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This is a worksheet to analyze the proposed mass deletions of Lists of X Americans. The most common keep and delete arguments are as follows:

  • Keep supporters often refer to:
<1> quality of article: adequate sourcing, editing (or formatting), encyclopedic content (= No violation of WP:LIST, WP:NPOV, WP:CITE, WP:LISTCRUFT, WP:UNENC),
<2> notable/not a loose connection (=No violation of WP:NOT#DIR) and used by the U.S. Census.
<3> not possible to make into category
<4> part of a series of 60+ such lists just for US, individual lists should not be targeted.
<5> vendetta/systematic bias against ethnic lists
<6> repository for red links (meets WP:SAL)
  • Delete supporters often refer to:
A. WP:OVERCAT,
B. a loose connection (=violation of WP:NOT#DIR),
C. should be category instead,
D. an indiscriminate collection of information (=violation of WP:UNENC)


Afd history for [List of X Americans] (excluding withdrawn nominations)

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Most recent nominations first:

Article Date nominated Discussion
trend 		Closing rationale
KEEP List of Hungarian Americans[1] 6 Sep 2007 8 keep -
2 delete 		"The result was Keep". 14 Sep 2007
KEEP List of Russian Americans[2] 26 Aug 2007 7 keep -
4 delete 		"Such a common ethnicity means the article escapes WP:NOT#INFO". 4 Sep 2007
KEEP List of Taiwanese Americans[3] 26 Aug 2007 12 keep -
6 delete 		"Kept by consensus". 3 Sep 2007
DELETE List of German Americans[4] 25 Aug 2007 11 keep -
9 delete 		Deleted for being "a loose association" as per WP:NOT#DIR, 3 Sep 2007. Deletion overturned 17 Oct 2007.
KEEP List of Bahamian Americans[5] 24 Aug 2007 11 keep -
3 delete 		"Kept by consensus". 31 Aug 2007
DELETE List of Norwegian Americans[6] 23 Aug 2007 17 keep -
10 delete 		"Arguments to 'keep' in a number of cases lack any justification for retaining the list" and "a number of others don't really provide any justification for why we should keep the list." 31 Aug 2007. Deletions overturned 27 Oct 2007.
DELETE List of Belgian Americans[7] 23 Aug 2007 8 keep -
8 delete 		Arguments to 'keep' "failed to address why we should have a list" 31 Aug 2007. Deletions overturned 27 Oct 2007.
DELETE List of English Americans[8] 22 Aug 2007 5 keep -
10 delete 		"The result was delete" 27 Aug 2007. Deletion overturned 29 Oct 2007.
KEEP List of Portuguese Americans[9] 18 Aug 2007 15 keep -
10 delete 		"The result was no consensus". 23 Aug 2007
KEEP List of Chinese Americans[10] 6 Mar 2007 18 keep -
13 delete 		"The result was no consensus. Any possible splits are editorial decisions". 14 Mar 2007
DELETE List of African Americans (3rd nom)[11] 5 Mar 2007 8 keep -
17 delete 		"The result was delete", 11 Mar 2007. List of African Americans was recreated 11 Mar 2007.
DELETE List of Caucasian Americans (2nd nom)[12] 5 Mar 2007 2 keep -
21 delete 		"The result was delete". 11 Mar 2007
KEEP Lists of Irish-Americans[13] 4 Jul 2006 13 keep -
3 delete 		"The result of the nomination was keep". 10 Jul 2006
KEEP List of French Americans[14] 30 Jun 2006 2 keep -
3 redirect
(0 delete) 		"The result of the debate was Keep". 7 Jul 2006
DELETE List of Caucasian Americans[15] 29 Nov 2005 6 keep
21 delete 		"Consensus to delete". 6 Dec 2005
KEEP List of Jewish Americans (2nd nom)[16] 27 Nov 2005 9 keep -
4 delete 		"The result of the debate was keep". 2 Dec 2005
KEEP List of Native Americans[17] 27 Nov 2005 6 keep -
2 delete 		"The result of the debate was KEEP". 27 Nov 2005
KEEP List of African Americans (2nd nom)[18] 18 Nov 2005 14 keep -
15 delete 		"The result of the debate was no consensus. Default to keep". 28 Nov 2005
KEEP List of Italian Americans[19] 18 Nov 2005 3 keep -
1 delete 		"The result of the debate was Speedy keep, WP:POINT." 18 Nov 2005
KEEP List of Jewish Americans[20] 18 Nov 2005 7 keep -
1 delete 		"The result of the debate was Speedy keep, WP:POINT." 18 Nov 2005
KEEP List of Vietnamese Americans[21] 18 Nov 2005 3 keep -
1 delete 		"The result of the debate was Speedy keep, WP:POINT." 18 Nov 2005
KEEP List of Polish Americans[22] 18 Nov 2005 4 keep -
1 delete 		"The result of the debate was Speedy keep, WP:POINT." 18 Nov 2005
KEEP List of African Americans[23] 17 Aug 2005 9 keep -

4 delete

"The result of the debate was keep." 24 Aug 2005

Drv history for [List of X Americans]

Article Date nominated Discussion
trend 		Closing rationale
ENDORSE List of Norwegian Americans (review) [24] 31 Aug 2007 10 overturn -
8+1 endorse
(incl. closing admin.) 		"Deletion closure endorsed. The continuing debate over lists vs. categories sees yet another incarnation. The relevant question seems to be whether the AfD closer abused his discretion. [...] There is a narrow consensus that the closer did not. [...] Inconsistent treatment of various nationalities at various AfDs is not, in itself, a reason to overturn. By strength of argument, and numbers, the original decision stands." 5 Sep 2007
ENDORSE List_of_German Americans (review) [25] 7 Sep 2007 6 overturn -
5+1 endorse
(incl. closing adm.) 		"Deletion closure endorsed." 12 Sep 2007
OVERTURN List of German Americans (review) [26] 12 Oct 2007 10 overturn -
3+1 endorse
(incl. closing adm.) 		"Deletion overturned.[...] If the parent article German-Americans is notable, it is not immediately clear why a list of such would not be encyclopedically useful as a supplement to that notable article. Closer did not explain why such a list was inappropriate, but assumed it was so, and seeing no evidence to the contrary, imposed his assumption. This (at least according to consensus below) shifted the burden of proof in the wrong direction. If the parent article is notable, assume a sourced list supplementing that article is encyclopedic, absent evidence to contrary." 17 Oct 2007
OVERTURN List of Norwegian Americans (review) [27] 22 Oct 2007 15 overturn -
0 endorse
 "Deletion overturned." 27 October 2007
OVERTURN List of English Americans (review) [28] 24 Oct 2007 7 overturn -
1 relist -
6 endorse
 "Deletion overturned. At least for so long as the parent article English Americans continues to exist, it is presumed that a list of such people is a useful aid to reader comprehension and is encyclopedic (as established by the consensus at the latest German American DRV and those following.) While the agreement on this particular list found below is not as strong, an "argument for consistency" in treatment of the lists is offered and is reasonable." 29 October 2007

Nomination details

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  1. ^ List of Hungarian Americans. Nominated 6 September 2007 with reference to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of German Americans and for lacking "criteria for why a ethnicity-nationality-occupation intersection such as the ones present on this list is notable" and because "half of these people hardly qualify as Hungarians by any definition...they may have been born in Hungarian-territory, which would make some refer to them mistakenly as Hungarians". Kept.
  2. ^ List of Russian Americans. Nominated with the rational, "it's painful to have a list which includes both Vladimir Nabokov and Debra Messing" and "for the same reasons at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of English Americans (2nd nomination), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Norwegian Americans, etc. etc ". Kept
  3. ^ List of Taiwanese Americans, List of Hmong Americans, List of Laotian Americans, List of Cambodian Americans. Nominated for being a "Another unusual list of nationality-nationality". All kept
  4. ^ List of German Americans. Nominated for being a "dubious categorization". Deleted. Deletion overturned 17 Oct 2007.
  5. ^ List of Bahamian Americans, List of Cuban Americans, List of Jamaican Americans. Nominated for being "more nationality-nationality intersections than nationality-ethnicity intersections". All kept.
  6. ^ List of Norwegian Americans, List of Swedish Americans, List of Finnish Americans. Nominated because "Lists like this serve little purpose and ultimately become dumping grounds for WP:COI redlinks", and "per suggestions from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Portuguese Americans", "there should be no reason to keep some but not delete others". All deleted. Deletions overturned 27 Oct 2007.
  7. ^ List of Belgian Americans, List of Swiss Americans. Nominated for being "a NATIONALITY-NATIONALITY list instead of the typical ETHNICITY-NATIONALITY list, ...forced amalgamation of potentially completely unrelated people". Both deleted. Deletions overturned 27 Oct 2007.
  8. ^ List of English Americans. Nomination: "This is a procedural nomination. The prior discussion in March 2007 was as part of a mass AFD for multiple lists of "(Ancestral Nationality) Americans", the overall outcome of which was 'no consensus' with instructions to take individual articles to AFD again should that be warranted. The PROD-nomination was done in August 2007 with the stated reasoning "like list of Portuguese Americans", an article which is currently being considered here on AFD as part of a new mass-deletion nomination." Deleted. Deletion overturned 29 Oct 2007.
  9. ^ Mass-nomination. Nominator: "There are almost 200 countries in the world, not to mention distinct ethnic groups, with almost 40,000 "X residing in Y combinations". Lists like this serve little purpose and ultimately become dumping grounds for WP:COI redlinks. Feel free to use {{subst:User:Richfife/template:ethnicityafdprotest1}}". Kept.
  10. ^ Mass-nomination. Nominator: "Lists of members of major ethnic groups in America (those with, say, 3 million 1.5 million or more members) are too broad to adequately maintain, although I'd support splitting up such lists into more maintainable lists, such as 'Chinses American actors' or 'Chinese American writers'. I expect to quickly add other major ethnic groups to this nomination, but not minor ethnic groups, where the lists can be more easily maintained. There are already deletion debates ongoing for List of African Americans and List of Caucasian Americans. I am also nominating the following related pages because the same arguments apply to all large ethnic groups." Kept.
  11. ^ List of African Americans. Nomination statement: "ridiculously racist - see similar article List of Caucasian Americans which is up for speedy delete". Deleted and recreated.
  12. ^ Recreated List of Caucasian Americans: nominated for being "Impossible to maintain, impossible to be exhaustive, and seems to have been created to make a point" and "redundant"; "There are already lists of Americans by...European ethnicities". Deleted.
  13. ^ Lists of Irish-Americans. Nominator: "Merge all to Irish American. Lists of anyone who've said 'I'm Irish'...are not encyclopedic". Kept.
  14. ^ List of French Americans. Nominator: "Americans of French descent page is a more extensive list of French Americans. Need to erase this one as everyone listed is also listed in Americans of French Descent." Kept.
  15. ^ List of Caucasian Americans. Nominated for being "pointless listcruft, impossible of maintenance, disputable as to usefulness and dubious of intent." Deleted.
  16. ^ List of Jewish Americans. Nominator: "This afd is up in order to come to the consensus that this list should be cleared and made into an index for the duplicate lists that already exist...as soon as the page is deleted it will be used as an index." Kept.
  17. ^ List of Native Americans. Nominator: "WP:NOT an indiscriminate collection of information...should be a Category and not an Article". Kept.
  18. ^ List of African Americans. Nominator: "The list of Jews has also been listed, so, I'm all for equality." Kept.
  19. ^ List of Italian Americans. Nominator: "What is the connection between these people having italian ancestry and their occupation?" Kept.
  20. ^ List of Jewish Americans. Nominator: "What has having jewish ancestry got to do with these peoples occupations?" Kept.
  21. ^ List of Vietnamese Americans. Nominator: "What does having Vietnamese ancestry have to do with these peoples occupations?" Kept.
  22. ^ List of Polish Americans. Nominator: "How is having polish ancestry related to these peoples occupations?" Kept.
  23. ^ List of African Americans. Nominator: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information". Kept.
  24. ^ List of Norwegian Americans. Nominator: Deleted using "rationale to override consensus by denigrating, then ignoring the keep votes. Is this consensus or are admin people driving the process, by picking and choosing what to ignore? Admin people should be impartial and not be driving the process. The categories exist for the same information, but if you are looking for that Norwegian American scientist, your not going to find him. Having a category is no reason to delete a list that is sorted differently." Deletion endorsed.
  25. ^ List of German Americans. Nominator: "Strong Overturn - Deletion was done despite no consensus for deletion. Majority of voters wanted to keep the page. If this page be deleted, then all pages similar be deleted. (African Americans, French Americans, Irish Americans, etc.)" ." Deletion endorsed.
  26. ^ List of German Americans. Nominator: "Strong Overturn [...] the majority of all of the other ethnic American groups survived the last mass deletion effort, but, by and large, the largest contributor was deleted. This is all very unbalanced, socially ignorant and absurd. The "concensus" verdict didn't make much sense, especially with extremely similar pages in existence" Deletion overturned.
  27. ^ List of Norwegian Americans, List of Belgian Americans, List of Finnish Americans, List of Swedish Americans, List of Swiss Americans. Nominator: "This article-list was deleted for the same incorrect reasons that the since overturned List of German Americans was deleted. This list is for a notable American ethnic group as evidenced by its having an article and having a category. There is no valid WP reason why this list was deleted. There is nothing in WP that says lists cannot also exist when categories exist. The list readily provides information for the reader that categories only provide by lots of work, reading one article after another, It provides names, dates of birth/death, and occupation/reason for notability--in other words why one might want to then read an article."[1][2]. Deletion overturned.
  28. ^ List of English Americans. Nominator: "This article-list was deleted for the same incorrect reasons that the since overturned List of German Americans was subsequently deleted. The deletion of this article was the 'trigger delete' leading to the subsequent deletion activity. This list is for a notable American ethnic group as evidenced by its having an article and having a category. There is no valid WP reason why this list was deleted. There is nothing in WP that says lists cannot also exist when categories exist. The list readily provides information for the reader that categories only provide by lots of work, reading one article after another, It provides names, dates of birth/death, and occupation/reason for notability--in other words why one might want to then read an article on a person. The list serves as an index to the category articles." Deletion overturned.

Existing guidelines and precedents

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  • Re. statements that "nationality-nationality overlaps" is common or established basis for list deletion.
For precedents re. list deletions, see Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Precedents#Lists: "lists nominated for overlapping categories are often kept."
  • Re. the use of "no explanation of relevance", rather than "policy violation", as a deletion criteria in cases without consensus to delete:
See Wikipedia:Deletion guidelines for administrators#Deciding whether to delete. Also note guideline on when it may be appropriate to disregard discussion participants' comments in order to establish rough consensus: "administrators can disregard opinions and comments if they feel that there is strong evidence that they were not made in good faith. Such "bad faith" opinions include those being made by sock puppets, being made anonymously, or being made using a new userid whose only edits are to the article in question and the voting on that article.[...] Arguments that contradict policy, are based on opinion rather than fact, or are logically fallacious, are frequently discounted."
  • Re. the statement "Should be a category instead".
See Wikipedia:Categories, lists, and series boxes states, These methods should not be considered to be in competition with each other. One should not be deleted in favor of the other. Instead, each should be used to update the other. This provides two core methods of navigating Wikipedia. See the navigation menu at the top of Wikipedia:Contents. The "category camp" shouldn't dismantle Wikipedia's list-based navigation system, and the "list camp" shouldn't tear down Wikipedia's category system.
See the first point under WP:NOT#DIR, which refers to Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Appropriate topics for lists for clarification of the rule in question: Wikipedia articles are not: 1. Lists or repositories of loosely associated topics such as (but not limited to) quotations, aphorisms, or persons (real or fictional). Of course, there is nothing wrong with having lists if their entries are famous because they are associated with or significantly contributed to the list topic. Merged groups of small articles based on a core topic are certainly permitted. (See Lists (stand alone lists) for clarification.)
  • Re. the statement "Lists are just like categories and should be deleted for being 'overcategorizations'":
Wikipedia:Categorization FAQ#What is the difference between a list and a category?: Grouping articles into a category is not the same as making a list of articles. If you have a category that has vague criteria or that adds and removes members frequently, then maintaining a simple list is often more appropriate.
Wikipedia:Overcategorization: not every verifiable fact (or the intersection of two or more such facts) in an article requires an associated category. For lengthy articles, this could potentially result in hundreds of categories, most of which aren't particularly relevant. This may also make it more difficult to find any particular category for a specific article. Such overcategorization is also known as "category clutter".

Problems to address

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Does WP:NOT#DIR apply to these lists?

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When "non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations" in WP:NOT#DIR has been quoted as a reason for deletion, the qualifier "non-encyclopedic" appears to have been ignored, and the deletion is often proposed simply on the basis "Delete — this is a cross-categorization as per WP:NOT".

1. Non-encyclopedic: "Ancestry" is a classification used and defined by the US Census Bureau, and it occurs in countless scholarly publications by a reliable sources. Is it still to be considered a "non-encyclopedic" classification? The main articles, from which these lists have been split in accordance with Wikipedia:Lists (stand-alone lists)#Appropriate topics for lists, have not been nominated as being non-encyclopedic. "List of article X people" are commonly split from articles about places (all lists under List of Americans contain people that are sub-sets within the American population, but base the selection on such things as location (List of people from Boston or List of people from Nebraska) or place of birth and occupation (List of foreign-born United States politicians). Are all such lists "non-encyclopedic" or are lists by ethnicity/ancestry singled out as becoming "non-encyclopedic" while other stand-alone lists are appropriate? Supporters of mass deletions need to explain and differentiate how WP:NOT#DIR subsection 5 relates or applies to such lists in general and the lists of X Americans in particular.

2.Cross-categorization: Does "cross-categorizations" apply to lists of people grouped by ancestry or ethnicity? WP:NOT#DIR Subsection 5 discusses cross-categorization in the form of "people from x ethnicity/religion employed by y", where the cross is not suitable for its own article. "X Americans" already have their own articles. Does WP:NOT#DIR subsection 5 offer a reason to interpret "Lists of X Americans" or other ethnicity/ancestry classifications as cross-categorizations in and of themselves? List of Jewish musicians is used as an example of a notable cross-categorization between an ethnicity and an occupation.

Worldwide applicability?

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If ancestry classifications are in official use by a country's government and are widely used, researched and published, then they do not fail WP:Notability. The long tradition of research into immigrant populations and the frequent classification of immigrants into ancestry groups make X Americans notable concepts. However, this does not transfer automatically to other ethnicity groups around the world, so creating overreaching rules is problematic. In countries where population growth has not been historically due to the same high level of immigration experienced in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and where the "native" or "aborigine" populations are not minorities, ancestry and ethnicity have not been subjected to the same kind of scholarly and general attention. For how Europe is different in this regard, see for example the article Immigrants in Developed Nations Lag Behind Native Peers in School: "'European countries need to respond more effectively to the socioeconomic diversity in their populations [...]. They’ve only in the last few years begun to recognize themselves as immigrant countries.' [...] Second-generation students fare even worse than the new arrivals in some countries."

About allowing for flexibility, rather than creating general rules about inclusion criteria for all "Lists of people in x ethnicity/ancestry group" (such as "first generation immigrant, etc.), see the reservations offered by at Centralized discussion in 2006 about the "grandparent rule": [3]

"Loose association" and "no justification"?

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Two snippets from the Afd discussions above, on the subjects of "loose association" and "justification for having a list of people from a particular ancestry group", demonstrate variations on the same type of arguments forwarded in almost all the deletion discussions. Are these arguments invalid, against policy, etc., and therefore to be disregarded when establishing consensus (as happened in two of the Afd processes)?

Are any of the deleted lists of X Americans different?

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1. List of Caucasian Americans: may be considered different because it is a lists for a majority group and was perceived as having been created as a WP:Point to demonstrate why List of African Americans should be deleted. It was redundant because the Caucasian immigrant groups are represented in ancestry groups such as List of Italian Americans, List of Danish Americans, List of Welsh Americans, etc. As opposed to people of African American ancestry, individuals from Caucasian groups in the US generally have more specific knowledge about their ancestors' region of origin. Apart from List of English Americans, the only list with a majority of the Afd participants supporting "Delete" (as opposed to "delete and recreate as a List of lists", as appears to be the case in the last nomination of List of African Americans).

2. List of English Americans: may possibly be considered different because as a British colony, all the original European settlers in the US were subjects of the King of England, they were British subjects in a British possession until thirteen of Great Britain's colonies rebelled. The linguistic uniformity in the United States results from early English dominance, etc., etc. May be resented as it appears to be about an early, privileged majority group, about colonizers with more power and influence than any other group in the US?Reply via flashback from past discussion Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession, on an archived talk page: "Do you see the cultural bias that I perceive in that formulation?"[6]

3. List of African Americans: first list to be targeted, only list to be nominated three times, only list deleted and then properly/accurately/successfully recreated so far.

Discussions

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