Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/The Greatest American

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 THe result of this debate was Keep (12/0)May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 15:49, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The Greatest American

This article is not worthy of a professional encyclopedia for the following reasons:

1) by far, the single most important reason for deletion is that the "poll" was not done with a statistically acceptable method.

2) using a NPOV, entries such as (but not exhaustive) Martha Stewart, Barbara Bush, George H. W. Bush, Laura Bush, Ellen DeGeneres, Brett Favre, Phil McGraw, Condoleezza Rice, and Arnold Schwarzenegger shouldn't be in the top 1000 list, let alone the top 100.

3) using the #1 voted individual, Ronald Reagan, should alert anyone to the unscientific nature of the "poll"

J. Crocker

  • Keep Appears to be legit per external links, perhaps title could be appended with (2005)(TV) rmosler 06:59, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep we keep other polls, even if we don't agree with them. Jacqui ★ 07:33, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, real TV show that was mentioned by the BBC. Nominator's skepticism of results is not a reason to delete. Gazpacho 07:47, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep if only to demonstrate how ridiculous these votes are. Ronnie greater than Abraham Lincoln? Yeah, right. - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] 08:56, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The credibility of these polls depends on the credibility of the organisations conducting them. As it was conducted by AOL and the Discovery Channel it passes muster on that score. Capitalistroadster 09:42, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, the nominator appears to confuse his/her POV with NPOV. Kappa 16:31, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. People are always trying to have these polls deleted - it's not working! Ben davison 18:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep, it's sentimental, celebrity worshipping garbage, but unfortunately it's notable. However, I think it should be renamed to better indicate what it is. -- Kjkolb 19:43, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep decent article that reports, in a reasonably neutral way, a depressing, stupid, poorly conceived, badly executed, unscientific, meaningless popularity contest. The "Comments and criticisms" section is not bad, the external links a bit weak as source citations but OK. Title is bad, should be moved to something like The Greatest American (Poll). Hey, where's Willard Gibbs? Barbara McClintock? Richard Feynman? Oh, well... Dpbsmith (talk) 20:22, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Comment: they had to make way for truly great people like Dr. Phil, Oprah Winfry and Rush Limbaugh. The fact that somewhere some people thought they were the greatest American is sad and disturbing. -- Kjkolb 04:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep per Dpbsmith, though I would append the article with the fact that it was in no way a scientific poll. To digress, thanks to Capitalistroadster for making me laugh :) --Isotope23 21:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep As much as I would like to see the article go, it is notable enough to be encyclopaediac Prashanthns 16:33, 5 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Keep. The poll is notable enough, even though it is completely unscientific as stated above, and the article is reasonably well written. I concur with Dpbsmith above that the article should be renamed “Greatest American poll” or something similar to show that the article is not about the greatest American but about the poll itself. ♠DanMS 21:17, 5 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.