Talk:List of the verified oldest people

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[edit] Peer Review

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[edit] RfC: Original Research

Are the Gregorian calendar notes and sorting by "age in days" original research or not? I will post my opinion on the situation and then notify all involved users below this summary.

[edit] Requestor's statement

Quite simply, I believe the notes for Izumi and Butariu are entirely speculative and violate Wikipedia's no original research policy. First of all, we have to represent the sources faithfully - we cannot speculate what they have or have not taken into account. As I said above, Wikipedia's job is to report what it sees, not to think about it, find new things out about it or discover flaws or things that you think the sources might have gotten wrong. Everything on Wikipedia must be verfiable; there's no room for us to say "well maybe they forgot this" even if we acknowledge that they may not have. The notes themselves are unsure whether or not they should be there, for they contain the caveat "This assuming the date of birth has not been otherwise adjusted as no mention of this anomaly is made in the source". Just because the source doesn't list every last thing that they took into account doesn't mean that they didn't take this into account. Now it just so happens that the source itself, Robert Young, contacted me and backed me up on this source. While I do realize that it was probably a mistake to allow a banned user to have his say on Wikipedia policy (and I have corrected this mistake), in this case a little WP:IAR applies, particularly because he is not being used to influence Wikipedia decisions, but specifically as evidence that my claims about original research on this issue are valid. He email is reprinted here for convenience, and it was originally posted on Wikipedia with his permission:

I'm not convinced that Shigechiyo Izumi needs a 'Gregorian calendar' adjustment. Ages in Japan were recorded using their own calendar; the 'year' is based on the year of the emperor's reign. Thus, Kamato Hongo was born in the year M20 (20th year of the Meiji era) which is then transribed into the English year '1887'. Since the transcriptions would have been modern (application to Guinness in 1978 for Izumi), but the original data were recorded in a Japanese system, I don't see how the Gregorian calendar would affect this process. In any case, the research was done in 1978 (I was four years old) and I had nothing to do with it, and the data for Izumi is now 'lost.'

As for the age in days ranking, a very similar argument applies. We have to maintain the ranking provided by the sources or else we run the risk of violating WP:OR. Reposting an argument from above, we're taking the ranking numbers from a certain source, the GRG. We cannot deviate from their ranking without it being original research - sure it may seem logical with the number of days on the side, but if we allow for unstructured deviations, we're introducing our own element of original research and potentially subjectivity. If we begin to deviate outside the structure of the original source (and, indeed, since the methods we use to include people who are still living and move them up the list are within the original methodology, this is acceptable), then we open the door for people to add their own, more harmful original research to the list, such as adding the 150 year old claimant from Timbuktu. If the GRG ranks them at the same level, we have to respect the original sources; we can't just decide that they made a mistake and rank them differently. We've researched and found that some people lived through leap years and some didn't. Therefore, the wish is to modify the "official" (as defined by this page) ranking and deviate from the source. This is research is original. "Rank" is not our ranking, it's the GRG's and, unless they change it to account for tis research, then "Rank" has to reflect the GRG. Maybe it's not the best policy, but OR has to be followed, whether it's on a WP:BLP or something somewhat more trivial such as this, and there's no room for WP:IAR. Again, we have Robert Young, the source, giving us an example of exactly why we should be following the sources rather than speculating. The same caveats for the above email apply to this one as well:

Regarding the discussion of rankings based on supercentenarians (years and days):

1. The GRG chose the year/day format, in part due to tradition. This tradition includes Guinness World Records but was actually started by T.E. Young, president of the Society of Actuaries (London) in 1899.

2. In many cases we do not know the exact day/hour someone is born. Someone may appear to be older at '41,821' days than someone who is '41,820' days. But let's suppose that person A was born at 11PM and died at 1AM, they lived 41,820 days and 2 hours, they get credit as 41,821 'days'. But the second person was born at 1 AM and died at 11PM, they get credit for 41,820 days, but they actually lived 41,820 days and 22 hours. Thus, based on the scientific concept of 'sigificant digits', we shouldn't really be over-focusing on extreme/exact amounts like this...we simply don't have enough information to conclude who is older.

3. The 'equal' rankings were also done to conform to Microsoft Excel, which uses the years/days to calculate the ages.

I'd appreciate it if you could point this out, that it is not simply a matter of the GRG not knowing math.

Sincerely, Robert Young

Thus, my argument is that a) The notes on the Gregorian calendar should be removed as they are completely speculative and ORish and b) The "rankings" should remain faithful to the original sources, although a fair compromise is to include "age in days" as a column and let people decide for themselves when they come to the article. Cheers, CP 23:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

This seems to me to be a rather lengthy argument to a rather non-issue. I'll address the "age in days" column first. It's merely there as addtional information. It in no way deviates from the original source, being the GRG. The ranking follows "years and days" without regard to what appears in the "age in days" column. In that several individuals have noticed the small inconsistancies I do feel it is important for comparison. And as for original research, any grade school child with a calender can produce the same material.
As for the footnotes, I do think they provide necessary information where there may be a lack of clarity from the original source, being the GRG. The information provided is a compilation of different areas of information on Wikpedia condensed to provide a possible conclusion. I don't believe it's original research. It's provided so the reader has the best information sources to make an educated decision. That's all then. Thank you. TFBCT1 (talk) 04:16, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Robert. Extremely sexy (talk) 15:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
It seems to be a non issue if you ask me. It's just there for additional information. I wouldn't really call it original research. --Npnunda (talk) 02:30, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
That's also very true. Extremely sexy (talk) 22:03, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
So you are of the opinion that when the originator of a source that Wikipedia cites contacts a Wikipedia administrator and claims that we are misrepresenting their source, that is a non-issue? Cheers, CP 04:17, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Some countries did not adopt the Gregorian calendar. Because of this, Peoples ages may be different by a few days. This footnote has nothing to do with the grg not knowing math which is what the email states. It is my humble opinion that the footnote would be there even if we used a different source. This is just my "good faith" opinion and I'm not an admin
like you but that's how I feel about it. Regards --Npnunda (talk) 04:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I wouldn't call it original research. The GRG supplies the date of birth and the date of death. The length between those dates can realistically only have one answer: We just need to take into account any calendar changes. The issue of time will always be a factor however they are ranked. If we rank them by years and days then someone who died on their birthday, technically 6 hours before the time they were born would be listed as living another year. I think we should use the GRG as a key source, but I don't think we should be copying everything from there. As has been shown with leap years, some of the information isn't in the best format. I disagree with point 2 because as I have already mentioned, time will always be a minor factor however you list people. However, ranking by just days has a greater resolution. As for point 1, it's more informative for the public to see it listed as years and days, as they will obviously not know how long 44000 days is off the top of their heads. However, from a scientific point of view, we should be using the most accurate measurements to rank them. Practices have to be changed if you want to make progress.SiameseTurtle (talk) 11:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't matter how easy or obvious it is to work out someone's age in days, if it's not quoted from a source outside wikipedia then it must qualify as original research. If the GRG or another reputable source has a list by days then it could be included here without further discussion. While including a column for days may provide some clarification it may also be a distraction and perhaps may even be confusing for some readers. Personally, I would not be concerned if the "age in days" column were removed until such time as it can be quoted from a legitimate source.DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 00:49, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

OUTSIDE OPINION There's a guideline mixup occurring here. This isn't a case of OR, it's synthesis. The guideline on that deals with improper synthesis. It's in no way harmful to do math. If we have a source that says "there were two boys and two girls in the classroom at the time", it would be accurate to enter at WP "there were four children in the classroom". Unless the source is using trinary numbers, the math is accurate. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 05:09, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree with the thrust of this argument, that day-counts, even if accurate, constitute original research. Indeed, since there is a discrepancy in some cases between people as counted by year/day and just days, the ordinal ranks are slightly altered if one goes by days. And people coming onto this page might wonder why Bettie Chatmon is ranked above Odie Matthews when they both lived the same number of days. While there may be a valid argument to go by days instead of years/days, that is not what GRG, the source of these lists, goes by. We should, therefore, omit the day column and if some don't like that, then appeal to GRG to alter how they rank ages. Because as it is we have two methods side by side which don't match. Canada Jack (talk) 14:54, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Further to what I have said, this is in my opinion original research for the simple reason there are different ways of making a count and the source here has opted on one count. Day counts was not the method used, even if there is a good argument to make that this is a more accurate way to do it. The appropriate thing here to do would be to omit the day count and make the case for a change to GRG. When they change their count method, then we can do the same, but not before.

It is not our duty to list what we or what some here believe to be the more accurate count method, it is our duty to accurately reflect what those who have done the research have concluded. And they, like it or not, go by the year/day count. I do agree that it is appropriate, however, to make note of potential discrepancies in terms of Julian/Gregorian usage. But even there, GRG simply has noted how many days after the claimed birthday the person lived which is accurate in and of itself, though the actual day count may be out by 11 days or so. "But that person is older/younger than claimed!" some might say. Well, yes and no. If one goes by year/day, no, by day count, yes. The problem here is a "year" is not a fixed, standard length, but a day is. But GRG uses years. It's not up to us to "fix" it, however. Canada Jack (talk) 16:39, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I reverted what someone had decided to do - change the rank to list these individuals by day count, not year/day count, at least until this issue is resolved. But are people here aware that GRG in fact does have a day count list, which differs from the one we have here? [1] If you look at his in Explorer, it reads as a year/day list. But in Firefox the listing is wonky with overlays of day counts, and many of these day counts are fractional. Additionally, the day numbers don't match what is on our page. The year/day counts do match (though the list is as of Oct 2006). Canada Jack (talk) 18:42, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] why bias toward US citizens ?

Given that the us is ~~ 5 % of the world population, and certianly no more then ~ 1/3 of the "developed worlds" population, it seems odd that more then 50% of the entries are listed as us. Am I just miscounting ? Is this better health in the US in the late 1800s or that WW1 and WW2 were not fought on our soil ?Cinnamon colbert (talk) 01:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

It's a combination of good records, good health, and large population. Don't forget that these also need to extend back 120+ years. Countries that are developed now weren't necessarily developed 100 years ago. The USA was, as was the UK, France etc. but they had smaller populations. WW1 and WW2 were probably factors too, especially for men. Imagine how many men in the UK would have reached Henry Allingham's age if they hadn't died young.SiameseTurtle (talk) 11:49, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Does the rank update itself?

I am aware that the age of the living people automatically updates itself but when they overpass a deceased person in the ranking, does it automatically rank them one rank further up, or must you edit it to do so? --90.206.20.104 (talk) 16:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Someone has to edit it to do so. Luckily, we have many diligent editors watching this page. I can't even remember the last time I had a chance to update it! Cheers, CP 18:40, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] List Totals

Is there any real point to this section? The numbers of living/deceased and male/female are already mentioned in the header. And what is the point of adding up the countries? How exactly can you have 0.5 of a country? Given the changing status of various territories, states and countries and the differences for birth and death how can the same weight be given to each? It all seems pointless and unnecessary. DerbyCountyinNZ (talk) 23:08, 9 June 2008 (UTC)