Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of people on the postage stamps of Greece

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. Reading the discussion, the weight of the arguments are in favor of deleting. If one would like to start an RfC about the overarching topic, WT:N is probably a good place to go to. Guerillero Parlez Moi 13:21, 17 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

List of people on the postage stamps of Greece

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List of people on the postage stamps of Greece (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log | edits since nomination)
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Fails WP:LISTN. Also: unsourced since its creation in 2004, abandoned, little interest to readers (less than 1 pageview per day). Fram (talk) 13:07, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Comment, here's at least one source https://greekreporter.com/2021/10/15/greek-post-office-issues-stamps-honoring-great-philhellenes/ CT55555 (talk) 14:28, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete while we may be able to verify that these people were on stamps, there is no evidence that the subject of them being on stamps is a noteworthy topic per WP:SALAT. The consensus of other topically similar AFDs is more than strong enough by now. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 17:54, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we should focus on this topic, rather than similar, but also different topics. If the nominator wanted to propose multiple articles in one AfD, they could have done so. CT55555 (talk) 18:04, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete We need sources that treat the entire topic as something that needs to be listed. That some of something is notable does not mean the full scope of it is worth having an article on that lists everything about it. Likelwise, if I can find a source on 2 buildings at a university it does not justify creating an article that lists every building at a university. The sourcing above is not enough on its own to justify this article and does not meet the various requirements of what we need to show that the overall subject of an article is other than trivial. A list like this belongs in Wikia, not Wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 19:31, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    If this means that the source must cover every person on every Greek stamp, it making an impossible bar, as stamps are issues so frequently that unless a source was published yesterday, it can only possible include a sub set of the subject. It's like the same analogy I recently made, if someone proposed to delete the article on any big topic, let's day for example USA, what source could possibly cover all of it. Inevitably, wide topics will be covered in multiple sources, each taking a slice of a big topic.
    Now, I've not said it is notable, I've just mentioned one possible source. But I think a source about people on the postage stamps of Greece is a valid thing to share, in this context. CT55555 (talk) 19:37, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • If we do not have sources that bother listing all the people on Greek postage stamps than yes, we do not have anything that shows that the set of all the people on Greek postage stamps is a notable topic. Sources that talk about in general who was on Greek postage stamps show that we could have an article on trends in who Greece chooses to put on their postage stamps, which is a seperate issue than listing the sum total of everyone who has ever been placed on a Greek postage stamp.John Pack Lambert (talk) 20:19, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep there should be a general discussion about these lists --Lupe (talk) 22:06, 9 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    Not a reason. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 07:08, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "Unsourced", "abandoned", and "little interest to readers" are no reasons to delete an article. I agree with Lupe that the discussion must be about all the lists, as a whole, of this kind: either the subject (people on the postage stamps of the X country) is notable in general, or not. ǁǁǁ ǁ Chalk19 (talk) 08:46, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close I agree with Lupe that there should be a general discussion about list of people on the postage stamps of {country}. Merko (talk) 09:39, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with this comment. It would probably be easier to deal with thees as a wider discussion. CT55555 (talk) 12:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
    • A bit late, about 100 such lists have already been deleted. Doesn't really make sense to treat them as a group either, we may well have sources for the topic for one country, and not for another. Fram (talk) 12:56, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      I think doing something late, if it is a good idea, is still better than not doing it. I see the reasons to do them together and separately. My hypothesis is that there are offline sources that would show interest in people on stamps for many countries. But maybe not all. Right now anyone with access to those sources will be overwhelmed. What would be sensible would be to pause and give the people who created these articles a bit of time respond in one place, rather than trying to have 100 odd separate debates while scrambling to find the offline sources. CT55555 (talk) 13:23, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      The first one were slow. Worse, some had been Prod'ded already years ago, and nothing changed. Many were tagged as unsourced for years, and again nothing changed. For every list, again and again, it was clear that no one was interested in making it into something acceptable, that no one had any idea where the sources could be (hypothetically offline? For all of these lists?), and that no readers were actually interested in these articles either. But if one then, after 10 or 15 years, decides to get rid of them, then apparently first some discussion and more time is needed. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to do the opposite, that those who are in favour of such lists try to create them one by one once they have good sources for the actual topic? Very little will be lost until then if these deletions proceed. Fram (talk) 13:48, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      In some ways, it seems easy to agree with you there. We could argue it either way. But then if we look at the guidance that should inform us, my reading of WP:PRESERVE is that deleting things is a last resort, that improving them should always be prioritised. So I think that does make it clear which path we should take, if in doubt or disagreement. CT55555 (talk) 13:51, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not really. "Preserve" lists possible options, but without good arguments they have no value: and a lack of sources for a topic is a good reason not to preserve content. Keeping a list because we should have a discussion for all these lists together somehow, because, well, who knows why, or because sources may exist even though no one can point to them here or on most of the other similar lists, is not really convincing. If most of the previous AfDs had resulted in unearthing such sources, then yes, the argument that these probably also exist for Greece would be at least believable. For now, it seems like wishful thinking. Fram (talk) 14:23, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        For what it's worth, I promise you I have zero enthusiasm to make AfD work more time consuming and am only making this argument because I think offline sources exist, although I also suspect they will not support notability for every country. CT55555 (talk) 14:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
        I'm relatively new to the english version of Wikipedia, so I didn't see these deletion requests earlier. I haven't read through all the deletion requests either (who has the time?). Was this ever discussed with the respective portal, because the answer seems to be no. One should have discussed the criteria in general and set a hard time limit for deletion or move them to the usernamespace in the meantime. Improvement should be prioritized and also it would have been much less time consuming and easier to agree on for everyone. Lupe (talk) 15:44, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • We are talking about an article that has existed since 2004 with no sources. AfD is an open forum and the proper place to discuss if articles belong. People in specific projects often myopically ignore the total lack of good sourcing because they believe somehow subjects are worthwhile keeping. A central requirement of Wikipedia is Verifiability. This means we have to source all articles.John Pack Lambert (talk) 15:57, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
      • (ec)Most of these, before these general arguments were made, were not really time-consuming. One of the main creators of these posted early in these deletions to the talk page of the philately project, but got no reply for a long time. And there has been in most of these cases more than a decade to improve them, and no one cared. It's not as if the few that hadn't yet been improved have been singled out; the whole series, with perhaps one or two exceptions, was a disaster field of abandoned, unsourced, incomplete, and often simply wrong articles, which we finally started to get rid of more than a month ago. If it wasn't for one admin blindly rejecting all Prods on these (even after many deletions), it would have been even less time consuming, but here we are... Fram (talk) 15:58, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - With no sources that actually discuss the overall topic of people appearing on postage stamps in Greece as a group or set, this fails WP:LISTN. The fact that the individuals are, themselves, notable or that it can be verified that they appeared on a stamp in Greece does not actually confer notability to the overall list itself. Rorshacma (talk) 15:20, 16 June 2022 (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.
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