Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Person (British English)

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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 speedy delete per WP:SNOW. 1ne 00:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Person (British English) and Person (American English)

Person (British English) (edit|talk|history|links|watch|logs)

I am also nominating for deletion: Person (American English)

In the original article Person, now redirected to Person (American English),User:Lucy-marie globally altered every occurence of the word 'persons' to 'people' and every occurence of 'personhood' to 'being a people', making nonsense of a sensible article. Her grounds for doing this were: "(persosns is an icorrect grammar pluralisation it is people or a person or a person's rights and carried out a clean up)". I pointed out the error, and reverted. Lucy-marie refused to accept she was wrong and reverted. On the discussion page (now at Talk:Person (American English)) I started a Request for Comment. The only supporter of Lucy-marie has been a friend of hers. One contributor suggested, jokingly, that two separate pages be made, one for American English and one for British English. Lucy-marie has now unilaterally declared the Request for Comment process closed and has totally unnecessarily created these two pages, blanked the original Person page and turned it into a Redirect. At the top of the Discussion page for each article, she has written "This page was created entirley to resolve a dispute over persons or poeple". The dispute has not been resolved. I am proposing the deletion of these two pages and the restoration of Person until the Request for Comment discusssion is properly concluded. Emeraude 10:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

(Note: User:Lucy-marie made an alteration to my entry above by striking through a sentence which I have changed back. She says that it was not a friend of hers, but that is no reason to edit another user's contribution in discussion.) Emeraude 15:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
(Note: please note the sentence i struckthrough is an untruth and do not want untrths written concerning me.--Lucy-marie 15:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete as unsourced nonsense. I quote: "The most obvious examples of people are human beings...Beings from other planets could also be regarded as people."Proabivouac 10:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both of these versions; restore Person to the version of 3 January 2007. There is no evidence that the word person has significantly different meanings in British and American English. —Angr 11:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both, POV fork, per creator "Created this page to resolve a dispute" --Steve (Slf67) talk 11:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both, baffling POV fork. Return Person and Person (disambiguation) to their correct places.--Nydas(Talk) 12:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I think tis should be kept as an ugly revert war has been avoided by creating these pages and in depth discussion on the talk page of person has come to the conclusion that this was the best way forewards.--Lucy-marie 12:39, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Both as clear POV forks. Content disputes should be resolved through the dispute resolution process instead of creating two different versions of the same article, but with different points of view. --Farix (Talk) 13:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete doesn't seem to me like these two articles are very different. if there is a difference between the term "person" there is no reason it can't be part of the article entitled "person". --Tainter 13:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I would also like to add that if this is all about a difference in grammar, then we should follow WP:MOS and go with the version used by the first major contributor to the article. --Farix (Talk) 13:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Philosophical concepts are not divided into separate articles for separate nations! The term "persons" is correct in both Brirish and US English. Paul B 14:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Nonsensical POV fork. Eusebeus 14:57, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both, POV fork. Terence Ong 15:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both This is crazy. The UK has the "National Missing Persons Helpline" - a well-known institution - and the phrase "person or persons unknown" is common usage in Britain. This fork fails virtually every relevant WP policy: WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:OR, WP:RS. Update: My God, we even have an article on this: National Missing Persons Helpline.--Folantin 16:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both I'm at a loss for words. GassyGuy 17:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment We also have an official policy entitled biographies of living persons. It's clearly a spelling that most editors approve of, and from the evidence presented, dictionaries too. Seraphimblade 23:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete, POV forks over grammar??? Also caution User:Lucy-marie that alteration of another user's comments is heavily frowned upon and may be considered disruptive-you're welcome to dispute assertions you disagree with, but not to strike or remove them. Seraphimblade 18:41, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Just a reminder to readers that this is not, strictly speaking, a fork over grammar but more basically whether there is or is not such a word as persons in British or any other form of English. I have provided dictionary quotes before on the relevant Discussion page, but here is a direct quote from Chambers Online Dictionary, about as British as it gets. I think this clinches it:

"person noun (persons or in sense 1 also people) 1 an individual human being. 2 the body, often including clothes • A knife was found hidden on his person. 3 grammar each of the three classes into which pronouns and verb forms fall, first person denoting the speaker (or the speaker and others, eg I and we), second person the person addressed (with or without others, eg you) and third person the person(s) or thing(s) spoken of (eg she, he, it or they). 4 (Person) Christianity any of the three forms or manifestations of God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) that together form the Trinity (sense 2). 5 in compounds used instead of -man, -woman, etc, to denote a specified activity or office, avoiding illegal or unnecessary discrimination on grounds of sex, eg in job advertisements • chairperson • spokesperson. Compare chairman, chairwoman, etc. be no respecter of persons to make no allowances for rank or status. in person 1 actually present oneself • was there in person. 2 doing something oneself, not asking or allowing others to do it for one."

Source: Chambers Reference Online. Note that it says the plural of 'person' is 'persons', with 'people' also allowed in sense 1. Emeraude 19:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a definition from the online dictionary of the word people.
1.persons indefinitely or collectively; persons in general: to find it easy to talk to people; What will people think?
2. persons, whether men, women, or children, considered as numerable individuals forming a group: Twenty people volunteered to help.
3. human beings, as distinguished from animals or other beings.
4. the entire body of persons who constitute a community, tribe, nation, or other group by virtue of a common culture, history, religion, or the like: the people of Australia; the Jewish people.
5. the persons of any particular group, company, or number (sometimes used in combination): the people of a parish; educated people; salespeople.
6. the ordinary persons, as distinguished from those who have wealth, rank, influence, etc.: a man of the people.
7. the subjects, followers, or subordinates of a ruler, leader, employer, etc.: the king and his people.
8. the body of enfranchised citizens of a state: representatives chosen by the people.
9. a person's family or relatives: My grandmother's people came from Iowa.
10. (used in the possessive in Communist or left-wing countries to indicate that an institution operates under the control of or for the benefit of the people, esp. under Communist leadership): people's republic; people's army.
11. animals of a specified kind: the monkey people of the forest. –verb (used with object)
12. to furnish with people; populate
13. to supply or stock as if with people: a meadow peopled with flowers.
So according to the above definition it can be used to represent a collective and according to the first defintion it can be used to represnt individuals so therefore it can be used to reprersnt both.--Lucy-marie 19:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment This isn't the place to argue over which to use. That is a content dispute that doesn't belong on WP:AFD and should go to WP:DR. --Farix (Talk) 20:24, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
    Comment I've decided to be bold and restore People (Person) to the last version before it was turned into a redirect so that the RFC may continue. However, this is not an endorsement of that version. --Farix (Talk) 21:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep The original article created too much work and hassle..now its two they can be developed in sync but to each articles own stance Fethroesforia 20:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both per nom, restore Person. Very poor form to short-circuit an RFC like this, and AFD is not for content disputes. --Dhartung | Talk 21:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both This is absolutely ridiculous. Also strongly suggest that User:Lucy-marie be blocked for flagrant violation of WP:POINT. Danny Lilithborne 22:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete Docg 23:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Delete both, restore Person. This is totally unacceptable behavior from an editor, and I concur with Danny on the WP:POINT comment. --Haemo 00:32, 7 January 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.