this was a bad faith nomination (T. Anthony's made a few of these nominations to make a point recently because some lists he's worked hard on have recently been VfDed), but maybe it just seems that way to me because I can't find a single valid reason on this entire page to actually delete this thing. Odd. "Hard to verify" is no more a qualifier for deletion than "possibly absurd"—we have plenty of absurd Featured Articles, for god's sake!
  • A few? I've only done two others in my whole time here that I recall. Putting List of agnostics on AfD was bad faith and I've repented of that in a huge way. The only other truly bad faith nomination I made was Nationmaster to shock them from their snarky edit wars. This was partly bad faith, but partly not. Because how is this not a random association of people with almost nothing in common? What does Brittney Spears have in common with Samuel Tilden? How did these people contribute to virginity? How are they well known for being associated with it? This was bad faith in the sense that if it hadn't been for that spate of deletions I wouldn't have cared. However when I was working on it I really did think this was pointless and silly. Or at the very least I think it needs renamed to "List of alleged virgins." Also I've argued for deletion here, in cases where I was acting in bad faith I at most gave a non-committal "maybe I was doing the right thing for the wrong reasons" kinds of statements.--T. Anthony 09:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
• "I'd never heard that Newton was a virgin before this and frankly I still kind of doubt it." - Comments like this are a better validation for why this article is valuable than any argument I could make. :) This stuff is interesting, and not common knowledge. Newton is indeed relatively famous for his virginity (though obviously no hard evidence exists that he remained a virgin, just as there is no hard evidence for most general information on historical figures), but the fact that it's not totally mainstream knowledge makes the more more useful than if everyone already knew everything on it!
  • If this is so then most lists on the basis of little known facts should be kept. For example List of cat haters should've survived. Also I imagine many people don't know which celebrities are lactose intolerant so should there be List of lactose intolerant people?--T. Anthony 09:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• "List of cat haters" was deleted because it was trivial and POV, not because it was "hard to research" :) "Cat hater" is a POV expression, and a list of people who dislike a specific type of animal is not significant (possibly "List of people famous for hating a species of animal" or similar in the future). Virginity, on the other hand, is a valid and long-lasting topic of great historical interest, and noteworthy people who have been very strongly considered virgins, either today or in the past, are a worthy encyclopedic topic. Also, "cat hater" is relatively unencyclopedic because it's much, much harder to falsify than virginity: people change their interests over the course of their life, and being cruel to cats at some point doesn't necesarily mean you "hate" them, so unless someone wrote a treatise on how horrible cats are, how can we establish them as "cat haters"? Most of the entries in "cat haters" were based on a singular event where a person wasn't especially nice to cats, whereas most of the entries in "list of virgins" are based on a lifetime of apparent celibacy that was marked enough to make that individual famous for it afterwards. And even if it was all just an act, as long as we provide sources for all the disputable entries on the list, there's no reason whatsoever not to provide that information, anymore than there's reason to not provide information on any disputable, but noteworthy, topic. -Silence 19:54, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• "Just plain silly. If this was a list of people who are primarily known for their virginity, I might buy it, but that would be a pretty short list (The Virgin Mary. Period.)" - Isn't cultural ignorance swell? :3 Yes, the only person famous for his/her virginity in all of human history is the Virgin Mary. Whee. And Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas!
• And, incidentally, the day this article is renamed to "List of famous virgins" is the day I quit Wikipedia forever. :) That is positively the worst suggestion I have ever heard in my entire life, and betrays a shocking lack of understanding of Wikipedia lists, categories, and articles in general that would require us to do silly things like changing every "YEAR deaths" to "Famous YEAR deaths" ("famous 1887 deaths" instead of "1887 deaths"), every "Category:African-Americans" to "Category:Famous African-Americans", every "List of sexual positions" to "List of famous sexual positions", and hundreds of thousands of other pages besides. All lists are inherently assumed to only include noteworthy and famous entries; including it in the title of the page would be the worst kind of redundancy possible. .. I'm glad we're thinking, though! :D -Silence 07:43, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Oops I hadn't seen this was you Silence. Sorry if I sounded snarky above. Anyway I don't think I agreed with naming it famoud virgins, because I think that sounds silly. However when it comes to uncertain things it has become common to add purported or considered. Like List of people widely considered eccentric or List of purported cults. I'd prefer purported or considered be added, but I don't support the "famous" word being added.--T. Anthony 09:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

• Sometimes that's the case, but then, look at List of agnostics and many similar lists. :) If we mention in the article where there's concerns and cite plenty of sources and describe each entry properly (as I've recommended for this article above, and is a good way to start cleaning up the article; sorry if I was too snappy above, it's just that I'm starting to get a bit tired of people nominating lists for VfD every time they see a problem with the list text rather than with the subject matter—a cleanup tag is so much more helpful than a VfD one!), then we can leave the article at its current name just fine. Plus if we don't do that, we could set up a precedent where people will start changing every list of people into a "list of purported X" even when there are only a couple of people listed who are disputed and everyone else on the list is certain. "Purported" should be reserved for things like retrospective diagnoses on autism and epilepsy (as it is now), since those are the truly speculative things, trying to apply recent terminology to historical individuals; the science of virginity, on the other hand, has changed relatively little since thousands of years ago. :) -Silence 19:54, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

"a cleanup tag is so much more helpful than a VfD one" I very much agree. I wish some of the lists I'd worked on had been given verify or cleanup first. In many cases I wasn't given any sense there was a problem until they were put on a delete vote. I would've in least liked a warning in the talk page.

That said this list has received warnings before. I failed to mention it, but this was not the first time this was placed on VfD. Also the subject itself does strike me as kind of weird and unencyclopedic or unreferencelike. I've seen lists by religion, race, ethnicity, and in modern times sexual orientation in reference books. I don't think I've ever seen lists concerning virginity anywhere. Also by the logic of allowing this list it seems to open the door on general sexual behavior lists. Do we really want List of people with over a 1000 sexual partners or List of people who fathered kids after 90?--T. Anthony 04:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Although I see that nomination was withdrawn. The list also seems to be improving. I might withdraw and switch to a verify tag tomorrow depending on circumstances.--T. Anthony 04:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: how, pray tell, do we verify this list? - Ta bu shi da yu 03:57, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
• Delete - unverifiable and hardly encyclopedic. Taw 21:14, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

I was considering withdrawal, but there seems to be enough valid delete votes I won't. Although certain things make me uncertain. Still I think it'll likely be kept and this discussion seems useful so carry on.--T. Anthony 06:05, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete - seriously StabRule 23:36, 27 November 2005 (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.