Talk:Lists of deaths by year

How far back?

I was going to suggest that years prior to 2004 could all be lumped together at the bottom of the page, i.e.

• Deaths in 2003
• Deaths in 2002
• Deaths in 2001

...etc., and maybe columnised to save space, but then I wondered where the cut-off point would be. 1900? 1st century AD? I think it might be better to stop at 2004, with List of years as a "See also" link. DoctorKubla (talk) 14:25, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

Redirecting "Deaths in..." pages

The "Deaths in 20nn" articles are now redundant to this one, so I'm going to start redirecting them to the appropriate year article (Deaths in 2004 to 2004#Deaths, etc). I'm just mentioning it here first, so we've got somewhere to discuss it when my actions are reverted. DoctorKubla (talk) 14:37, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

2004#Deaths is not an appropriate alternative for Deaths in 2004 (and other years after 1996). The "YEAR" pages have different criteria for listing a death there (see Wikipedia:RY#Deaths). It is neither appropriate nor reasonable to send a reader looking for death notices to 2004#Deaths when only a very "selective" group of people are listed there. WWGB (talk) 01:30, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

I proposed the deletion of these "Deaths in 20nn", specifically from 2004 to 2011, for they have nothing but list of links, please see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deaths in 2004. WWGB's argument is very weak. If it is inappropriate to send the reader to 2004#Deaths, it is even worse to send them to Deaths in 2004 when no people are listed at all. If you argue that readers can click one of the 12 links listed in Deaths in 2004 to see the details, then why can't they click one of the links below each heading in 2004#Deaths? In the AFD, the only reason to keep it is to keep the history of editing which is technically impossible to merge into other pages, but by changing it to redirects the history is preserved. --Quest for Truth (talk) 06:14, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

A reader sent to 2004#Deaths could reasonably conclude that there was only one notable death on January 1. How would they "know" that they are expected to click through to find the rest? Sending people looking specifically for information on Deaths in 2004 to the generic 2004 article is misleading and unhelpful. WWGB (talk) 06:26, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

As I understand it, 2004#Deaths gives an overview of the most internationally significant people who died in 2004 (which I imagine is what most people expect when they type "Deaths in 2004"), with a hatnote for each month that leads to the more comprehensive listings. In that respect, it's the same sort of summary style used everywhere on Wikipedia. If the average reader were incapable of comprehending hatnotes, I doubt they'd be used quite so frequently. DoctorKubla (talk) 06:47, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

"most internationally significant people who died in 2004" is a dubious statement. The editors of 2004#Deaths assert that the only significant death on January 25, 2004 was "Miklos Feher, Hungarian footballer" whereas Deaths in January 2004 reports the death on the same day of Fanny Blankers-Koen, four-time Olympic gold medalist, but not considered worthy of mention at 2004#Deaths. I think many of the contributing editors to Recent deaths would not be pleased to have their contributions subservient to the eclectic list at 20nn#Deaths. WWGB (talk) 14:23, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Have you actually proposed Fanny Blankers on the 2004#Deaths page? If so, could you link to the discussion so I can see why she's "not considered worthy of mention"? Using the {{main}} template to link from a page of lists to another page of lists seems kind of silly. On the other hand, I agree that the hatnote at the top of the "20nn#Deaths" articles would appear to link the reader nicely to the full list. We could probably add a hatnote for each month (e.g. 2004#July) linking to Deaths in July 2004 (for instance), if editors think that would be useful.   — Jess· Δ♥ 14:46, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

The hidden comments in 2004#Deaths said anybody with at least nine non-English language Wikipedia articles can be listed there. For Fanny Blankers not listed there yet, it is possible that the article did not have enough non-English articles in 2004 and this athlete is ignored even when it later has enough articles. I added her death by WP:BOLD. --Quest for Truth (talk) 19:38, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

If WWGB's only concern is that the year articles aren't appropriate redirect targets, we could redirect the "Deaths in 20nn" articles to the corresponding section of this page instead. I think that would be far less helpful, though, and I don't really understand WWGB's objections, so I think it deserves further discussion. I'll try and get some of the Deaths in 2012 regulars to chime in. DoctorKubla (talk) 20:18, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

My objection is that 20nn#Deaths is an unrepresentative sample of the deaths in that period. It sets up an elitist subset of the deaths, when in fact they have all been deemed notable. I have already shown that it is inconsistent, selective and not well-patrolled. If you look at this article you will see that Deaths in 20nn is regularly in the Top 10 most viewed articles, whereas the 20nn article itself does nor rate a mention. I will not support any attempt to subsume the fine work of Deaths in 20nn into 20nn#Deaths.

It is also not clear how the significant content, status and access of Talk:Deaths in 20nn will be affected by the suggested page moves. WWGB (talk) 03:24, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I accept that 2011#Deaths includes only a subset of the total deaths in 2011. What is the alternative? What page contains a list of all the deaths in 2011, without trimming any? It seems you're suggesting that Deaths in 2011 is better, despite the fact that it contains no deaths at all. Not one. It's empty, save for a few links which are also present in the 2011#Deaths article too. How is that better?

On a side-note, the statistic about Deaths in 20nn articles being in the top 10 is outdated and misleading. The source you cite is from 2009, quite a while back. Deaths in 2012 is not in the top 10 for today, or for this week, or even for this month. See here. Furthermore, the largest amount of traffic pulled in for the "Deaths in year" articles is almost exclusively focused on the current year, with hardly any traffic at all for past years. See here for "Deaths in 2010"; notice the steep dropoff in January 2011, when page views drop back to nearly 0. This is the same every single year. The fact is, the old "Deaths in 20nn" articles get almost no traffic at all, and that's very likely because they have no content at all. 20nn#Deaths at least has some content, even if it is a subset (albeit the most notable subset), and then it provides links to each of the "Death in month of year" articles for a more complete list. That seems to me to serve a much greater purpose.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Precisely. Deaths in 20nn will not be subservient to 20nn#Deaths. Both contain links to the full monthly listings, but 20nn#Deaths also offers an overview of the most internationally notable deaths. This may be a more selective list (because Deaths in 20nn is selective as well), but it's better than no list at all. It sounds like your concern is that people would prefer to read the partial list, and you don't want to draw their attention to it. That's not really a valid position to argue from.

And the histories and talk pages of the redirected articles will still be accessible with one extra click. DoctorKubla (talk) 07:04, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with an article consisting of links elsewhere. It is similar to opening a book at the contents page. There are plenty of similar pages in Wikipedia such as List of stadiums and Cathedrals in the United Kingdom. Those articles also consist only of links elsewhere. On Wikipedia, many lists themselves contain lists. The "final" version of Deaths in 20nn, a compressed list after the end of that year, is still valuable as a launching page for interested readers. I remain confused why an unnecessary detour through 20nn#Deaths is in any way helpful.

On latest data, Deaths in 2011 is still being visited about 500-600 times per day ([1]). I dispute the assertion of "nearly 0". Of course Deaths in 20nn will never top daily or weekly lists, since it is overtaken by news of the day or fads. Nevertheless, it continues to feature in Top 10 monthly and annual lists.

I did not realise there was a subset for "most notable" deaths. Is that like "Greatest Deaths of 2012"? The list at 20nn#Deaths is unrepresentative elitism.

(Guys, I'm not doing this to be stubborn or difficult. I just believe that Deaths in 20nn serves the purpose outlined in Wikipedia:List#Navigation. I don't see that the present set-up breaches any WP guideline. Yes, I do have a personal dislike of 20nn#Deaths, but in broader terms I don't see any deficiency in what we have now.) WWGB (talk) 08:31, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Deaths in 2011 may get 500 hits, but Deaths in 2005 gets 40. Indeed, it drops off each year. And to be clear, neither of those is very much. Two clicks of "Random article" took me to Jim Kaat and Herrera Province, start-class articles for an 82-year-old retired baseball player and a small territory which has had 84 edits in its entire history as an article, and none in the past year and a half. These garnish 150 and 20 hits per day, respectively. For comparison, many high quality articles hit 5 to 10 thousand per day, regularly. My only point in addressing your assertion about "a lot of traffic" was to point out that this happens only for [one year, incidentally when the articles also have actual content on them. As soon as we take the content off the page and turn it into a list of links, the traffic drops to nothing. The argument that "these were top articles" is not a good reason to prefer them to articles with content, particularly when we notice that the year articles get more traffic anyway; here's 2011, topping 1300 per day.

I'm not suggesting that a list of links (i.e. in the "Deaths in year" articles) are wrong. I'm suggesting that they could be improved by 1) adding some content, and 2) housing them at a common place, instead of duplicating existing content we have in three other places. I appreciate the work that's gone into compiling all these deaths on the month pages; those are really great. I think they've probably been instrumental to creating the content at the year articles too. I think those are the areas we should be directing readers to - the ones which actually list that work - not list after redundant list with no content to speak of.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:05, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

WWGB, would you object to the pages redirecting here instead (i.e. Deaths in 2004 to List of deaths by year#2004)? DoctorKubla (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I have no problem with the Deaths in 20nn pages being redirected here. It makes this a "hyperlist" linking to all notable deaths. I would, however, prefer that the hatnote states See also:20nn#Deaths rather than Main article:20nn#Deaths, my argument being that 20nn#Deaths is not an article but a section, and also it is not the "main" source of information concerning deaths. WWGB (talk) 08:23, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Alright. DoctorKubla (talk) 10:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Deaths in 2012 is the third highest viewed page in 2012 according to recently released stats.[2] and there was an AFD in June which decided to keep them all. Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Deaths in 2004. I dont think this discussion here should have overridden the AFD outcome, but it seems nobody has reverted in the six months since they were redirected, so maybe it was for the best. However it is very odd that we have one page for pre-2012, but for 2012, we also have articles for each month (e.g. Deaths in June 2012 and Deaths in December 2012). The result is inconsistency favouring recentism. John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:47, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

I see the 2010 and 2011 articles also have a very high pageview count in December of their respective years.[3][4] John Vandenberg ^(chat) 00:52, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, we probably shouldn't have separate articles for the month in year after 2012. But, we do. If you want to propose that we house the month in year content at the year article (i.e. 2012) and the category (i.e. Category:2012 deaths), where the content is duplicated already, that's a notion I would support. I have too much going on to propose it myself, however.   — Jess· Δ♥ 00:54, 29 December 2012 (UTC)

"If you want to propose that we house the month in year content at the year article and the category, where the content is duplicated already, that's a notion I would support." Are you suggesting we put over 6,000 deaths in pages like 2012? How fancy a computer do you have that supports such load times, even without the cites? — ^Wylie_Coyote 01:55, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Plus, articles like 2012 and 2013 have fuzzy little rules like a death is only listed if the deceased has Wikipedia articles in at least 10 different languages. WWGB (talk) 02:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for making my bookmarks invalid

I don't know what you folks are doing with the obit pages, but it reminds me of Dr. McCoy saying, "I know about engineers. They love to change things." Because, in the mind of an engineer, and especially a software engineer, any change at all is an "improvement," even if it makes more work for everyone involved.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcanicus (talk • contribs)

Estimate of overall human deaths?

Maybe there's no database or statistical model to differentiate year from year in this regard, but is there a way these articles could contain how many people it's estimated have died in any given year? --IronMaidenRocks (talk) 12:53, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Now how far back should it go?

SInce there is information readily available for most of the 20th century, why stop at 1987? Why not 1980? 1950? 1900? All I'm asking is "what should we actually go back to as a designated stop", because I'm not sure why 1987 is the current one. Paintspot (talk) 18:00, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree, but I think we should go back to the 1850's perhaps on a different scale ad earlier, if enough can be found. scope_creep (talk) 22:22, 12 March 2017 (UTC)

@Paintspot and Scope creep: we can start with JFK. once he is here, he will attract readers, editors, more years and whatnot. (I had to control myself very hard from using "more deaths" in place of "more years".) —usernamekiran(talk) 10:43, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

It needs to go back before the Greeks. Possibly only do it by range, what ever the established range is. scope_creep (talk) 12:44, 21 February 2018 (UTC)

Little Suggestion

I wanted to say that if you have enough information, could we possibly go back to earlier years? Thanks Lucky7Chromebook (talk) 16:18, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and I wanted to say that can we include years from 2020? Lucky7Chromebook (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I just wanted to say thank you for keeping the article updated. I don't mind the range anymore.

ItsCheck (talk) 01:01, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Centralizes the talk page death

Should we centralizes all the talk page of Talk:Deaths in ... to this page, because after the year finishes it would redirect into this page? Thingofme (talk) 12:10, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

No, comments about any article must be recorded on the talk page of that article. WWGB (talk) 12:20, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

It's not like Wikipedia namespace pages, like we can centralize contents. However, as the year switches, I would suggest that centralization. However, there are some issues, as the talks are only focused on one year, so I agree with your explanation. Thingofme (talk) 13:02, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Inclusion of Animals

The description at the top of this page ... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_deaths_by_year ... clearly states that "this is a list of deaths of notable PEOPLE".

So why are animals allowed in these lists? Shouldn't a separate list be started for them? Braintic (talk) 08:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

See FAQ #4 at Talk:Deaths in 2024. WWGB (talk) 11:35, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Lists too long

These lists are too long and obscure to be of much interest to most readers. It would be more useful to have more accessible lists, probably year-by-year rather than monthly, of higher-tier notables that the average reader has some possibility of having heard of. 2A00:23C8:7B0C:9A01:4431:A98D:6F12:A80C (talk) 01:02, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

By "average reader" you probably mean American. I have not heard of the only person whose page you've edited because I am not American. Who gets to decide whether he counts? Who gets to decide what "average" is? You? Me?

If me, would you be happy to allow me to apply my biases to the decision of who is in and who is out? "Morris Pleasure" would not make the cut.

If you, would you include famous cricketers? Would the ratio of Americans to Australians roughly match the population ratio of 13 to 1? I suspect you would have it closer to 200 to 1. What about non-western countries? I suspect they would suffer even more. Braintic (talk) 08:33, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Add these names

Please add Warren W. Washington and Marie Goodman Hunter 77.247.89.68 (talk) 12:57, 23 October 2024 (UTC)