Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Bell (surname)

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. —Quarl ^(talk) 2007-03-16 12:53Z

[edit] Bell (surname)

Bell (surname) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

As a list, this is an indiscriminate collection of information and redundant to search. As a dab page it's pretty much useless and redundant to more specific dab pages like Mark Bell. Why maintain this in addition to those? kingboyk 00:23, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep not indiscriminate, list of Bells with Wikipedia entries. Nardman1 00:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep Surely if we can keep indiscriminate video game characters, we can keep legitimate surnames. Denni^talk 01:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. WP:NOT#IINFO doesn't seem to apply, as this is a disambiguation page.--TBCΦtalk? 02:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Delete An indiscriminate list; bad precedent. Would every surname be entitled to such a list, then? If not, what's so special about Bells?Betnap 03:21, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • (Edit conflict) Most surnames are disambiguation pages. There are hundreds of similar pages listed in Category:Surnames.--TBCΦtalk? 04:15, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. There already is precedent, as a look at Jones or Johnson will show. Alternatively, we could move the page to Famous people with the surname Bell per Famous people with the surname Smith. — Brian (talk) 04:14, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep These surname disambiguation lists are invaluable navigation tools for when you cannot remember parts of subjects' names. --Canley 08:02, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep agree with Canley - if a user is unable to remember a person's name, or simply types the person's name in, the disambigs are very useful.SMC 09:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep - As explained above, this isn't an indiscriminate list - it's just a rather long disambiguation page. -- Chairman S. Talk ^Contribs 10:34, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
• This isn't really what disambiguation pages are for. Nobody could reasonably expect something as generic as "Bell" to be disambiguated (there could be thousands of entries). Furthermore, we have to maintain 2 sets of pages here, the Bells list and the more specific (and proper) dab pages like Mark Bell. At the very least shorten the list by listing Mark Bell as one link to that dab page or doing some transclusion. Otherwise, the result is likely to be a badly maintained mess. --kingboyk 13:19, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
  • In the English language, people are often referred to by their surnames, especially if the speaker or writer doesn't personally know the person. As such, it's completely logical that surnames need to be disambiguated. For example, Bill Clinton is often referred to as President Clinton and Barack Obama is often referred to as Senator Obama.--TBCΦtalk? 05:35, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

• Keep Well-organized aid to finding information in the encyclopedia. The precise opposite of "indiscriminate." If it's not what disambiguation pages are for, then remove the disambiguation template. Fg2 07:40, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
• Keep per above.--Dwaipayan (talk) 19:45, 13 March 2007 (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.