Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of African Americans (3rd nomination)

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 delete. Majorly _{(o rly?)} 17:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of African Americans

ridiculously racist - see similar article List of Caucasian Americans which is up for speedy delete Warteck 23:21, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletions. -- SkierRMH 06:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why is this racist? I was not aware that identifying someone by their race inherently racist. I don't know the consensus on keeping/deleting lists of this type, and I don't particularly have an opinion, but the reasoning given in the nomination really doesn't fly.-Dmz5*Edits**Talk* 00:01, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep Generally useful information. As for racist, I disagree. If it was called List of Black People or List of Negros I would say its racist, but African American is the generally accepted politically correct term. Mr.Z-mantalk¢Review! 00:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me, is it racist to call African Americans "Black" now? Racist?? Noroton 03:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete It's unneeded. It will get too big and racism will be claimed and everything. Superior1 00:34, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Overly broad, impossible to be exhaustive and thorough, and likely to cause lots of trouble if any Afrikaaners or North African arabs descendants make the list. ThuranX 01:03, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Isn't this exactly the type of content the category system was designed to make usable? If a person is a notable African American (or any other particular ethnic/racial/national description) just mark their article as such. Boom, instant list:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:People_by_ethnic_or_national_descent. Or am I missing something? Vicjm 01:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Ah, here is the exact link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African_Americans. Why is a separate article necessary when this page exists? Vicjm 02:11, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete change to Weak Delete. CHANGE TO STRONG KEEP (reasons in comment below labeled "Reasons") Way too broad a category. I'd vote to delete all the ethnic American lists, at least for major groups. Actually, Albanian Americans would probably be small enough. But for any major ethnic group in this country, the parameters of the list are simply too broad. I'd support splitting it up into various lists, but "List of African American Major League baseball players" would still be too large. I'm open to changing my vote if a case can be made that this list has an important use. Noroton 01:39, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Very few of the longer ethnic lists are in alphabetical order like this one — those lists are usually ordered by job category, which might be somewhat useful and is certainly easier to browse through. Also, it allows the article to be broken up when individual sections become long enough. Noroton 02:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Reasons why I'm changing from "Weak Delete" to "Strong Keep": This article should not be deleted if List of Chinese Americans and the many related ethnic lists is kept; yet this deletion discussion seems to be leaning for deletion while those are leaning toward being kept. There is no good reason to delete here and keep in that discussion, and I hope any administrator who closes this debate takes that into consideration. At the very least, if the debates continue trending as they are, they should be combined and resubmitted as a unified deletion discussion. Again, NO good reason has been given to treat this decision differently from List of Chinese Americans. The only responsible treatment of this decision is to consider everything at once or make Wikipedia look completely racist. Noroton 03:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delete as an indiscriminate list. Otto4711 02:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Way too broad, there are more than 30 million black people in the United States. TJ Spyke 02:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as unmaintainable, an indiscriminate collection of info, and potentially way too huge. Dragomiloff 02:25, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Far too unwieldy and unmaintainable, of limited usefulness. - Itsfullofstars 02:32, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Way too broad. In the archived AFD above someone stated that everyone listed in Wikipedia is, by default, notable. Obviously in reality such lists generally get loaded up with non-notable individuals. 23skidoo 02:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I feel very, very uncomfortable with a phony "Caucasian" list up for deletion and the only real ethnic group whose list is up for deletion is African American. The exact same arguments could be made for all major ethnic group lists. I don't know how to delete a lot of lists in one deletion discussion. I hope somebody else will. It seems it's the fair thing to do. Noroton 03:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. I don't see how this is racist, but it's too broad. A category is more suited for something like this. bibliomaniac 1 5 06:21, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete Overly broad. ObiterDicta ( pleadings • errata • appeals ) 06:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep While I feel that all "lists of" pages should ultimately go (after all, isn't that what categories are for?), I think that targeting just the African-American list is wrong. Either they all go simultaneously, or they stay. Focusing on just this one list can too easily be interpreted the wrong way. StudierMalMarburg 15:20, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that a number of other such lists are now up for deletion. I am willing to assume good faith that this nomination was not motivated by racial bias on the part of the nominator. Otto4711 19:15, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

upgrade me to Strong Keep. The list of deletions Otto4711 cites does not include the African-American list in it. It is still being singled out by itself. I agree with the comments of Black Falcon below. StudierMalMarburg 21:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course the list I linked to does not include the African American list. That's because this is the nomination for the African American list. Your complaint was that this list is being singled out. I show that it's not being singled out and your response is to want this list more? That's...not rational. Otto4711 21:48, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Anyone who votes here may want to be consistent across all major ethnic groups by voting the same way (or not) at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Chinese Americans (I see Otto, just above, has also linked to it)where I've nominated the rest of the lists of people from the largest 20 ethnic groups in the U.S. for deletion, besides the African American list here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Caucasian Americans (second nomination). Noroton 20:04, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Racist? Racist?!?!?!? Since when is calling someone "African-American" an insult? Also, the Caucasian Americans list is not up for speedy deletion and is not comparable to this list in quality. Claims that this list is indiscriminate or overly broad are inaccurate.

Not indiscriminate. How is race not a discriminating criterion? Moreover, this does not correspond with any of the 8 items listed at WP:NOT#IINFO.
Not overly broad. Firstly, the purpose of the list is not to include all African-Americans, but only the notable ones. Secondly, a category will not be any less broad than this list. -- Black Falcon 20:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Response The problem, Black Falcon, is that limiting the list to "only the notable ones" would still leave a list of gargantuan proportions. There are a LOT of notable African Americans; far too many for a list like this to ever hope to compile. The fact of the matter is that notability simply does not narrow the spectrum sufficiently. For one obvious example: a significant majority of NBA players are African American (80% is one statistic I've seen). Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, every NBA player is also considered "notable." Accordingly, wouldn't nearly all NBA players be appropriate candidates for this list? I would think not, as this would dilute the list to meaninglessness (a backup pointguard on the Knicks just isn't on the same level as Martin Luther King and Miles Davis). All the African American players in the NFL or Major League would also be appropriate for this list. Including these "notable" individuals would render any attempt to compile a list of truly "great" African Americans ineffectual. To have any meaning or utility, a list like this would necessarily have to introduce a higher standard (double secret notability anyone?). This leaves aside the question, of course, concerning whether or not a list of "great" African Americans would be overly subjective and not encyclopedic... Vicjm 23:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - True, it would be long, but the same problem applies to the category, and it's no easier to navigate a category with 1000s of entries than a list with same amount. Also, I believe Noroton's suggestion below is viable. -- Black Falcon 23:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
- Also, the categories do not provide information as to birth/death dates and occupations at the same level of quality as this list does. -- Black Falcon 20:52, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Response Black Falcon, how do we define notability for purposes of this list? Having a Wikipedia article or a good prospect of having one? If so, this list could get very, very long. If we set a higher standard, what is that standard? I'd be interested in what you think of Lists of American Jews as an alternative way of organizing. I agree, lists are more helpful than categories. The birth/death date information and possibly other brief descriptions can help readers trying to find someone whose name they've forgotten. Noroton 21:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Noroton, I think that method of proceeding (further subdividing by occupation) is ideal. However, that can only be achieved through a merge and not a delete. I'm all for splitting this article into component sections, but this cannot be done once the list is deleted. -- Black Falcon 23:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  - Responding to Falcon's claim about WP:NOT#IINFO - clearly, there is nothing in the plain text of the policy that says the eight things listed there is or was ever intended to be an exhaustive list of the only things ever that could possibly be considered indiscriminate information. List of blue things is not barred but such a list would not pass WP:NOT. List of people by favorite ice cream would not stand under WP:NOT despiter there not being a specific "no listing people by ice cream" section in WP:NOT. Dozens of articles that do not exactly fit one of the eight specified items have been deleted as indiscriminate collections of information in the last couple of weeks and Falcon has participated in the debates for many of them so why there is this continued insistence that only things that exactly meet one of those eight criteria can possibly be considered indiscriminate information remains a mystery to me. Otto4711 21:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    - Otto, if it's not on the list, you can't say the policy supports you! How about if I suddenly feel that WP:NOT#IINFO includies biographies on U.S. presidents? Sure, it's not on the list, but then again, if it's not exhaustive that doesn't matter. Of the dozens of articles that have been deleted, I have suggested to delete in probably over >70% of cases. However, my reason for the suggestion has rarely been WP:NOT#IINFO, as other criteria applied. Also, this list is nothing like the "in popular culture" articles, so the comparison cannot stand. -- Black Falcon 23:55, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      - The notion of comparing a sourced verified biography of a president to a list of people who happen to share a common continent of origin is, to put it bluntly, amazingly stupid. There is no comparison between the two. The notion of asserting that a well-sourced verified biography might possibly run afoul of NOT#IINFO is similarly amazingly stupid. There is absolutely no support for your assertion that only the Big 8 can be considered indiscriminate by the simple fact that other kinds of articles have been deleted as indiscriminate. Res ipsa loquitur, to borrow a term of law. And whether or not you agreed with the deletions of those articles you've seen AFDed as indisciminate collections, the fact remains, as I said, that you've seen them deleted for being indiscriminate collections and it is your assertion of the Big 8 as exhaustive that cannot stand. Otto4711 01:15, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        Let us, for a moment, put aside the issue of your incivility. You make two errors in your post above. First, the quality of sourcing of an article has no relevance as to how it stands in relation to WP:NOT#IINFO. Second, "African Americans" share more than a common continent of origin: they also share their nationality and their status as a minority in the U.S. Race is a major issue in the United States, and it would not be if classification by "continent of origin" was an indiscriminate criterion. Now with regard to my comment. The presidential biography was an example intended to demonstrate a general principle. That principle being: the Big 8 (as you've named them) are those types of articles for which a consensus exists. Sufficient consensus does not exist for other types of articles, just as sufficient consensus does not (will not, should not) exist for excluding the hypothetical example of presidential biographies. Dozens of articles were deleted, but you fail to mention that dozens were kept. -- Black Falcon 04:21, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Weak Delete If I could just sidestep the racism question for a moment, the number of notable African-Americans is pretty huge, and (hopefully!) will continue to grow to the point where this list would be just as ridiculous as the list of notable Caucasian-Americans. Probably all of the lists of notable of people of a particular ethnicity should go, unless perhaps it is a very very very small ethnic group. --Jaysweet 21:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete and Comment - This back and forth between this deletion and the one for Caucasion Americans is obviously a battle over a point, but the bottom line is that both subjects are both too broad and too subjective for Wikipedia. In my estimation, battle back and forth notwithstanding, both articles ought to be deleted as being outside the scope of WP. --Mhking 21:31, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete not due to the nom's WP:POINT reasoning, but because the criteria is simply too broad and better handled by a category. Krimpet 22:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
~~delete~~ as an indiscriminate collection of facts (and categories exists and better organizes and updates list). Smmurphy^(Talk) 22:58, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

keep - why is this article organized alphabetically? But after looking at the article's talk page, I can see that this list isn't indiscriminate to its creators. I'd see it as less indiscriminate myself if it were organized. Smmurphy^(Talk) 23:18, 6 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, the people who create articles don't want them deleted. "The creators think it's OK" is not a particularly compelling argument. Otto4711 01:17, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I meant editors, not creators, but, I was referring to the discussions' giving reasons that it isn't indiscriminate, etc. I don't agree with all of their reasons, but I don't see why their points and the points at the last 2 afds aren't sufficient, or is their new reasons to delete it? Smmurphy^(Talk) 01:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

COMMENT BY NOMINATOR My apologies but my sentiment 'racist' above was not meant in terms of this list itself, but the fact that the list of Caucasian Americans was undergoing speedy delete as being superfluous whilst this one was standing unchallenged, as though there was something inherently more notable about being a "notable African American" than being a "notable Caucasian American". For the person who asked if this nomination is racially motivated, I am neither African, African American, Caucasian, Caucasian American nor American, and really don't care overly about any of you at all (which, please note, should make me "indifferent" and not "un-American").Warteck 04:28, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete too broad to be useful Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep nothing wrond with it. Being black in a majority white pooulation is more notable that being white. David Spart 22:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, as this information is alreadly available as part of the category system. --Xnuala 04:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, along with the others, as completely unmaintainable as a practical matter. And note that the Caucasian list was deleted once already. These lists can not ever be complete or meaningful. Shenme 05:08, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep/split into sub-lists by primary occupation or reason for notability. Wl219 08:49, 9 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and split into topical sub-lists. I might support a delete after such sub-lists are created. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ishu (talk • contribs) 01:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC).[reply]
Delete and I'm nominating Notable black innovators, inventors and scientists too. Usedup 04:00, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In spite of Usedup's recent nomination, it seems that the concensus of those voting delete is that the list is too broad and too large. I agree, but as some have noted, these lists are terribly useful. Especially this one, as each entry includes a few words on who the person is. From the AfD of other lists, one commenter noted, "as the anonymous parent of two Puerto Rican schoolchildren, I can assure you that this list is a primary source of information that at least one of my kids will consult on a weekly basis to do school assignments. Administrators should take into account the users' needs and, as a user, this list is invaluable!" As such, I think that we should try sorting and any category that is overlarge we should send into a sublist. Even if this list is deleted in its current form, it will probably become a super-list of lists organized by occupation. If anyone is interested, stop by User:Smmurphy/List of African Americans and do some sorting. Once its sorted, we can create sublist articles for the larger lists, and put whats left back into this article. Thanks. Smmurphy^(Talk) 16:58, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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.