User:Pia L/sandbox5

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) 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),
 * 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Afd history for [List of X Americans] (excluding withdrawn nominations)
Most recent nominations first:

Drv history for [List of X Americans]

Existing guidelines and precedents

 * Re. statements that "nationality-nationality overlaps" is common or established basis for list deletion.
 * For precedents re. list deletions, see Articles_for_deletion/Precedents: "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 Deletion guidelines for administrators. 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 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 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.


 * Re. the statements "People listed by ancestry are 'loosely associated items' as per WP:NOT first point" and "style manuals for lists are irrelevant in deletion discussions".
 * See the first point under WP:NOT#DIR, which refers to Lists (stand-alone 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'":
 * Categorization FAQ: 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.
 * 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".

Does WP:NOT#DIR apply to these lists?
When "non-encyclopedic cross-categorizations" in WP:NOT 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 Lists (stand-alone 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?
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":

"Loose association" and "no justification"?
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)?


 * From Articles for deletion/List of Chinese Americans: "Ethnicity a loose association?"
 * From Articles for deletion/Lists of Irish-Americans: "this list does have value to researchers"

Are any of the deleted lists of X Americans different?
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 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?"

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

 * WikiProject Ethnic groups/Lists of Ethnic Americans
 * WikiProject Ethnic groups/Rules for lists of X-Americans
 * Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession
 * Wikipedia talk:Centralized discussion/Lists by religion-ethnicity and profession/Archive -lists by religion-ethnicity and profession debate
 * User:Sidatio/Conversations/On list guidelines