Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Germaine Haye

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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. -Splash - tk 19:54, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Germaine Haye

Germaine Haye (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs) – (View log)

Assertion of notability is that she was old, which is not a criterion in WP:BIO. The article contains no reliable sources, and the two that are there are not indpendent (one is to a yahoogroup run by the article's creator and main editor, and the other is to his employer), so there is no evidence that the subject has substantial coverage in multiple reliable sources. BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 13:35, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Delete fails WP:BIO or at the very least redirect. - Kittybrewster ☎ 14:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete this is not a biography it's a factoid. Guy (Help!) 18:16, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. Perfectly proper claim to notability makes it a fine stub. Not merely "old," but oldEST in France. No reason to believe this can't/won't be fleshed out into a worthwhile article. I think it would be best to let the current issues surrounding the article's creator die down before considering this deletion. -Pete 20:17, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect to List of the oldest people. Potential searchable term and a notable achievement but a biography should not exist. violet/riga (t) 21:22, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
    • As nominator, I would be happy to support redirection unless and until a proper article can be written using reliable sources. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 22:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
    • I'd be fine with that too, I'll change my position to Keep or Redirect. (Do note that she might not remain there terribly long, she's currently ranked 99 out of 100.) -Pete 22:05, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. The 100 documented oldest people of all time are notable. I expanded the article, with reliable source references (from Germany, France, and Brazil, showing international attention), and a somewhat interesting life. She was a published author (poetry). Please look again, folks. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 22:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment WP:BIO does not say that the 100 documented oldest people of all time are individually notable. AnonEMouse's research has significantly improved the article, but it's still more of a well-formed stub article than start-class. To my mind the question is whether there is any reasonable prospect of it being expanded, which should determine whether it is kept or merged. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 01:56, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Comment True, but doesn't the existence of three sources -- so independent of one another that they come from different countries -- establish notability? In my experience, it's very difficult to predict what articles will or won't get expanded, or expanded well. I prefer to "assume good faith" on the part of Wikipedia community as a whole, and leave the stub so that someone may expand if desired. I don't see the harm, on either a policy or a practical level, in leaving a well-crafted stub that includes citations. The stub does not give a false impression of greater notability than the subject merits, which in my opinion is the main reason for removing articles whose subject's notability is questionable. -Pete 06:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
        • Let's look a little more closely at the sources. One is a ref to a booksale site, usefully verifying the existence of the book, but not relevant to notabity. The longest story is the one from "Le Parisien", at 375 words, which barely qualifies as substantial. The German report is only 62 words long, which is definitely trivial, and the [Brazilian report] is only 150 words, also trivial. I find it hard to imagine that either the German or Brazilian papers sent a reporter off to France to file such short stories, so have to presume that those are based on news agency reports, and hence probably not independent. So all we are left with is one marginally substantial report, and two trivial ones of questionable independence, which leaves notability rather marginal per WP:BIO.
          The sparsity of sources doesn't surprise me, because stories such as this often don't get more than a brief mention, and that's why I question whether there is a realistic prospect that the articles can be expanded beyond a stub. With subjects such as this where notability is marginal and more detailed sources unlikely, it is much more appropriate to combine these very brief articles in list articles, without prejudice to splitting them out if and when more substantial sources become available rather than creating a proliferation of articles which are likely to remain peramstubs. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 11:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
          • C'est la vie', eh? :-) Yes, it's a stub, but that's not a reason for deletion. Merging to a list would necessitate losing the new information, which I think would be a shame. It is interesting and encyclopedic that she walked at the age of 111, that she recognized a large family, that she published at least one book on subjects that had nothing to do with being the oldest woman in France. It's true that publishing a not very notable book isn't sufficient in itself, but you have to admit that it does add to notability - most people don't publish books. Finally, if you want to refer to WP:BIO, I can cite chapter and verse if you like:
            1. "The person has made a widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record" - which being the oldest woman in France is, and
            2. "The person has received significant recognized awards or honors." Being the Doyenne of France is not an award, but it is an honor, and it is significant and recognized.
          • Look at the other criteria for, say, Athletes in WP:BIO. Just being among the top French players in a specific sport for a year would qualify, being the very top one certainly would. Being the oldest person isn't a sport, but I don't think anyone can honestly say it's less important and notable than a sport. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 12:50, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
            • Sorry, I don't see evidence that she has made a widely recognised contribution, just that her age was noted by three sources, and I don't see any evidence the term "doyenne of France" is anything other than a media term. However, there's no reason why merger should lose any information. The references are all inline, so the text of the artucle could be block-copied into the appropriate list article. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
              • "Contribution" is debatable, but it's part of the enduring historical record: a hundred years from now people will still be writing about the oldest people in France at a certain time, and our article about her will still have people looking for it. And if "Doyenne of France" is an international media term, and not just a nickname for her specifically, but consistently to the current holder of the position, that qualifies, in my humble opinion. Anyway, I think we need to agree to disagree, and let other people have a word too. :-) --AnonEMouse (squeak) 15:00, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Redirect to List of the oldest people. AnonEMouse: in a number of years, Germaine Haye will not be among the 100 oldest people ever any more. Do we then delete this article? Better to do it now and include in a simple list. --Crusio 23:50, 11 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Very strong keep. As per upcleaning user "AnonEMouse". Extremely sexy 00:22, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep It passes WP:BIO: at least 3 multiple, independent sources about the subject, with references from Brazil and Germany. Neal 00:58, 12 November 2007 (UTC).
    • See my comment above. Only one if the sources is remotely substantial, and it seems unlikely that the other two news reports are independent. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs)
  • Keep. Oldest in France for more than a year.131.96.70.164 05:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per research and expansion by AnonEMouse. This is enough to clearly establish notability, so I'm going back to my original position. (Note regarding above: it was actually more like 9 months. Not that it makes much difference.) -Pete 06:13, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Very Strong Keep* I think the person mentioned in the article is notable for being one of the top 100 oldest persons that ever lived in any other aspect in this world the top 10 or top 100 of a cetain discipline or category is notable aren't they?So being one of the top 100 oldest living persons ever is notable people should see this on a more broader scale and not be narrow or close minded thanks!Ka el son of jor el 09:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC) — Ka el son of jor el (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
  • Keep I don't even think notability should come in to it. Wikipedia isn't a paper encyclopedia and the matter of longevity or records pertaining to longevity is definitely something that I consider of encyclopedic interest, I would also think others may well expect this kind of thing to be reported in encyclopedias - in exactly this way, a stub article about somebody that is notable for being in the longevity list alone seems fine to me, you don't need a huge wedge of external referencing.
    • Furthermore as this kind/type of stub articles are likely to be nominated in the future by profligate Wiki editors such as BrownHairedGirl (not intending offence but profligate editors or editors heavily involved in the community can cause just as much damage as good - you've already bought along a number of fellow peers that know the rules inside out, the danger here is that applying the rules become the means to the end rather than guidelines that help) I would like to see this sorted out for all-time. Either the whole subject area of supercenterians/longest lived persons is notable, in which case chipping away at the minor articles at the bottom end of a list is extremely counter-productive to the area of general interest, or the subject area isn't at all of encyclopedic interest in which case all articles will have to survive on their own merits. RichyBoy 16:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment. - It should be noted that RichyBoy is one of those who has been canvassed by Ryoung122. - Galloglass 16:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Well I can't help that somebody wrote some stuff on my talk page, not that it was to do with this AfD anyway. I was perhaps reasonably likely to come across this AfD anyway, as I do from time-to-time comment on some quite diverse AfD's. I admit though that in this instance I came across this by reading BrownHairGirls talk page. In any event I don't see why it matters how I come across it; in case you've forgotten a AfD isn't a vote - either the point raised is a good one or a bad one and it's appraised qualitatively not quantitatively. RichyBoy 17:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not going to vote, but I am going to say pretty much the same thing as I did on the first deletion vote for Robert Young's article. Unless you're AnonEMouse, who's been very generous in spending some of his time here adding better citations, then everyone voting "keep" should be prepared to help improve the article that they are fighting for. BHG is an experienced editor and would not have nominated this if she didn't feel that there were significant notability concerns. If the individual is notable, then it's your responsibility as someone coming and voting for the article to be on Wikipedia to ensure that it means Wikipedia's standards, both for quality and for notability. It's NOT good enough to say "all of these people deserve their own article and should be on here" and leave it at that. Robert Young's article was deleted, at least in my opinion, because it was not at all improved after the first deletion debate and thus there was a much stronger case for its deletion the second round. If this article is kept, and nothing is made of the excellent opportunity AnonEMouse has given you by digging up sources, then this article will almost certainly be renominated within a few months and, once the Robert Young fervour has died down, there will be a much stronger case for deletion. So if you truly do care about this article being on Wikipedia then, please, make it notable beyond a doubt. Fill it with notable and verifiable information that could not merely be included on a list and proves that this person merits their own article. Cheers, CP 17:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC) Stricken per below comment
Thanks for the compliment, but I have to admit I did the easy work, with Google searching (and translation!); I don't think there is that much more available on the web. There is probably more available in print, she was an author after all, and I don't doubt that between than and her age she was one of the more notable citizens of her town, so there are probably local articles, but you probably have to be in France, probably even in Normandy, in order to find them. So, while I do think she is notable enough for our purposes, I doubt we can expect much more to show up during the few days this AFD has left to run, and shouldn't base the decision of the AFD on whether or not it does. --AnonEMouse (squeak) —Preceding comment was added at 17:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should renominate if nothing happens in a week. I just meant, even with just the sources you provided, certainly this article can be improved based off of that and more so within a few months. I think this is going to end up in no consensus personally (and probably rightly so), so I should have emphasized that the above is my suggestion to avoid another deletion debate in a few months down the road. Certainly a potential for expansion has been provided. Cheers, CP 17:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Comment: CP, I disagree with what you say. I improve stubs all the time of my own volition, but my opinion about notability does not compel me to do so in any specific case. I respect the depth of BHG's experience as well, but it is not a "blank check" for her to determine what should or shouldn't be deleted; she still has to build a compelling case like anyone else (and she has done a good job of that.) Expressing an opinions here is not a commitment to volunteer time; that is often the result, but due to the choice of individual editors, not out of obligation. -Pete 18:43, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Pete, I agree with two of your points. First, that none of us has a blank check, which is a v important point; the issue, as you say, is which arguments are more compelling wrt policy and guidelines. Secondly, you're absolutely right than opinion is not a commitment to fix, and should not be taken as such (I've had that one thrown at me by people who object to an article being tagged as unreferenced, and it's a v bad route to down). However, I have often at XfD seen an editor commit to fixing a problem, and in that case I am usually inclined to say go ahead, take the time to fix it (unless the article or category would be bad news no matter how much impoved). But if there isn't that commitment then we have to weigh what we have now against the likelihood of an article being improved, which is a judgement call, and I think it's great that thanks to your effort in improving this article, that judgement less of an open-and-shut case. For me the the remaining question, though, is whether merger would impede improvement, and I don't see that it would. If the list entry expands, then it can be split out again just easily as it was merged. ---BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm confused about your suggestion re: merging. Moving the 3 paragraphs or so of text to the list would make it Haye the only one of the 100 people listed to have specific text on that page; it would go against the page's nature as a list. Can you clarify? -Pete 23:27, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Ahhh! And this is why I don't usually comment on serious topics first thing in the morning. What actually came out was not what I meant to say. Rather than try to backpedal, I'll admit my mistake, strike the comment and perhaps think of a better way to rephrase what I'm trying to say. Cheers, CP 23:59, 12 November 2007 (UTC)
Cool, I didn't know other people had to worry about that morning self-censoring thing. No worries Paul! -Pete 00:14, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Keep: Is Wikipedia running out of Webspace or why someone want to deleted a lot of articels? Only because some admin don't interessted in this theme says that it is unimportened. A lot of people are interessted in supercentarions.
Statistician 15:48, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Reply I don't think so, n/a. Your 2nd half question in your 1st sentence doesn't make sense, so I don't know how to answer it. Anyways, as far as I know, 1 does not have to be an 'admin' to nominate an article for deletion. Robert Young once nominated the 2nd oldest person in the world for deletion and he's not an admin. And your last sentence is irrelevant to whether an article passes the Wikipedia policies or not. Neal 16:50, 15 November 2007 (UTC).

Arbitary break

Comment. I wish there was a way to put a group of articles under a common category for deletion, rather than just 1. Category: the oldest woman in France. See table below:

In other words, why add 1 particular article for deletion and not all? (Assuming these oldest women are only notable for their longevity and nothing else.) If you only add this article to deletion and not the others, then obviously I'm not inclined to vote just this 1 for deletion and not the others. So it should be asked whether all these articles should be deleted and not just 1 of the bucket.

My point? (Or in other words, my fallacy?) That if this junk must be deleted so should others. It could very well be that the plan is to afd each article 1 by 1 rather than all at once. But I don't know that.

And I can extend this idea of categorical deletion that: Florrie Baldwin, what about the oldest woman in England? She's only 111, and her article is not nominated for deletion.

It could very well be that I'm giving more ideas for more articles for deletion, and that will be fine as spoken. Neal 17:42, 13 November 2007 (UTC).

  • Comment Neal, you are absolutely right and as far as I am concerned most or all of those articles should be merged into one list. Note that the fact that other such non-notable articles exist is not a reason to keep an article nominated for AfD (there's a Wikipedia policy for this, but I cannot locate it right now). --Crusio 18:18, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS - Kittybrewster ☎ 18:21, 13 November 2007 (UTC)
WP:WAX. Ah crap, someone got to it before me. It's also important to note that overloading AfD with mass nominations is not really helpful to anyone. Also, if this is kept and the precedent can be applied to all those others, then it might make others consider not nominating those articles. Cheers, CP 18:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Comment. Okay, OtherCrapExists and WAX are about why this article should not be deleted because others aren't. I was reversing it, that if this article must be deleted, so should others. But that's nothing to do with this article.

Suppose we have the category: the oldest gender by country. Example: the oldest woman in France.

And hypothetically, every individual is about the oldest for about a year, from 200-2007. And everyone has their own article. But let's say that sometime, in like 2004, we have 1 woman, whom was only oldest about a week. And not much is known about her, she was never photographed, no media attention, nothing, so simply, she's just a first and last name, with date of birth and date of death. Therefore, she's noted exlusively for her longevity. Obviously, some admin may tag that for deletion.

Which brings to new articles for idea: the oldest gender by country, where in that article, there's a huge table, with the name, date of birth, death of death, an image, and possibly a short paragraph of biography. This idea results from the fact that not every oldest person by country is equally notable, so not all of them will fail AfD, especially when you go back down the decades.

I'm not Robert Young, so whether each oldest-person-by-country gets their own article or not won't make much difference to me, especially since I'm my own webmaster; I could easily make my own biographical pages. But I'd rather decide each person as a category then on the individual level. I'd be okay if every person had their own little article or were all listed in 1 article. So I would rather have all of them deleted, then to have 1 of them deleted. Vice versa. Neal 18:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC).

More comments, continued It should be noted that mass deletion of articles has been possible on Wikipedia. Some of you may know that recently, each and every pokémon has their own article. All 493 of them. Well, now they don't, they been broken up into a list of pokémon with each of them their own paragraph, rather than their own article. Did a Wikipedia admin go to each and every article, all 493 of them, and nominate them for merge or deletion? I hope not.

So an article like this will be satisfactory for me:

The oldest gender of country:

First name last name (born-died)

Paragraph, blah blah, photo.

Next person (born-died)

Etc.

Me and Robert debated whether the 10th oldest person in the world should get their own article, or the 5th oldest person in the world and above should get their own article. Then, someone noted arbitrary cut-off points are irrelevant. In reality, 3 skinny paragraphs in their own article can be merged into a fat paragraph. The problem is, within the next 25 years, we'll have too many articles, and most of them won't be long and in-depth. And Robert (whom I know will be reading this), you must admit you have each supercentenarian on watch. I know this because everytime I edit 1, he'll be there to point out my mistakes, and he told me so. So would it be easier if you had 1 list-article on watch, as opposed to each and every individual oldest man/woman by country? After we get this settled, we'll worry about the 2nd/3rd oldest person in country if they're in the top 100 later. Neal 19:02, 13 November 2007 (UTC).

  • Keep - IMO she's rare enough to be notable. Tiptopper 21:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Comment. Rarity is not a notability criterion (see WP:BIO). It may be a reason for curiosity, but notability is something different. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Half a day ago, it should be noted that the Marie-Rose Mueller article won the AfD for keep. She was "only 111," and the 2nd oldest person in a U.S. state. It also looks like the AfD for Emma Carroll, 112, and oldest in U.S. state, is about to win nomination for keep. It would be interesting if this article for 113, and "oldest in country," fails nomination. Neal (talk) 17:12, 16 November 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.