Talk:Ottendorfer Public Library and Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital

Removing red links
There is no need to remove the red link, don't be scared of it. I would say the having your obituary in the New York Times is a good indication of notability. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:01, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * It's an indication that the person is well known enough to get an obit in the Times, so that if there was an article written about the person, it has a good chance of passing notability requirements, but it doesn't mean that there's any likelihood of anyone ever writing an article about an obscure person such as that. WP:REDLINK clearly says: "Although red links to notable topics are permitted in lists and other articles, do not overlink in the mainspace solely for use as an article creation guide. Instead, editors are encouraged to consider WP:Write the article first, or to use WikiProjects or user spaces to keep track of unwritten articles. ... Do not create red links to articles that are not likely to be created ... Red links to personal names should be avoided ... Frequently a red-linked name has been placed in an article, and subsequently a different editor has created an article about an entirely different person with the same or a similar name." BMK (talk) 20:15, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm all in favor of redlinks when there's a reasonable chance of an article being written, but I don't think that the case for an actor with no films credits and 5 Broadway appearances in minor roles in forgotten plays. BMK (talk) 20:33, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Hospital death list
I'm soliciting comments on whether a hospital death list in such a short article – which is primarily about the historic building and otherwise has very little information about the history of the hospital's operation – doesn't violate WP:WEIGHT in putting undue emphasis on the deaths which occurred in the facility. The impression is given that the hospital is in some way known for people dying there, and not for treating sick people. BMK (talk) 20:19, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I was bold and changed the heading to Notable patients. Listing the deaths there under the previous title was undue weight and also very misleading, implying that the hospital was particularly notable for its deaths. Plus, several of those people were brought to the hospital already dying. It is mildly interesting to see the range of patients treated there. So, I left the list, adding some references and short descriptions of the people. The new heading also leaves scope for famous people who treated there but didn't die. Having said all that, this article is primarily about the building and there is often little or no evidence that they died in that building. They may well have died in some other branch of what is now the Lenox Hill Hospital. Voceditenore (talk) 11:35, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Re my last point. After a close reading of the Lenox Hill Hospital article, it emerges that the German Hospital and Dispensary with which this building was affiliated, moved to Park Avenue in 1905. Thus, anyone dying there after 1905, did not die in that building. The list probably does not belong in this article at all. Voceditenore (talk) 11:50, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Excellent original research, but incorrect, and that is why original research is excluded from articles. During WWI this building had the name changed from German to Stuyvesant Polyclinic and I see no other name change until the facility was closed. If you read the references used, all the obituaries use the name "Stuyvesant Polyclinic". Rothstein: "He died the next day in the Stuyvesant Polyclinic Hospital on 2nd Avenue in Manhattan." These people clearly died in this building.
 * According to the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission's Designation Report (ref'd in the article now) the German Hospital sold the building in 1906 to the German Polyklinik, a different instiution founded in 1883. This organization has run the hospital since. BMK (talk) 12:02, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * What that means is that any reference to the "German Dispensary" after 1906 is most likely referring to the German Hospital's uptown clinic, and not the German Polyklinic (later Stuyvesant Polyclinic), which was located in this building from 1906 on. BMK (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah,that makes it much clearer. Thanks! Voceditenore (talk) 12:15, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * No problem. BMK (talk) 12:19, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It seems to me that not only should there not be a "death list" for any hospital (unless we are dealing with a serial killing nurse or doctor, or there is some notorious event associated with those deaths there) - but there should not even be a notable patients list. Again, unless the particular hospital stay was notable in some way. Like where JFK was treated after he was shot, or Princess Diana was taken there after the accident, that sort of thing. This "George Washington slept here" style of trying to assume notability serves no real purpose. ScrapIronIV (talk) 14:50, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you ScrapIronIV. My changes were basically to make the section less objectionable in the short term. Removing it completely is probably a much better option for any hospital article. Even more so in this one which isn't even about the hospital, but about two buildings, one of which was occupied by two different hospitals and seems to be no longer occupied by any hospital as of 2005. See. Voceditenore (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree that the list is inappropriate and should be removed. BMK (talk) 15:27, 4 February 2015 (UTC)


 * I have been bold and removed it based upon this discussion. ScrapIronIV (talk) 15:41, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Notable deaths
Many hospital articles contain a list of notable deaths, just as township articles contain lists of notable residents, and cemeteries contain lists of notable burials. See Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital Center and Lenox Hill Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital (Manhattan) and Beth Israel Medical Center just from the list of New York City hospitals I just peeked at. See Paramus, New Jersey for an example of notable residents, and Green-Wood Cemetery for an example of notable burials. The hospital where you die is in the lede of obituaries, so if the reference finds it important to state, shouldn't we have a list of them at the article for that hospital? Should this article exclude the list because it is on the National Register of Historic Places? Should this article exclude the list because it is about two adjacent buildings and the deaths occurred in just the hospital? Do we need to write an article just on the hospital? Is this the hospital referred to in the obituaries or are they referring to a different incarnation not using this building? What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 20:47, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Threaded discussion
@RAN: Don't you think it's bit disingenuous to say "'Many' hospitals contain a list of notable deaths", and then list 5 hospitals with death lists, 3 of which you created! Beth Israel, Bellevue, and Mount Sinai BMK (talk) 02:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * BTW, the answers to your previous questions are in the section above. The building was the "German Dispensary" until 1906 when it was sold to the "German Polyklinik", which later became the "Stuyvesant Polyclinic".  That organization continued to run it. Since all of the poeople on your list died after 1906, if the source says "Stuyvesant Polyclinic" they died in this building.  Stuyvesant Polyclinic had and has no other building. BMK (talk) 02:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If a list of notable deaths exists in a reliable source, I think it should be included. However, I don't think such a list should be cobbled together based on documentation of individual deaths. Is there a list of deaths at this institutions in a RS?--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:53, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

The question is a little wordy and not necessarily phrased as I would like to. It's not clear to me if we're looking for an up-or-down vote on the propositions "Should hospital articles include a 'Notable deaths' section, at least optionally?", or just discuss the ideas more generally. Assuming the latter, here're some thoughts:

What we're trying to do in an article is tell the reader what the entity is. To this end, important material includes where it is located, how big it is, how old it is, an outline of its history and how it has changed through time, who owns it and who runs it and with what goals, what specialties it is especially focused on and or notably good or bad at, and much else.

Who died there is fairly peripheral to this. It's more a less a random trivial list.

More or less, but not entirely. There's some data there that's possibly of potential use to the reader. If the list is long, this communicates that the entity is (probably) large and/or old and/or located in densely populated area, or (possibly) the sort of place that admits people who are in bad shape, or (possibly) maybe just bad at keeping people alive. If the list contains a lot celebrities and/or rich people, this communicates that the entity is (probably) the sort of place where celebrities and/or rich people like to go when they are very sick, which probably means it has a good reputation high-end care. And so forth. In a way it provides a proxy, by presenting a subset, of people who were treated at the hospital, which would be much harder to maintain. It's essentially trivia, but it's not nothing.

It's kind of like the "Notable residents" sections for towns and cities. These lists usually tell us nearly nothing about what the city is. However, if there are an usual number of (say) football players or blues musicians or whatever relative to the size of the town, that tells us a little something about the culture of the town, maybe. Not much, but not always absolutely nothing.

But people enjoy the "Notable residents" lists. They're harmless. They're popular. People like adding to them, and maybe that brings in an occasional editor. (They are a constant nexus for good-faith (and not-so-good-faith) additions of non-notable people, though.)

So some reasons it might be OK:
 * They're easy to make, and they're not subject to dispute -- it's usually open-and-shut when and where a person died (although is-he-notable-enough-to-include disputes could occur).
 * They're interesting in a huh-waddya-know kind of way.
 * They could, at the margins, provide a tiny bit of encyclopedic background on the entity.
 * They're no more harmful or silly than "Notable residents" or (even worse) "Sister cities" sections we have in city articles.

Some reasons it might be not such a good idea:
 * They're trivia. Wikipedia is not paper, but its not a collection of factoids either. There's a point below which we don't want to go in filling up articles with cruft. Having to wade thru too much cruft detracts the reader from quickly grasping the synopsis of the entity which we are trying to present.
 * It's more material to maintain, with little corresponding benefit
 * It looks to be a contentious idea. Some editors don't like it. Contention is bad.

I dunno. On the one hand, if an editor wants to do this, I'm not inclined to tell other editors that their ideas and contributions are not welcome, if the ideas and contributions are reasonable. It's the encyclopedia anyone can contribute to, not the encyclopedia anyone can contribute to who likes what I like. On the other, WP:BRD is really important. If an editor is wanting to insert these sections into articles, she needs to get a general agreement that this'd be a good thing. And I'm not seeing that yet.

On the other hand, as a meta-issue, isn't Richard Arthur Norton supposed to be working on cleaning up copyvio articles instead of this stuff, anyway? Herostratus (talk) 12:02, 18 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes. BMK (talk) 13:33, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Remove notable death section

 * +1 - From what I can gather this is more about the 2 buildings than an actual hospital so personally... I see no point in adding them (Had this been an hospital only article then yes but it's not), I just don't see any beneficial reason to add them ...., Also there's a discussion right up above regarding this so why waste everyones time with this RFC?!. – Davey 2010 Talk 00:51, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * That answer should be obvious. Since you have not contributed to the article, you must have been solicited by the person seeking the removal or by the RFC tag solicited by an involved party or by the RFC tag. The RFC is to get more people involved who are interested in the broader questions raised. Cheers. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:13, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I have made no solicitations, on wiki or off. I don't know Davey2010. Please recall that you opened this discussion as a policy RfC, which means that it is listed at Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The entire point of an RfC is to get outside opinions -- if you didn't want outside input, why start an RfC? BMK (talk) 02:17, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Just to note, RAN added the words "or by the RFC tag" to his comment above after I had posted my response to it. (See this. I do hope that RAN isn't going to claim that everyone who disagrees with him has been canvassed by me. BMK (talk) 02:28, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ...or by an "involved party", for that matter. BMK (talk) 02:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * This isn't about you, it is about MoS and content issues, you don't have to make everthing into a pissing match and everything into an ANI drama. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:42, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I was sent here by the RFC bot Not BMK, Which I will link before you think I'm bullshitting, Seeing as you're clueless to the whole RFC thing see this!, Accusing BMK of canvassing is beyond stupid and I never have said this before but I actually think you owe him an apology as that was way outta line Richard....., You might wanna read WP:AGF aswell - Anyway back on topic BMK's hit the nail on the head - Why the hell start an RFC if you didn't want anyone outside commenting ?..... – Davey 2010 Talk 02:47, 5 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Summoned by the RfC bot. I weakly oppose a "death list" as needless trivia.  Any notable patients (whether they died there or not) would be better written in as prose to highlight the hospital's innovations, specialties or involvement in major events (e.g., world's first cornea transplant, plastic surgeon to the stars, where an assassinated leader was taken, etc.).  Unlike places of birth or residency, people are not usually emotionally "attached" to the hospital where they died.  —sroc &#x1F4AC; 05:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Restore notable deaths

 * add comments

Yet another RfC
Since RAN prfers to ignore the results of the RfC he started above, I have initiated a new one here. BMK (talk) 05:43, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

List of deaths on talk page?
Since there's a standing consensus against lists of notable deaths in hospital articles, and what seems to be a developing consensus against it as well in the new RfC, it does not seem proper for the list to be on the article's talk page either, since (1) the talk page is intended for discussions about how to improve the article, and (2) putting it on the talk page simply seems like a way to get around not being allowed to have it in the article itself. For these reasons, I have removed the list of notable deaths from this page. BMK (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2015 (UTC)