Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Passengers of the RMS Titanic

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 keep. (non-admin closure) Jovanmilic97 (talk) 11:26, 23 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Passengers of the RMS Titanic

Passengers of the RMS Titanic (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)

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This is essentially one massive listcruft page; its sole purpose is to track who stayed where on the Titanic, whether or not they lived through the disaster, and how long they survived before kicking the bucket (which in turn could be interpreted as a form of fancruft). In that sense then this list ultimately reduces itself to nothing more than random assortment of unneeded information. I put to the community that the page should be deleted and that salvageable information (what little of it there may be) should either be siphoned out to relevant biographical articles or merged back into the ship article. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:22, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 00:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 00:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Transportation-related deletion discussions. Bakazaka (talk) 00:29, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Leaning keep, largely on the basis of Wikipedia:AFDISNOTCLEANUP. I don't know that the article needs to be deleted - there is an encyclopedic way to write it, even if the current version needs a hacksaw. Much of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd class sections is probably salvageable, provided better sourcing can be found (an issue I raised at the GAR I started earlier today), and it's too much material to be merged back to RMS_Titanic#Passengers (the main article is already rather large). Parsecboy (talk) 00:38, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• keep The Titanic is primarily notable for its prominent passengers, not for sailing or for sinking. Dimadick (talk) 01:10, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Snow keep There maybe some issues that could be discussed on the talkpage there, but this is a ridicules nomination and from an admin? How can you nominate an article that made it through a GA. Govvy (talk) 19:24, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The same way I nominated a Featured Article for deletion. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:41, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
    • @TomStar81: Then clearly you aren't learning, articles thrive on citations under established GNG rules and when an article has sound structure, like this one, you're going nowhere with AfD, what you're doing and the way you're doing it is all wrong. You clearly haven't started a conversation on talk pages about problems you view the articles to have. What I don't get is you're an admin, I thought of all people you would understand and respect how wikipedia works, I think you might be delving down the dark side.. Govvy (talk) 11:08, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
      • TomStar81's expertise in Wikipedia seems to be military history. This article may be off his/her comfort zone. Dimadick (talk) 17:13, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
        • Focus on the afd, not me. What I edit and where I contribute are my business, and that I have put this up for AFD only means that I am of the opinion that it doesn't belong, not that my comfort zone need to be judged. Now if you're quite done wikihounding me, lets turn to the matter at hand and do our talking on the article. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:51, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Delete The list serves no purpose. Prominent passengers travelled on a lot of other ships - should we have lists of passengers for every voyage? Why not keep lists of people who died in other disasters, like Empress of Ireland? or list of people who died in the Battle of Iwo Jima? List of passengers who died in airplane crashes? car accidents? Crook1 (talk) 20:48, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did the Empress of Ireland have as many prominent and notable passengers as the Titanic did? Astor, Guggenheim and Strauss alone were worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Several of the other passengers became notable after the sinking for either their role during the disaster or for their reports, books and interviews in the days, weeks, months and years following (ie, Jack Thayer, Lawrence Beasley). The ship's band, technically passengers, are well-known. In addition, the latter two lists you mentioned are silly in comparison; this list is, barring stowaways, complete. Ancestry has databases for outward-bound passengers, survivors ferried on the Carpathia, bodies buried at sea, crew members, etc. It is a finite list and, again, barring stowaways who become known in the future, does not require any further additions. Listing all passengers who died in airplane crashes or car accidents is both unlimited and unmaintainable. This list is not. Piratesswoop (talk) 05:27, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep — Whatever the list of names needs done to it, if anything, is WP:SURMOUNTABLE. There's quite a bit of good content here besides a list of names. It looks like this and Crew of the RMS Titanic were spawned off Sinking of the RMS Titanic to sharpen the focus and balance the main article, while keeping encyclopedic details about those on board, per WP:Summary style. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:31, 16 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Half the reason the ship's sinking was so infamous is because of its passengers, especially many of the more prominent first class passengers. The reason we don't have articles like this for passengers on the Empress of Ireland or the Luisitania is because the passengers involved in this sinking were significantly more prominent. I, personally, spent a lot of time expanding this article, so if there are any overlying issues with it, I'd be happy to aid in amending them. Piratesswoop (talk) 03:17, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, meritless nomination. This easily passes WP:LISTN, as it would be hard to find a group of survivors/victims more documented as a group. There are also a high number of individuals with articles who are indelibly linked to the Titanic's sinking, as shown by the substantially populated categories for victims and survivors in Category:RMS Titanic's crew and passengers. So this also has significant value as an index of articles by significant shared characteristic per WP:LISTPURP and WP:CLN. This could also be easily defended as a WP:SPLIT from the main article, as for such a historic event it is an appropriate level of detail for this subtopic. postdlf (talk) 15:32, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep, but the list of non notable individuals should be removed. It is far too much intricate detail only of interest to an enthusiast which has no place in an encyclopedia for the general reader. Lyndaship (talk) 15:37, 17 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. As postdlf has noted, the Titanic passengers have received a great deal of scrutiny. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:19, 18 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep Totally ridiculous nomination. The subject has received significant coverage for over a century now, and it's virtually impossible for an article which meets the sourcing requirements under WP:GA to fail WP:GNG. Smartyllama (talk) 15:01, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep but remove list of non-notable passengers which runs afoul of WP:NOTEVERYTHING. An external link to a full list of passengers and crew would be adequate. Otherwise there is a lot of useful information in here. -Ad Orientem (talk) 20:05, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment there is clearly enough sourced material for an article on the topic, but I can't !vote Keep on the entire ship's manifest being listed here. The manifest could possibly be included on Wikisource. power~enwiki (π, ν) 20:16, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment on SIZE - This page is a massive 217kB, but 174kB of that are the needless tables with lists of non-notable passengers (except for a few in 1st class), and even more needless tables of lists of "who-died-when". That means there is perhaps 43kB of possibly useful info, but that may just be duplicated from the main Titanic article, that also has it's own "passengers" section. Remove the tables, give the rest a serious overhaul, then determine if it's worth keeping, merging to the main article or deleting. Oh, and stop calling this nom "ridiculous". TomStar81 has posted a well-written and worthwhile nom about a "ridiculous" page. - wolf 20:21, 19 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep because Wikipedia:Deletion is not cleanup, and because the passengers have been extensively analyzed by sources, individually and as a whole. Whether the page should include the full list is not a proper subject for AFD. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  And yet that's what people are suggesting and that is a part of the sound reasoning provided in the nom. So there ya have it anyway. - wolf 02:50, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  So if this nomination is treated as a valid use of AfD, then what we will get is this: you have an article with two parts, one of which an editor would like to delete. Unable or unwilling to win consensus to delete the article section on the article talk page, editors will come to AfD and says "Merge the parts I like somewhere else, and delete the rest." To me, that's just another way of using AfD as cleanup, and finding a sympathetic forum when the article talk age and normal dispute resolution options aren't producing the desired outcome.

  The only thing AfD should do is produce an up or down result on the question of whether 'passengers of the Titanic' is a valid topic for a stand-alone article. Summary style questions as to what belongs in the parent article Sinking of the RMS Titanic and what in any spin-off articles, whether to have an embedded list or not, and what that list should include, are all outside the scope of AfD. Those issues should not be mentioned at all in the outcome. Close this as either delete, keep, or no consensus. Full stop. Seek an appropriate venue for disputes over any other question. In my humble opinion. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 03:32, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  Pfft! Seriously? Dennis, you really think you can control what people post at AfD? I think you'd have a better chance of herding a clowder of kittens in a cat-nip factory... ;-) - wolf 17:06, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  I think AfD closures can focus on what AfD is for, and ignore extraneous commentary and advice in the !votes. If they reward that with prescriptive closure statements, it encourages more editors to forum shop at AfD when they should be resolving content disputes in the appropriate venue. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:14, 20 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

• Keep for now - This article contains a lot of good information and also a lot of stuff that probably doesn't belong on Wikipedia at all, like the entire passenger manifest. There are several other Titanic articles that seem excessively detailed such as Lifeboats of the RMS Titanic. Let's clarify the scope, clean it up, see what's left and maybe have a higher-level discussion about how to cover the Titanic overall before considering deletion. –dlthewave ☎ 00:01, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • In a sense, thats the problem here: most of the 1st class passengers were independently notable, meaning that we have articles covering them specifically. Most of the second and third class passengers we not independently notable, which qualifies them for a list perhaps but not really an independent article here. If you apply notability here then you run into the problem that the article's most notable people either already have articles here or can be said to be notable enough to warrant one, while the others should be in a list, but then the problem becomes what anchors the list? Essentially, at what point does the wheat end and the chaff begin? The wheat we have a use for, but the chaff is good for practically nothing - unless its military chaff, in which case its worth a few million to the lowest bidder :) TomStar81 (Talk) 14:00, 22 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep. A list of people who were aboard one of the most famous voyages in history, analysed and written about numerous times, is most certainly notable. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:00, 21 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Keep: @Necrothesp: says it well. And it provides a target to which to redirect some of the otherwise non-notable passengers, such as Mabel Fortune Driscoll currently at AfD. PamD 10:27, 23 November 2018 (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.