Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of victims of the Bazar de la Charité fire

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 merge to Bazar de la Charité#Fire of 1897. Limited to the notable victims. This seems to be the solution acceptable to the most people here. Sandstein 09:09, 12 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

List of victims of the Bazar de la Charité fire

List of victims of the Bazar de la Charité fire (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

Delete per WP:CSC. I had previously redirected this to Bazar de la Charité#Fire of 1897, where the only two notable victims are mentioned, but the redirection was reverted. UnitedStatesian (talk) 13:55, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Events-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of France-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep. On my reading this pretty conclusively meets WP:CSC's description of a list that functions as an "avenue for the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles", in particular the rubric of "created explicitly because most or all of the listed items do not warrant independent articles". Sourcing to four different newspapers and two books (which could easily be expanded by anyone with access to a French research library) shows that the list as such is notable even if most individual items are not. It is certainly not among the sorts of lists deprecated by CSC as "a directory, repository of links, or means of promotion, and ... indiscriminate lists" --Andreas Philopater (talk) 18:13, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete. Wikipedia isn't a memorial site. Only notable names should be mentioned and that can be done so on the parent article. Ajf773 (talk) 18:50, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bear in mind that "the retention of encyclopedic information that does not warrant separate articles" is explicitly given as a reason for a stand-alone list in the relevant guideline. And it's not because this is a list of people who died in a fire that it's a memorial of them. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 18:57, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing inherently unencyclopedic about a list of victims of a notable disaster. The Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, printed a list of the people who died when the Titanic sank. -208.81.148.195 (talk) 22:25, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Weak Keep - A number of additional victims are encyclopedic, in spite of not yet having an article. These include fr:Camille Moreau-Nélaton, fr:Gustave-Joseph Munier, and Hélène Bernard-Dutreil, and significant "indirect" deaths include fr:Léon de Poilloüe de Saint Mars and Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale. The list as a list has been the subject of reliable sources. The lack of detailed sources as well as the excessive length of the list may suggest the list is less encyclopedic (and is the reason I'm voting weak), but I do not find those issues overwhelming. To me, the list is encyclopedic and doesn't fail OR or NPOV. The article is weak on sources, but sources are plentiful. A list of victims and short biography of many can be found in chapter 4 of Jules Huret, La Catastrophe du Bazar de la Charité (4 mai 1897) [archive], Paris, F. Juven, 189?, p 52. Smmurphy^(Talk) 18:54, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the support. I'm hoping you might drop the "weak" when considering that the list is much shorter than that at Passengers of the RMS Titanic, and that there are plenty of French sources, it just being a question of access to them. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 09:50, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't think the policies support considering relative merits at articles for discussion against other articles. I understand that others disagree with that idea and WP:OUTCOMES is a policy supplement which implies the opposite of this view. I agree that relative merits arguments can help expose biases in peoples !voting. I also acknowledge that I may occasionally make such arguments. That said, I do not intend to be making one here. Long lists, especially those with limited sourcing and non-encyclopedic inclusion criteria, are often deleted not because they fail to meet our policies and guidelines strictly applied, but because they are aesthetically poor and do not strike readers as having encyclopedic merit (in short, I think aesthetics/taste is a more important factor at AfDs than some like to admit). This article is about a group of people who happen to have a few things in common, making this arguably a form of "list of X who are Y". I think that many members of "high society" who are on this list are likely encyclopedic in-spite of not yet having articles (that is, a concerted effort utilizing French society pages from the era could be made to create articles for many of these individuals). Their co-occurent deaths are notable and covered at the page on the Bazar. I tend to think that their co-membership in a certain type of society in late 1800s France is also encyclopedic, and I don't have any problem with creating a list article related to their presence at a particularly important and historic event especially one which led to their deaths (so I do not think this is a "list of X who are Y"). Given these concerns, I hesitate to strongly support keeping without being shown some interest and effort by someone to improve the page - either a full WP:HEY or at least a proof of concept for a WP:HEY. So you may read my weak as encouragement to make the article more expressive about why the individuals were present and possibly to make it less exhaustive in listing as many deaths as possible regardless of sourcing and of the encyclopedic value of including their name (see WP:LISTPEOPLE and WP:FLCR - this article has no lede, is poorly sourced, includes mostly subjects with no shown encyclopedic merit, gives no detail on their commonalities and variances relative to the rest of the list, etc). I understand this partially is in conflict with WP:AFDISNOTCLEANUP, but in practice it is hard to !vote keep on articles with weak claims to encyclopedic merit and with no hope for improvement; a significant cleanup is a good way to illustrate that there is good hope for future improvement and ideally to better show the encyclopedic merit of the subject. Smmurphy^(Talk) 19:05, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Merge to Bazar de la Charité, but only notable victims. This isn't on a par with the Titanic passengers. Clarityfiend (talk) 20:10, 25 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Really? Seems like a textbook WP:NOTPAPER situation to me, as long as the information is sourced and verifiable... -208.81.148.195 (talk) 14:53, 26 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not "on a par with" but certainly comparable to. This fire was a pretty big deal in French social and cultural history (as well as the history of forensics). --Andreas Philopater (talk) 09:42, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete (at worst merge to Bazar de la Charité#Fire of 1897) -- That article has an external link to a series of lists. It was certainly a terrible disaster, but that does not make the individual victims notable. I could only see one person with her own bluelink. Her death should certainly be noted in the main article. Peterkingiron (talk) 17:11, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Peterkingiron, there are actually two bluelinks but, as Smmurphy has noted above, there could easily be several more. That aside, the premise that each member of the list should be notable does not correspond to the relevant guideline (WP:CSC) which specifies the exact contrary: that one of the accepted purposes of a stand-alone list is to provide an overview of individuals who are collectively notable but not individually notable enough for stand-alone articles. I hope this clarification will lead you to reconsider your view. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 18:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC) I would also add that the lists that we link to are none of them strongly sourced and mostly provide a list of names (some misspelled or inaccurately OCRed) with none of the accompanying detail available on the list here. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 18:21, 27 February 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I stand corrected, but it does not change my vote. There are websites that list the 9-11 victims, but I do not think that justifies a WP article. Peterkingiron (talk) 16:11, 3 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Nor have I suggested that they should, Peterkingiron. You said "That article has an external link to a series of lists" as though that was a reason not to have a list here. I'm simply pointing out that we have a sound list, and the links you mention are to poor lists. Far from their existence justifying this list, their poorness means that a link to them is no substitute for this list. --22:41, 5 March 2019 (UTC)
• Keep as meeting the criteria of a list in WP:CSC, as noted by Andreas Philopater. If not kept as a separate article, I would suggest that it could be incorporated into Bazar de la Charité#Fire of 1897, which is not overly long. RebeccaGreen (talk) 11:35, 4 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
• Strong Delete The issue of lists of non-notable victims of WP:EVENTs has been a source of endless controversy and debate. The community is deeply divided on the appropriateness of these kinds of lists either in stand alone lists or within articles about the EVENT. Several attempts have been made to clarify our guidelines on the subject and all have failed with proponents of retaining such lists arguing they should be resolved on a case by case basis. I believe such lists are inherently un-encyclopedic and contrary to at least the spirit of NOTMEMORIAL and the letter of NOTEVERYTHING and INDISCRIMINATE. -Ad Orientem (talk) 00:48, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ad Orientem, it would be helpful if you could specify which words of NOTEVERYTHING and INDISCRIMINATE you take this to contravene. I've already had to explain that CSC, given in the deletion rationale, actually says the opposite of what its citation there suggests. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 22:41, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

• Merge the notable deaths into the parent article and delete the rest of the article. We don't include lists of victims per WP:NOTMEMORIAL and considering the short length of the article would be an improper fork anyways. Some of the information on the non-notable victims may itself be salvageable SportingFlyer T·C 06:34, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I also want to mention this fails WP:CSC, as "short, complete lists of every item that is verifiably a member of the group" mentions being under 32k (which this passes) but also useful or interesting to readers (i.e., for navigation reasons.) A majority of these entries simply list the name and age of the victim without providing useful navigation. Whether it's interesting I guess would be up to each user to decide on an individual basis, but WP:NOTMEMORIAL to me seems helpful in identifying it's not useful. If a complete list would include "hundreds" of entries - 126 in this list - then the scope should be limited to only those notable victims. The proper place for this would be on the main page of the fire, including only the blue linked entries. SportingFlyer T·C 22:56, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This is already a complete list of 126 items (well short of "hundreds") and is, you say, under 32k. To me, the fact that more than one biographical compilation on the victims has been published in print (and a memorial to them has been built in Paris, Notre-Dame de Consolation) suggests that the victims collectively and by name pass the general notability guideline. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 23:07, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely disagree with you, sorry. A memorial built to victims does not make the list of victims notable. It's possible every victim may be notable if there have been multiple biographical works published on them, but even assuming the list passes WP:GNG, that guideline is still trumped by WP:NOT. SportingFlyer T·C 23:46, 5 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's helpful if you actually answer the point being made, namely that a memorial and several independent publications list the victims, making the list of victims notable (not the individual victims; but the individual items on a list need not each be notable, as per WP:CSC). You cite WP:NOT, but WP:NOTPAPER is a more relevant part of that than WP:NOTMEMORIAL: this is not an attempt to preserve the memory of people who would otherwise be forgotten, because there are already a church in Paris and several independent publications already dedicated to preserving that memory. You, and others above, citing "notmemorial", are going against the spirit of that very policy by reading "not the place to memorialize deceased friends, relatives, acquaintances, or others" to mean we should avoid any mention of the deaths of non-notable individuals even when their deaths are notable. When 126 people die in a disaster and those 126 people are lastingly memorialised in newspapers, books and monuments, a list of those 126 people is hardly at odds with Wikipedia's notability requirements. I can't help thinking a lot of the responses here are led by a feeling that "I've never heard of it, so it can't be that notable", rather than a consideration of the enormous impact of this particular disaster in France. --Andreas Philopater (talk) 10:22, 9 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]

I feel as if I did answer the point being made already. I'd also like to note that based on a review of the List of victims category, the only article we have which might include victims who aren't otherwise notable is the Passengers on the RMS Titanic article, which is not presented purely as a list of victims. Even (for the sake of argument) if WP:NOTMEMORIAL doesn't apply here WP:NOTDIRECTORY would. We do not or should not just blindly reprint victim lists, especially because there are many disasters with published victim lists and memorials. SportingFlyer T·C 18:04, 9 March 2019 (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.