Talk:List of people from Columbus, Ohio

Request for Comment
A page similar to this one. List of people from San Francisco, is currently under review as an article for deletion, for reasons which would apply to this article as well. I am conducting an RfC on the talk page of the above-mentioned list to determine whether the concensus agrees on keeping such lists or not. Any and all comments are more than welcome. Badbilltucker 16:20, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that this page is not notable and should be deleted. Rwalker (talk) 16:38, 22 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Against -- It's become pretty standard practice for large municipalities to have a page along the lines of "List of people from x"  Atomic putty? Rien!  16:01, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Added AfD tag on 7 Sept 2010. User DGG removed it with this response: "If they have Wikipedia articles, or obviously qualified for one, they are notable & belong on the list. Standard type of article for all large places. QY ab out the association with Colmbus for any specific person go on the talk p., but check the".

Here are my justifications to delete this page: Rwalker (talk) 15:37, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not "Mere collections of internal links"
 * Unreferenced significant associations to Columbus; Most wiki pages of those listed only mention Columbus as their birthplace; simply being born in the city does not mean the city influenced their notability.
 * Category:People from Columbus, Ohio already has these people listed, categories are easier to maintain
 * You've omitted from your five words taken from WP:NOT a key statement: "...except for...lists to assist with article organization and navigation." Which this is, as are all the other lists in Category:Lists of people by U.S. cities.
 * The standard for this list, or any other list of people by place of origin, is not whether their association with that place "influenced their notability," but simply whether they were "from" that place, i.e., born, raised, lived, or worked there. That's the same standard as inclusion in the category, which you don't seem to have a problem with, and with this list unlike the category, in what way they are "from" Columbus can actually be explained and sourced.  If the problem is with the lead sentence of the list, it can be rewritten.  If the problem is that individual entries do not have their inclusion sourced, that too can be fixed, and fixable problems are never grounds for deletion.
 * The category cannot provide any organization aside from alphabetical sorting by article title, and no information about each individual beyond their name. This list describes why the individual was notable, when they lived, and what their association with Columbus was.  That a category is easier to maintain is a reason for also having a category, not a reason for deleting this list.  See generally WP:CLN.  postdlf (talk) 16:01, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Improvements and Standardization
Looking at lists of people (List of people from Columbus, Ohio, List of people associated with San Francisco, List of people from Chicago, List of people from New York City, List of people from Los Angeles) there is no clear standard as far as formatting the information or how it is organized. Some have lists by field or alphabetical, or both. Only Columbus has chronological (which doesn't make much sense if the person wasn't born here). Of those above, I like the Chicago list the most. It's well organized, with only sections by field. Also, it does without birth/death dates. I'll try to clean up the Columbus list to make it more like the Chicago list. Rwalker (talk) 14:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I started the list with a chronological ordering because it was the only way I could see to give a sense of who was connected when, and birthdate seemed the best proxy for that even though it's obviously not a perfect match. I think it's extremely important when seeing a list such as this to know whether we're talking about a contemporary person or a 19th century figure.  Is there a way we could make the list sortable, such that it could be sorted by name, by birthdate or deathdate, or by general field of accomplishment?  I like what the List of people from Chicago is attempting but the groupings seem arbitrary; why should musicians be separate rather than part of "entertainment figures", for example?  And the Chicago list doesn't annotate the connection at all, so we don't know specifically why they're on the list.  postdlf (talk) 14:27, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The idea of a sortable list is interesting, but I don't think all the information is conducive to that format. But if you'd like to try that, be my guest. In the meantime, I've made extensive edits, combining the three lists on the page (and there were people missing from one list that were in others), preserving the birth/death dates and annotations of why they're on the list. I like the idea of this format: Name (birthyear-deathyear), field of notability, connection to Columbus. Rwalker (talk) 16:00, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Sortability in a table can be limited to only certain columns, so it isn't prohibitive that some information is conducive to sorting and other information is not. I'll try to do a mockup here soon to see how it might work.  BTW, I appreciate your work on this even if I may not agree with you on everything; it's nice to see someone who initially thought something should be deleted quickly shifting to working on it to improve it.  Not everyone is that openminded.  postdlf (talk) 16:18, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just noting a couple missing people that I don't know how to add to this list. Jeff Smith (cartoonist, writer, animator) grew up in Worthington and graduated in 1978 from Worthington High School. Susan Diol (actress) attended and graduated from Worthington High School in 1980. Tom Patchett (who does not have a page) is one of the creators of the TV show ALF and attended Worthington High School, as well.

50.13.99.248 (talk) 13:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)Jennifer


 * The list is missing Frank Howard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Howard_(baseball) and Paul O'Dette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_O%27Dette. I tried to add them but your bots drove me away. i don't have the time or the energy to combat the bots. 173.88.52.151 (talk) 17:05, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Include Bands?
This article lists specifically 'people' from Columbus. I don't think this list should include bands, only their members. Without this rule, one could justify listing any group or organization that was founded in Columbus. Comments? Rwalker (talk) 16:04, 14 September 2010 (UTC)
 * No strong opinion, though often a band may be notable though its individual members do not merit their own articles. A band is a much closer proxy for the individuals that comprise it than an organization, and if the band started in Columbus that means its members were "from" there.  Another option might be to list the band members individually though they aren't independently notable, providing links to redirects or just to the band article.  postdlf (talk) 16:15, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Surrounding suburbs
User WilliamJE did an edit where he removed some people who have association to Columbus via living in a suburb (Westerville, Worthington, Bexley). "These people lists are for people from the place, not neighboring areas."

Other place lists (List of people from Cleveland, List of people from Cincinnati) have people on their lists that have similar associations. Though their pages don't note the "surrounding suburbs" context.

Should this list include people from the Greater Columbus area? R walker talk 20:42, 4 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Several of the people in your edit actually did have substantive connections to Columbus (one died there, one worked for a Columbus TV station) even if they otherwise lived in a suburb. If their article doesn't mention any connection actually in Columbus, however, I don't think they should be listed here. This is a list for the city, not for the metropolitan area. postdlf (talk) 20:54, 4 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Dying somewhere doesn't make someone from a place. List criteria for Notable people sections in US Cities articles says 'Provide information, preferably in prose form, of any famous or notable individuals that were born, or lived for a significant amount of time, in the city.


 * As for working in a city, pro athletes are not considered automatically from a place they 'work' in unless there is proof from a RS that they also lived in that city. Why would that not apply to other professions? Another case= Florida State Governors are not considered People or Politicians from Tallahassee even though many of them reside in the city for up to 8 years. I just used Florida and Tallahassee as an example.


 * Also note we don't categorize someone from Columbus unless they lived or were born there. Many Columbus suburbs have their own People from Category....William, is the complaint department really on the roof? 15:55, 8 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Where does WP say what it means to be from a place? If someone was born/lived/worked/died in a place. I can't find the consensus you mention or a MOS article about these lists. The closest I could find is WikiProject_Cities/US_Guideline but that is the subsection of the city page itself, not the style guide for a "list of people from X" page. I think it's acceptable if we define the list, as it was before your edits, to be "notable people who were born or have lived in Columbus, Ohio or from the surrounding suburbs." The list simply includes who we say it does. R walker talk 21:19, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

bexley not part of columbus?
Really? It's a suburb. —valereee (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes it's considered a suburban area, part of the Columbus metropolitan area. It is not however part of the Columbus city limits, it is a separate city with its own government. Similarly, most of Westchester County is made up of suburbs of NYC, but none of those communities are part of New York City. ɱ  (talk) 20:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * It's 100% surrounded by the city of Columbus and, yes, part of the metro area. To anyone outside of Columbus, which is 99.9999% of readers, someone from Bexley is 'from Columbus.' The fact Bexley is an unincorporated doesn't make the people who live there not from Columbus. Does this list have a rule that says everyone on it must be from Columbus proper? If so, it probably needs to be moved to that, and maybe a list created of people from the Columbus metropolitan area. —valereee (talk) 12:59, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, on Wikipedia we strictly adhere to political boundaries. That ensures we don't list the millions of notable Westchester residents as living in New York City (they're not), nor anyone who grew up in the posh suburb of Bexley as living in the city of Columbus. That's why other political enclaves have categories for their residents: Category:Sammarinese people, Category:Lesotho people, Category:Vatican City people. To say these people are from Italy or South Africa simply is not true. ɱ  (talk) 15:45, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I Live in Bexley, but my postal address is Columbus. 173.88.52.151 (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2024 (UTC)